Take the Pressure Off

Did you know that January is considered one of the most stressful months of the year? Think about it. You've just wrapped up the past year. Maybe it was a great year where you checked everything off your work to do list and hit all your personal improvement goals. Or...maybe you ended the year somewhat stressed with a list of partially accomplished goals. Your default at the beginning of a new year may be to resolve to do more achieving, changing, and improving.

There's nothing wrong with that. New Year's resolutions are not inherently bad. Declaring what we want to change or improve can be motivating and lead to positive results. But too often, our New Year's resolutions create in us immense pressure to achieve something (usually a BIG something) by a set deadline. I think this is especially true this year, as we emerge from the extreme challenges and losses many experienced since the beginning of the pandemic. Yet many times our resolutions lead to disappointment. We fail to stick to our new exercise or eating plan, we miss a deadline that would keep us on track, or we blow our savings budget. And it's still just January.

How can we plan and look forward to positive change without placing undue pressure on ourselves?

Instead of starting with a list of resolutions or an action plan, begin by taking inventory of the past year. Answering these questions not only allows for thoughtful reflection of the past year, but also helps to inform our direction for the current year:

  - What goals, big or small, did I achieve in the past year?

  - What events or people brought me joy?

  - What events or people caused me to feel stressed, anxious, or overwhelmed?

 - What mistakes did I make and what lessons did I learn?

  - What values did I embody last year?

  - What from the past year do I want to release?

  - What from the past year do I want to bring into the new year?

After some time of honest reflection, ask yourself these questions about the current year:

  - What values do I want to embody this year?

  - What are the actions and behaviors I need to demonstrate in order to embody those values?

  - What top 5 priorities will guide how I use my time this year?

  - What relationships do I want to nurture and what steps will I take to do that?

  - What am I willing to try or do differently this year?

  - How will I measure my success?

This reflection may motivate you to create specific goals with deadlines and measurements for the year. Or, you may decide that answering these (and possibly other) questions is enough. Either (or anything in between) is fine. However you decide to approach the new year, my New Year's wish for you is that you enter into this year with self-awareness, compassion, intention, and hope.

Happy New Year.

Janet

Ways to connect with me:

Well-Law for Students: Well-Law partners with law schools to support students' mental, physical, emotional, and material well-being through a comprehensive, "bookend" program that follows students all the way through bar study. Well-Law engages students through live-online well-being workshops, discussion groups, and asynchronous modules on that integrate well-being into topics such as shaping professional identity through wellness, developing a personal wellness plan, racial and cultural competence, imposter syndrome, leadership, collaboration, and much more. 

Well-Law for Faculty and Staff: Well-Law provides engaging workshops for law school faculty and staff to support their own wellness journeys and to give them tools to better support student wellness.

Well-Law for Lawyers and Legal Professionals: Well-Law provides individual wellness workshops, wellness coaching, and extended wellness consulting services to law firms, legal service organizations, and individual lawyers and legal professionals. Workshop topics include, the well-being landscape in the legal profession; understanding chronic stress and burnout; exploring wellness tools for sustained self-care; and, developing a personal wellness program.

Weekly Wellness & Meditation Circle: Are you looking for a community of well-being where you can explore wellness topics relevant to your life? Could your wellness journey benefit from the support of a certified wellness coach? Would you like a weekly guided meditation practice? Yes?! I invite you to join my FREE weekly Circle on Wednesdays at 10:00AM EST on Zoom. Click this link to join the mailing list to receive weekly Circle notifications with the Zoom link.