New Years Resolution Ideas & Tips From Beeja

The first thing to consider is what genuinely gives you deep pleasure and fulfilment in life? Do you want to do more of this? If so, maybe there\’s a way to prioritise it more in your life? Are there trade offs you can make that will optimise your life experience?

If you feel you\’re at full capacity and there isn\’t any obvious low hanging fruit to pluck, are there changes you can make that will give you more time? More energy? And more bandwidth in your brain? If so, perhaps implementing some of these will help you synergistically move in the positive direction you wish to flow.

It\’s also worth thinking about the differing areas in life where improvements can be made. We list a few of the most common ones below:

Diet:
There has been a revolution in nutritional science and understanding in the last ten years and scientists have realised that the condition of our digestion and all of our gut bacteria – our microbiome – is essential for health, mood, energy and emotional and psychological wellbeing. Rather than trying to follow anything too prescriptive, see if there are any changes you can make to not only improve what you
eat, but how you eat it.

Lifestyle:
Another game-changing advance in our scientific understanding of mind and body is that of your epigenetics – ie how your genes express themselves. What we now know is that lifestyle variables (and diet) play a huge part in how your genes express themselves and therefore how you are going to feel and function in the near term and indeed the long term. So it\’s worth finding a balanced approach to your life which is going to work best for you. Avoiding extremes appears to be an important step in this direction, and looking at each of the topic areas in this list may be invaluable.

Sleep:
One of the biggest life variables is our sleep. Not only how much we sleep, but even more importantly our quality of sleep. So we are giving it it\’s own dedicated section because if we can get this facet working well, we will have more energy, more clarity, and greater regulation of our hormones (including hunger hormones) which then has a knock on effect to how easily we find it to embrace better living. You can consult our top ten tips for good sleep to find out how to optimise your slumbers.

Exercise:
One of the big priorities for a lot of people at new year will be to exercise. Before embarking on such a venture, it\’s worth bringing some attention to what type of exercise and what intensity is going to be best for you.

As far as mainstream exercise goes, swimming and cycling are preferable to running as they are much gentler on the skeletal structure, and martial arts are gentler on your nervous system than boxing. Super intensive exercise creates something called stress induced analgesia, which numbs your body with endorphines, giving you a high, but triggering your body into stress activation that may not be in your overall interest. So being smart about your choice of exercise will allow you to stay in the zone long after your exercise has finished.

For example, research shows that if you wish to lose weight, jogging is more beneficial than running, and walking is more beneficial than jogging. So walking to places and going for long strolls will be a productive way to lose pounds and avoid unnecessary stress activation.

If you do wish to ramp it up, some of the best forms of exercise for your overall wellbeing are yoga and pilates. However, there are many different forms of yoga, some of them less holistically healthy than others. Consider taking in some gentle yoga classes like hatha, anusara or yin for example, rather than the inteive ones, and always take care not to overdo it and cause yourself an injury. Finding a great instructor with many years of experience is key, even if it means paying more for a class. Try a few different styles and stay relatively gentle. Alternatively, you can do ten minutes of sun salutations every morning. It will work every muscle group and keep you in good time and in good balance.

The quality of Pilates teachers is generally higher than yoga, and it\’s often a good place to start if you\’ve not done much exercise for a long time, or you are carrying injuries.

Professional:
In this age of constant connectivity and increasingly heavy burdens of expectation in the workplace, it\’s important to make conscious choices about what\’s sustainable. If you\’re overworking, what is behind this? Is it fear of failure? Is it fear of missing out? Is it fear that if you don\’t work yourself into the ground you might not make a significant impact with your life? Are you expecting that lots of money or status will solve your problems or give you peace? Or are you simply distracting yourself from something troubling at home, or within you?

Whatever your reasons, take care to nourish yourself with a healthy balance of playtime and rest-time. Otherwise you will burn out, or at the very least, you risk losing your mojo and spending a long time wondering how to get it back. Remember it\’s about the quality of what you give, not the quantity. Maybe there are ways you can create a more optimal balance and give greater quality as a result?

Hobbies:
What are your interests? And would you be interested in doing more of them? If so, is there a way to structure more of this into your life? If you don\’t have many things which inspire you, maybe one of your resolutions can be to try lots of new things this year and see if any are good enough to merit being placed on next year\’s list!

Finding joy in life is an essential part of a healthy, balanced existence, so use the tips herein to make time for them. Some hobbies also have the added bonus of providing a sense of development, which always makes us feel good. And remember to keep an open mind about what actually rocks your world now, as opposed to simply sticking with the things that were traditionally of interest.

Relationships:
How are all the relationships in your life? Are there some that could do with improvement? Is it possible you could make more effort at home, or in your friend group? Are you quick to judge others and blame them for the troubles in your relationship? Are you able to understand why they are being as they are? Or are you running the risk of suffocating them with an over abundance of attention?

See if there are things you can do more of, whether it\’s doing the dishes, giving them an occasional back-rub, listening more than talking, making them a card rather than simply buying one from the shops, or simply praising them with greater regularity. There is an endless supply of things you can do that will really open up their heart to you. Pick a few key relationships and think of ways you can give a little more to them, even if that means giving them more space if required. And see if you can enjoy giving unconditionally and without expectation.

Part of what every one needs is a bit of you time. Some beingness, rather than constant doing mode. There are many ways to cultivate a little more of this into your life, and meditation offers the most powerful possibility of all. The technique we teach, Beeja meditation, is great for alleviating sleep disorders and significantly enhances sleep quality so that you wake up feeling great every day. You feel restored, and energised and it provides a platform for you to go out there and seize the day.

The deepest forms of meditation also give you great clarity. You get open up some bandwidth in your awareness by clearing out the noise and what this does free you to focus on your work, attend to the moment, and make great decisions. All of which will give you more time, and more quality time.

It will also tune you in to what your body needs at any given moment, and by reducing stress, it will reduce cravings for fatty, sugary foods, so making healthier food choices that work for your particular body will become much easier.

Meditation also counteracts any stress you may have put yourself under with intensive exercise, so if you are going to go intense, couple it with meditation so your hormones stay balanced and your brain gets as much training as your body!

Meditation also connects you to who you really are. To something deep inside of yourself which feels authentic and true. This is incredibly important, because if we don\’t feel connected to ourselves, how can we possibly expect to connect with others in the most meaningful ways? By accessing your deepest core, you will feel more love, compassion and empathy towards others and it will make you feel better about life and it will make you feel more empowered to make the changes in your life you wish to make.

Having looked at each of these categories and compiled a list of things you would like to do, prioritise them in terms of ones which mean most to you, and those which feel most achievable. You could even segment them into easy, intermediate and difficult.

Now, instead of racing to do a million different New Years resolutions, and choosing the most difficult ones, instead, create a list of  goals, starting with the easiest and most impactful ones, and aim to introduce one new change a week. If it takes longer than a week for the previous one to integrate, wait until it has been established in your routine for a full seven days before moving onto the next one.

What this does, is allows you to gently transition towards a better, more fulfilling place. By making it achievable and sustainable for the long term, it gives you a foundation to build on and confidence that you really can catalyse your own sustainable change.

Once you have integrated all the easy ones, move onto the intermediate level and start weaving those into your life one by one.

Finally, you can think about building the difficult ones in. Before you do we would always recommend adding in meditation before taking this step as it will cleanse your sub-conscious of all those blocks and destructive tendencies that cause these to be difficult to integrate.  But if you wish to be really smart, then make it the very first one on your list. It will become the cornerstone to the attainment of all the others.

If you wish to learn meditation, go for something that is easy to do, easy to integrate into everyday life, and gives the deepest benefits. That way you can make the most of life in every way. Many people we teach tell us \’it\’s the gift that keeps on giving\’. So give yourself the greatest gift of all this Christmas and start the new year with some meditation and then use the time, clarity, creativity and connectivity it brings to build a platform for a better life and a greater sense of progress, if that\’s what you wish. It helps you to become a master of your destiny rather than a hostage to life\’s fortunes.