Don’t make big resolutions this year — aim for these small shifts recommended by experts

I love a big, ambitious swing as much as the next person. I get excited about New Years and clean slates and audacious transformations. But as I stare down the arrival of yet another fresh new calendar page, I am resolving to set extremely manageable intentions. Only about 4% of us actually stick with our resolutions. So this year, no more drama. Instead, let’s be modest and sensible together.

Meaningful change doesn’t come from doing one big thing, once. It comes from building habits, from making little shifts that feel good enough to stick with. It’s almost embarrassing how much better my life got this past year when I decided to eat more fruit and read more fiction. It’s incredible how much stress I’ve avoided on at least a weekly basis by heeding the wisdom that shutting up is free. Maybe 2023 is the year you buy less fast fashion or spend more time outdoors or learn to cook a few meals. And maybe in twelve months, you’ll be amazed at the ways in which doing little things, consciously and repeatedly, can add up.

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Luckily for me, I regularly get to talk to very smart people about the small but seismic actions we can take to improve our lives. For the new year, I’ve rounded up some of their responses from the past year — and included several new words of wisdom. You don’t need to try all these things; you don’t need to try any of them. But if you want to feel better and have a happier new year, dream big, and start small.

Eat less meat

“The easiest shift we can each make in the new year to advance both our own health and that of the planet is to enjoy plant-based foods and less meat. Whether it’s swapping chicken wraps for chickpea wraps, or animal-based burgers for animal-free burgers, we’ll all benefit by cutting our reliance on animals for food.”

— Paul Shapiro, author of Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World and CEO of The Better Meat Co. 

And try more vegetables

“Add one additional serving of vegetables to your day at least three times a week. (So if you eat no veggies, you’ll have one serving; if you eat some veggies, you’ll just have a little more.)”

— Chef and dietician Abbie Gellman, MS RD CDN

Feed your head

“I’d like to make the time to read more. Don’t get me wrong… I read so much, but my reading usually involves non-fiction surrounding health or my nutrition business. ‘Relaxing reading,’ is something I’d like to make a regular habit. The health benefit is that reading can expand your mind to explore old classics, new ideas or travel without packing a bag!”  — Bonnie Taub-Dix, RDN, creator of BetterThanDieting.com and author of “Read It Before You Eat It: Taking You from Label to Table“

Protect your ears

“You only have one set of ears so be proactive in your care. Protect them, get your hearing checked and don’t wait if you have concerns.”

— Dr. Daniel S. Troast,  Doctor of Audiology at HearUSA

As well as your lungs

Back when we talked to Dr. MeiLan K. Han about respiratory health, she said, “The most important thing but not exciting answer is, limit your exposure to smoke…. When I say to not inhale anything, I mean anything. A lot of patients ask me about marijuana use, and the only thing I tell them is, just don’t smoke it.”

The other big factor?

“Assuming you’re not smoking and you aren’t around someone with smoke, believe it or not, as boring as it sounds, it’s exercise. We talk about exercise for heart health all the time. The thing that we’re learning about lung health is that the peak lung function achieved in early years may be determined by exercise, and that can ultimately impact your life course of lung health. People that maintain or even increase their fitness levels over time are going to have the healthiest lungs going into later adulthood.”

— Dr. MeiLan K. Han, author of “Breathing Lessons: A Doctor’s Guide to Lung Health“

And remember to breathe

“Practice 4-7-8 breath if (when!) you need to calm down. It activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which is rest and digest, rather than fight/flight/freeze. Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight. Take two or three minutes to do this whenever your mind and body could use a little quiet.” 

— Stacey Linden, yoga instructor

Manage family gatherings better

When we talked to him this fall, conflict communication expert Dr. Jonathan Golden said, “Trying to set some terms for communication is not a bad practice. If there’s a history of caustic interactions at the table, then it’s actually pretty wise for someone to just say, ‘Okay, why don’t we all try and do this a little differently this year? Why don’t we see if we can have some ground rules for talking? We’ll take turns, everyone will say what they have to say, we won’t shout.’ Really simple stuff. It doesn’t have to be like you’ve put a paper in front of everybody and had them sign some compact. You can just make a very light statement about talking respectfully.” 

— Jonathan Golden, Ph.D., program director of Drew University’s Center on Religion, Culture & Conflict

Nurture your relationships

“The top piece of relationship advice is simple enough: We must be able to tell our relationship partners that something is wrong and have them respond in a manner that suggests they care, and that if they’re in a position to do something to help, that they will.”

“It might seem too simple, but most relationships consist of people who can’t trust their partner to understand or make meaningful change when the hurt or uncomfortable partner expresses pain or concern. For trust and relationship health to thrive, we must be able to listen and validate others’ experiences, even if we don’t quite think or feel the same things they do.”

— Relationship coach Matthew Fray, author of “This Is How Your Marriage Ends“

And your pets

“My tip would be to help your cat be happier and healthier by engaging in interactive play with them on a daily basis, which provides them with regular exercise, mental stimulation, and the opportunity to express natural predatory behaviors!”

— Cat expert Mikel Delgado, PhD

Sidestep Zoom burnout

“One small thing would be to make phone calls instead of Zoom, at least one out of three times. Talking on the phone is less exhausting, less stressful, and helps to lift our mood and give us a sense of belonging. The telephone in 2023!”

— Celeste Headlee, author of “Do Nothing“

Take a break

“Elon Musk is wrong: spending hours in one place grinding away into fatigue and overload is exactly the wrong strategy for ensuring the best productivity, creativity, and problem-solving. His employees, and all of us, best maximize our minds by giving them freedom to rest, relax, and roam, so be kind to your brain and give it a do-nothing break when you can.”

— Emily Willingham, Ph.D., author of “The Tailored Brain“

Set boundaries

In February, negotiation expert Zoe Chance told us, “Not saying no is one of the biggest barriers for anyone who is nice to being influential, because we’re people pleasers and we don’t want people to dislike us or think that we’re greedy or arrogant or entitled.… The only way they’re not going to like us is if we’re a jerk when we say no. We don’t have to explain anything complicated.  We can just say, “No thank you” or “Sorry, not able to.”  We can take control of our lives and our attention, which is really the most valuable thing that we have.”

— Zoe Chance, author of “Influence Is Your Superpower”

And finally, believe you can do it 

“By simply changing our mindsets about willpower, we can find it much easier to stick to our New Year’s Resolutions — whatever they may be.

“A huge amount of new research suggests that our reserves of willpower are the product of our mindsets. Some people have a non-limited willpower mindset — they believe that mental stamina can be self-sustaining. They’ll agree with statements such as ‘If you have just resisted a strong temptation, you feel strengthened and you can withstand new temptations.’ Other people have the limited willpower mindset, which sees self-control as a resource that is worn out easily. They’ll agree with statements such as ‘When situations accumulate that challenge you with temptations, it gets more and more difficult to resist temptations.’ Quite amazingly, these mindsets become self-fulfilling prophecies: your willpower is much more likely to be depleted if you believe that to be the case with the limited mindset. If, on the other hand, you have the non-limited mindset, and believe that practicing self-control can actually become easier over time, then that becomes your reality — and your willpower grows.”

— David Robson, author of  “The Expectation Effect”