Year of Wellness: Goal Setting and Reflecting

Top Tips to Reflect, Reset, and Reignite Your Wellness Journey through Goal Setting and Reflecting

As the year draws to a close, it’s the perfect time to pause, reflect on your journey, and prepare for what lies ahead. In the Year of Wellness series, we’ve explored the many dimensions of wellness. This includes nutritional and hormonal health as well as emotional and financial wellness. This final article of the series is for reflecting and resetting, tying together all the aspects of wellness and equipping you with goal setting strategies to step confidently into a new year.

Whether you’ve been following this series or are just joining, this is your invitation to reflect on your growth, identify areas for improvement, and craft meaningful goals.

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The Power of Reflection for Goal Setting

Reflection is more than just thinking about what you have done, but assessing the ups and downs to identify your strengths and areas for improvement. It is also important to celebrate your wins and use that momentum to continue moving forward on your journey. Self-reflection aids in personal growth, enhances emotional intelligence, and boosts decision-making skills. It is essential for growth as it helps you identify what worked, what didn’t, and where you need to pivot.

Here are a few examples of reflection as it relates to our Year of Wellness Series: 

• Nutritional Wellness: Are you fueling your body with foods that energize and heal, or are there gaps in your diet? Reflect on how different foods make you feel, if you are sticking to your meal-prepping goals, or if there is an area in which you could use more tools or assistance.
• Emotional Wellness: How is your stress level?  Are you keeping your promise to make time for self-care? How has daily meditation positively impacted your mindset? Look back on the tools you leveraged, like journaling, meditation, or connecting with supportive friends.
• Physical Wellness: Did you integrate more movement into your routine? Reflect on small wins like taking daily walks or trying new workouts, like yoga or Pilates. How does that movement make you feel?  How does a lack of sleep impact your moods or mental clarity?

Remember, we aren’t here to judge or criticize ourselves. We want to understand what fills our cup and use that knowledge to push us further and help us with goal setting. Take time to journal, speak to a close friend or loved one, meditate, or anything else that helps you reflect and get a clear picture of where you are, where you want to go, and why.

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Recapping the Dimensions of Wellness

If you are looking for a place to start to inspire your reflection and goal setting, here is a recap of each facet of wellness we covered in the Year of Wellness series (click each link for the full article):

1. Nutritional Wellness: How food fuels your body and mind. What nutrient-dense or inflammatory foods encompass, tips for meal prepping, and whether supplementation may or may not be needed.
2. Social Wellness: Building meaningful connections, the importance of self-care, and why you may want to consider going alcohol-free.
3. Physical Wellness: The importance of movement, sleep, and even brushing your teeth..
4. Environmental Wellness: How reducing exposure to certain chemicals, as well as just spending time in nature, has benefits for your health and the environment.
5. Emotional Wellness: Managing stress and cultivating emotional resilience to help prevent or heal from burnout and ways to reach help if needed.
6. Occupational Wellness: Aligning work with your values and tools to help you achieve more balance in your career.
7. Spiritual Wellness: Finding meaning and connection in a way that resonates with you.
8. Intellectual Wellness: Fostering curiosity and personal growth through staying curious and being open to new experiences
9. Hormonal Wellness: Understanding and balancing your body’s endocrine system through natural and actionable changes.
10. Financial Wellness: Building financial stability and reducing stress through clear and easy steps.
11. Creative Wellness: Engaging in creative expression for mental well-being and personal growth.

Check out my Wheel of Wellness below to reflect on where you are in each of these aspects of wellness and use this to help with goal setting and track your progress on your growth journey!

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Resetting for the New Year

Once you have had a chance to reflect, it is time to reset before you start goal setting. You want to come with a clear head and know what is important to you and why.

1. Declutter Your Mind and Space
   A clutter-free environment promotes mental clarity. Evaluate your physical surroundings and digital spaces. Delete apps or emails that don’t serve you and create a space that inspires.
   
2. Reassess Your Habits
   Look at the habits you’ve cultivated this year. Which ones support your goals and motivations? Why are these your goals?  What intrinsically motivates you?  What do you want out of life long term and on a day-to-day basis?  Are your habits in support of this?
   
3. Recharge Your Energy
   Rest is productive. Allow yourself time to recharge. This can be through quality sleep, mindfulness, or unplugging from screens. If you are feeling that rest is not recharging you, take a look at the chart below on the 7 types of rest and see where you can put some focus.

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Goal Setting

Okay, now that you have had time to reflect and reset, it is time for some goal setting! Research shows that setting specific, measurable goals increases your chances of success³. Here’s how to create impactful short- and long-term goals:

1. Look at your Long-Term Goals

Think big picture:

• Achieve hormonal balance through consistent lifestyle changes.
• Get a degree to advance my education and work in a fulfilling career
• Save a specific amount to boost financial wellness and reduce stress.
• Improve my overall well-being so I can live an active lifestyle as I age

Tip: What is your motivation?  We will not stick to goals that we are not motivated to achieve.

2. Create Short-Term Goals 

These are steps you can accomplish in weeks or months and will help you get closer to your long-term goals. Examples:

• Create a meal plan and prep meals weekly to support hormonal balance.
• Take time weekly to research degree programs to find the right program.
• Start a debt payment program to pay off credit cards.
• Use a fitness tracker to encourage additional movement throughout the day.

3. Use the SMART Framework for Goal Setting

Once you have an idea of your short-term goals, make sure that they are actionable using the steps below: 

• Specific: Be clear about what you want to achieve.
• Measurable: Define how you’ll track progress.
• Achievable: Ensure your goal is realistic.
• Relevant: Align it with your wellness priorities.
• Time-bound: Set a deadline for accountability

4. Make Your Goals Easily Visible

Utilize tools like a physical planner, a digital planner or a command center like Notion, a vision board, a habit tracker, or another tool that gives you accountability and regular reminders.  The more visible it is, the better. Try to add an accountability partner or a reward system if you are looking for a little more motivation. If you would like a guide that breaks this all down, grab my free goal setting guide below!

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Your Next Step

Reflection and goal setting are powerful tools, but they’re only effective if you take action. Start by revisiting the Year of Wellness blogs that resonate most with your current needs. Then, map out your short-term and long-term goals to begin your journey.

And remember, this is not a set-it-and-forget-it type of thing.  To make lifelong changes, you have to make sure you are taking time regularly to reflect and refine your goals.  At a minimum, I recommend monthly and yearly.  Try a quick daily and weekly reflection as well to further accelerate your progress. And, if you’re ready to take your wellness to the next level, think about utilizing a coach, such as me! 

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How Coaching Can Help

Goal setting is one thing; sustaining momentum is another. That’s where a health coach comes in. Working with a coach provides accountability, expert guidance, resources, and personalized strategies tailored to your unique needs.

As a health coach, I specialize in helping navigate the complexities of wellness using science-backed approaches. Utilizing a holistic approach, I can help with goal setting, personalized education and resources, accountability, and other tools that help you reach your goals and sustain them. I can also work alongside your therapist, doctor, nutritionist, or any other health professional to make sure the steps you are taking are in line with your goals and with your best interests in mind. Coaching sessions offer:

• Customized action plans based on your goals.
• Tools to overcome any challenges you may be facing.
• Resources and Education to simplify your journey
• Encouragement and regular Reflection to help you reach your goals
• Empowerment and Tools to help you succeed long after coaching ends!

If you are interested in learning more about how I can help you reach your goals, reach out to me here to set up your free, no-obligation consultation.  We will go over what you are looking for, what coaching would look like, and any other resources to help you on your journey!

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Conclusion

Now that you have learned how to reflect, reset, and set goals, it is up to you to determine what that looks like for you. Are you just needing to tweak your daily habits slightly? Do you want to overhaul your entire routine and start a new journey? Or maybe you are not sure where to start.

Hopefully, the above information about goal setting answers all of your questions and gives you the push you need to take the next step. As always, if you have any questions or are looking for more, reach out or comment below!

Good luck on your journey, and I wish you all the best in the year ahead!

1. “The 7 Types of Rest That Every Person Needs.” TED-Ed, 2021, ed.ted.com/blog/2021/02/08/the-7-types-of-rest-that-every-person-needs. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024. ↩︎
2. “The 7 Kinds of Rest You Actually Need | Psychology Today.” Www.psychologytoday.com, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/a-different-kind-of-therapy/202212/the-7-kinds-of-rest-you-need-to-actually-feel-rejuvenated. ↩︎
3. Bailey, R. R. (2017). Goal Setting and Action Planning for Health Behavior Change. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, 13(6), 615. https://doi.org/10.1177/1559827617729634 ↩︎