Achieving New Year’s Resolutions Begins with Setting Realistic Goals, Finding Support

SPRINGFIELD — The new year means resolutions of improvement for many, something licensed mental-health clinician Alane Burgess finds encouraging each year.

“Making New Year’s resolutions and goals can always have a positive, motivated type of feeling behind it,” said Burgess, director of the Mental Health Association’s BestLife Emotional Health and Wellness Center. “This is a targeted time where many people are seeking a desire to change or to do something that will make our mental, physical, emotional, or spiritual health all that much stronger. We are hopeful at having things become better in this new year to come.”

Burgess said her advice for success includes “keeping goals realistic” and “starting small, building from there.”

She added, “we want to make sure that when we are setting goals that we are able to follow them. I would say having up to three goals to focus on is doable and to have a plan of what we are going to do to achieve them.”

Burgess said resolutions she hears most often are “usually around physical and emotional health as well as financial health. Most people talk about wanting to eat heathier, get back to an exercise regime, want to find more solace in their lives, and would like to get their bills paid and have better financial structure.”

She added that success requires discipline. “If someone likes to go out and do some shop therapy, they need to set a budget around how much they will allow themselves to spend per week or per month. They need to give themselves a dollar amount and not go above that amount.”

Having the support of a family member or friend can be a powerful tool in maintaining the resolution, as is “putting yourself into positive situations and those where you are most likely to be supported and successful,” Burgess said.

“Limit your exposure to things on social media that are negative or create fear and shift your mind, attention, and focus to things that make you feel good about yourself. It could be reading positive messages on a daily basis or surrounding yourself with positive people who support you and like to have fun and a laugh. It is important to surround yourself with people, places, and things that make you feel good about yourself, help you feel more confident, and help you to feel happier overall.”

Burgess said an important lesson through the pandemic has been to “expect the unexpected.”

“There are so many things we cannot control outside ourselves, but we can always control our mindset and our reactions and response to things,” she added. “Things are going to happen that take us off track, but that does not mean a stop or an end to our progress. It just means that we may need to modify our goals along the way, and that is OK.”

For example, she said someone may have a “New Year’s goal to work out five days a week, 30 minutes a day, but let’s say they become sick or have an injury and that is something they can’t do. We have to say, ‘I am at a pause; is there something I could do differently or focus on another goal?’ Then, when we are able, we can get back to that goal that we had to put on hold.”

Burgess said she has developed a year-round approach to resolutions to avoid the fatigue and loss of motivation that develop and cause many people to abandon them by February. “On the first day of every single month, I go back and say, ‘these were the goals I had set for myself this past month. I look at where I made progress and look at where my goals are going to be for the next 30 days.”

She said she reminds those she works with that “we shift and change, things in our life shift and change, therefore our goals and priorities are going to shift and change. What we may be doing on January 1 may look very different on June 1, but as long as we are in the mindset of progress and change and working toward some sort of better fit for ourselves for whatever is most important at that time, then we are keeping optimistic while working toward this.”

She added that “sometimes people get angry, and that’s a motivator, but for other people it is a stopper. People say, ‘I cannot do this’ and give up, and that is what people really want to avoid. It may not be something they can do at that moment, but it does not mean it is impossible.”

Burgess said her biggest takeaway around New Year’s goals is to exercise “patience if speedbumps do occur.”

“Don’t allow the speedbumps to take you off track, but allow yourself the opportunity to work through and maybe readjust, modify, and focus on another goal or that goal in a different way,” she advised. “Allow yourself to stay as optimistic as you can. Persevere, and if you get to a point where you could use professional help, reach out. Seek support. You do not have to be alone.”

The clinicians at MHA’s outpatient behavioral-health center know how prolonged feelings of sadness, depression, and anxiety intrude on daily life and can provide assessment and counseling, either short or long-term, to help with recovery. For an appointment or more information on services offered through MHA’s BestLife Emotional Health and Wellness Center, call (413) 844-WELL.