Love it or hate it January is a time to reset, re-focus and re-think your goals. You may not believe in reinventing yourself, but you really do get a chance every day to decide exactly who you want to be.  How are you going to be the best version of yourself next year? Here are some ways to make sure your resolutions will make for a happier, kinder and more positive year!
 
Make Your Social Media Feed a Better Place
Whether you check once or 50 times a day, social media is part of nearly everyone’s daily life. What you see in your feed affects your day and there can be a lot of negativity out there. There can also be an uplifting amount of positivity. Don’t forget that you have control over  what pops up in your feed. That doesn’t mean you have to delete or unfriend any family member or friends. Instead try adding some positivity to your feed by finding and following more charities you love, animal accounts (think dogs, cats, farm animals etc.), your favorite celebrities doing great things (Ellen DeGeneres is one of our favorites), or positive news sites like upworthy. For more ideas take a look at who ESA follows on social media. We love to follow accounts that spread positivity, kindness, and all around good vibes.

Invest in your relationships
After spending a lot of time with a whole lot of family and friends over the holidays, you may not feel ready to immediately jump into another round of socializing (or you might, you go extraverts). Investing in relationships doesn’t always mean intense socializing. Something as small as sending a message saying “thinking of you” or forwarding an article, joke, meme, or video that reminded you of someone goes a long way.

Be a little kinder to yourself
We are always hardest on ourselves, so think of just one way you can make things a little easier for yourself. Maybe that means scheduling a massage regularly, maybe it’s just giving yourself permission to do nothing every now and again, maybe it’s investing in a class or a new skill. It can be big or small. You know what you need most. We love the idea of positive affirmation passwords. When you have to change those passwords that you can never seem to remember, make it a phrase that makes you feel good like “YouG0tTh1$” ( You Got This). Get more ideas here. Not only will you feel a little better about yourself each time you type it in, you just might remember your pasword.

Find a new way to support a cause doing important work
We all have causes that are close to our hearts and companies and charities that we love for the important work that they do. Pick one of them and find a new way to support them this year. It can be as simple as starting a monthly donation to a new cause, or shopping at a charities’ corporate partners, or you can bite off a bit more and start volunteering somewhere new in your community. It will feel good to branch out and add to the list of ways that you are making the world a little better.

Your goals don’t have to be health goals
Just because this is the time of year that fad diet and health food companies throw their marketing into high gear and everyone seems to be losing their mind over the latest miracle kale-green-tea-smoothie that will DEFINTELY change your life, does not mean you have to join in if that’s not what is important to you. Focus on goals that are important to you this year. Your goals don’t have to be measurable on a scale unless you want them to be.

Make more specific goals to make them stick
Okay, this is really the hard part. No matter what you want your next year to look like you have to decide how you are going to stick to accomplishing your goals for another 364 days (or even longer). Try making your resolutions more specific to help them stick. For example, if your goal is broad like “save more money” or “travel to new places” try narrowing them down to something more exact like “save $200 each month” or “Plan a trip to Thailand”. That will make it less overwhelming, easier to measure your progress, and more likely that you will accomplish your goal in the long run.

ESA wishes you the happiest year to come! Go above and beyond to invest in yourself this year and learn more about becoming your best self through ESA membership.