By: Mackenzie Amore

Cheers to a New Year! We have had such a lovely year making women feel beautiful, empowered, and confident. With the new year just around the corner, there are a lot of fads for a “better you.” While focusing on ways to improve yourself mentally, physically, and emotionally is incredibly important, many people fall into the bad trends that are simply not sustainable, which can be frustrating and easy to break. Going into this New Year, we are here to help you focus on ways you can be the best version of yourself, to feel confident and beautiful.

#1 practice self-care

It is easy to lose track of yourself with your busy schedule or abundance of things on your to-do list. However, going into the New Year, focusing on making time for yourself to do small things that make you feel loved and cared for is crucial to start your year off right! When practicing self-care, it doesn’t need to be a large, extravagant activity. It can be as simple as taking a bath with your favorite bubbles, taking a walk and listening to your favorite music, spending a little extra time to do skin care, or even just taking time for some meditation. Whatever makes you feel independently happy is a great way to care for yourself and focusing on this more is incredible for your mental and physical well-being. On top of this, it is a great resolution and habit to form for continued self-love going into a New Year.

#2 try to move more

When the weather is cold, it is easy to want to just curl up and watch your favorite movies, we get it! However, moving is so good for your body to maintain mobility, flexibility, and be overall healthy. When you move your body, you can also help keep yourself fit and strong. Going into the New Year, a positive resolution for yourself can be to try to get your body up and moving. This does not have to be something crazy, like running a marathon a day. It can be as easy as parking a little bit farther away to get some extra steps in, or it could be fun, like taking a weekly dance class or doing a YouTube yoga video. Whatever makes your body feel good, you should participate in to keep yourself moving.

#3 surround yourself with people who make you feel good

It is easy to start to feel down, if you are constantly around negative people. In order to feel like the best version of yourself, it is important to focus your time and attention on people who lift you up and make you feel loved, confident, and beautiful. Statistics show that you start to take on the mannerisms of people you choose to interact with, so being surrounded by people who talk positively and make us feel loved and heard, will allow us to start feeling more confident and beautiful. Therefore, find those people you love and let them help like the best version of you!

#4 learn or practice something new

When we constantly are doing the same things, it leaves our brain feeling less challenged. By practicing a new hobby or learning a new skill, it can be incredibly beneficial for our mental well-being. Therefore, finding an interest of yours that you have always wanted to learn can help to stimulate the brain and also can be a really fun thing to help your mind reset and focus on something enjoyable. By doing this, your brain will feel happy, releasing dopamine, but also you will feel challenged, which is really helpful to your overall mental health. Therefore, try something new, such as learning how to do your makeup or hair, learn to sew, or even practice yoga! Whatever you do to challenge your brain is a great way to keep yourself mentally strong going into the new year!

#5 spend time with the ones you love

It can be difficult to make time for those you love and care about when life is just so busy, you feel like you can’t catch up. However, when you make time for your loved ones, it can leave you feeling a lot less overwhelmed and also you can build a more loving relationship with those who mean the most to you. It can be as simple as taking one night a week to do a family movie night, going for a walk with your dog before you leave for work, grabbing a coffee with your best friend on the weekend, taking your significant other to get their favorite ice cream, or making time to visit a loved one you haven’t seen in a while. Life is never too busy for the people you love the most. So, whatever it is that you choose to do, making time for the ones you love will not only make you feel loved and warm inside, but it will mean the world to the ones you love!

#6 practice words of affirmation

The ways in which you speak to yourself and about yourself, automatically alter the way your brain thinks of you. Going into the New Year, I want to challenge you to start practicing words of affirmation towards yourself. Every morning when you wake up, I want you to tell yourself 3 things that you love about yourself, your body, or your life. It can be difficult at first, believe me, I have been there, but the more I practiced these self-affirmations, I began to feel more confident and view my body, my features, and my life in a whole new, positive way. Therefore, going into the New Year, we want everyone to feel just as confident and beautiful, so practicing daily words of affirmation towards yourself will allow your mind to see you as the beautiful, confident, and perfect person that you are! <3

in conclusion…

With the new year coming, it is important to focus on the things that make you feel good, mentally, physically, and emotionally. With these suggestions of healthy and positive resolutions for this upcoming year, you will feel even more beautiful, confident, and loved than you already are. Be kind to yourself and love yourself this coming year. Happy New Year to all! <3