Making Small Changes in 2022

‘Every day is a chance to begin again. Don’t focus on the failures of yesterday, start today with positive thoughts and expectations’ – Catherine Pulsifer

Happy New Year! 2021 was a strange year and, in many ways, it kind of merged into 2020. Our lives continued to be restricted to a certain extent due to the ongoing pandemic and some of the things we had maybe planned to do, such as travel or meeting up with old friends, still didn’t happen. Who knows what this year will bring?!

‘Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right’ – Oprah Winfrey

Whilst uncertainty will undoubtedly continue, what we can do is improve our own lives. We have very little control over the world around us but we are all able to make changes which bring us better health, increased happiness and an improved sense of self.

‘You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream’ – C. S. Lewis

Many people will have made New Year resolutions last night. Made with good intentions and maybe backed up with a plan. Yet we know that the majority of these resolutions fall by the wayside over the following weeks and months. Sometimes it’s because the goal was set too high and it just wasn’t sustainable over time. Sometimes, we start off well but something trips us up along the way and we abandon the goal completely or we leave it so long before we come back to it that we have to start all over again.

For me, making New Year resolutions isn’t something I do. There’s two reasons for this: firstly, why wait until New Year before starting something that will improve my life? If I decide in October that I’d like to eat more fruit or drink more water or start a mindfulness practice, it seems crazy to wait until January before I start! The second reason is the basis of my blog, I truly believe that making lots of small changes, tiny tweaks, is much more likely to bring me to my overall goal than trying to make a big change all at once.

‘Don’t wait until the conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect’ – Alan Cohen

You’ll know if you have been reading my blog for a while that ‘Tiny Tweaks’ are the little things that we can change, almost without noticing, that, over time, add up to the big things. Over the past 8 months since I started my blog, I’ve talked a lot about positive affirmations and being kind to yourself. Saying something nice to yourself when you look in the mirror, celebrating the small things you achieve day to day, these are the things that over time, increase your sense of self, that bring you to a place where you genuinely like yourself. Then there are the tiny tweaks to improve your physical health, whether that’s practicing standing on one leg, laughing more or eating dark chocolate (check out my archive if you don’t believe me!!). There are so many tiny tweaks that can improve our day to day happiness from stopping negative thinking to finding those moments of joy in the mundane.

If we make these tiny tweaks and continue to do them regularly, they really can build up to a big change, simply by becoming a habit. But equally, if we don’t do them every day, we don’t feel like we have let ourselves down or that we might as well not bother because it was such a small thing in the first place that we can easily restart it any time we want. For me, that’s much more sustainable that a big New Year resolution which makes me feel like a failure or guilty if I don’t achieve it.

‘Strength shows not only in the ability to persist, but in the ability to start over’ – F. Scott Fitzgerald

So, whatever method works for you, I hope that 2022 is the year that you find more happiness in your life and that you are able to look back at any point in the year and be pleased with what you’ve achieved. Be proud of yourself for everything, however small it might be, because all those small moments are what help us to grow and become the people we want to be. Happy New Year!

‘And suddenly you know: it’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings’ – Meister Eckhart

Until next time xx

If you’ve enjoyed this post, please give it a like and let me know in the comments. I’d love to know if you set any New Year resolutions and whether you think they work. Have any of the tiny tweaks I’ve talked about in my blog helped you? Let me know!