The best news of 2020 is that it’s over!

January 5, 2021

The best news of 2020 is that it’s over! We’re happy to have put this year behind us and are eagerly facing a new year…the ultimate clean slate.  Out with the old, in with the new! Yes, please!

While we’re welcoming a new year, we can simultaneously welcome a new you…The ‘old’ you is, no doubt, great. But right now presents a fabulous opportunity for you to become even better, especially when it comes to health, fitness, eating habits, hobbies, socialization, and more.

We’ll call these changes New Year’s resolutions. Monticello West assisted living in Dallas is an ideal place in which to achieve your goals. And the timing is perfect…if you start living a better life now, when COVID is finally behind us, you’ll be well-positioned to face the world head-on.

It’s estimated that as many as 45-50% of adult Americans make resolutions for the new year. The phenomenon of the clean slate is technically called a temporal milestone, a specific time or date that separates the past from the present and the future. It’s a boundary and is thus, a significant point in time in which to turn things around. Of course, if one misses New Year’s Eve, the ultimate temporal milestone, there are countless alternatives, including beginnings of months or weeks, anniversaries, birthdays, and more. So if you missed starting your resolution on New Year’s Eve, there’s still plenty of time.

The actual process of setting goals or resolutions has potential benefits.

• The very thought of resolutions is a helpful reflection of your life and things that could add to the quality of it.
• Resolutions support making positive changes that can enhance the quality of your life.
• Setting goals boosts self-confidence and self-esteem in your life.
• Successful New Year’s resolution setting and achieving can be contagious—but in a good way. It’s likely to motivate others to make and achieve similar life-improving goals.

The most common New Year’s resolutions include:

• Exercise more
• Eat healthier and lose weight
• Learn a new skill or hobby
• Live life to the fullest
• Spend time with family and friends
• Reduce and/or eliminate stress

There are tricks that help the people who have set goals achieve success in keeping their resolutions. These include:

• Setting goals that are reasonable and realistic, and achievable. Success breeds success, so create a positive cycle for yourself.
• Setting goals that motivate you…in order to dedicate yourself to their achievement, they need to be relevant and important to you.
• Tell others! Share your goals with friends and family. They’ll be your biggest and best cheerleaders.
• Write your resolutions down. This will help you stay focused and accountable to yourself.
• Consider using technology to support you, including Google Calendar, Google Assistant, Boomerang for Gmail (this sends a reminder to yourself!), and more. Apps that can also help include Strides: Goal & Habit Tracker, Way of Life,  Todoist, and more.
• If you fall off track, don’t consider it a failure. Hop back up and keep going.

Monticello West assisted living is the ideal place to pursue your goals. Looking back at our list of most common New Year’s resolutions, consider the following.

• Exercise more-We offers various fitness and exercise opportunities, including classes and group programs for all fitness levels.
• Eat healthier and lose weight-Our dining program provides freshly prepared meals with nutritional ingredients.
• Learn a new hobby or skill-At Monticello West, we have a variety of music, arts and crafts programming and classes for you to try!
• Spend time with family and friends-Monticello West will bring you together with others with similar interests through activities, games, cocktail hours, movies, and more.
• Reduce stress-The burdens of homeownership, including maintenance, housekeeping, and meal preparation, are all taken care of here, leaving you with free time to enjoy your neighbors, friends, and the activities and amenities. Stress? What stress?

We wish you a happy and happy New Year and fulfillment of all your resolutions for 2021!