Happy New Year! It’s the beginning of a new year which means people are setting new goals and it’s a chance for new opportunities to be even better than last year. In 2022 I had a major surgery and it was a hard year but as much as it was filled with new challenges there were lots of laughs as well. In the beginning of a new year people are always looking for ways to improve themselves because it’s never too late to kick a bad habit but sometimes people don’t know where to start and create goals they could never achieve. I don’t create New Years’ Resolutions and that is okay but every year I look at the things I did last year to see what I struggled with and can improve because it’s never too late to start kicking those bad habits. In this post, I am going to talk about five bad habits that you may have had last year that you should quit in 2023 to be a better version of yourself because it’s not helpful for anyone and we can always work on being better and more supportive individuals.
Commenting on people’s bodies-People often will show no shame in commenting on people’s bodies by telling them they look good when they lose weight or by calling you fat when you gain it. Some people think they are helping when they praise weight loss or are encouraging you to start a fitness journey when they call you fat but you are doing the opposite of helping when you comment on someone’s body but you may be doing more harm to that person than you intended to. People always praise weight loss but losing weight doesn’t necessarily mean someone is healthy and gaining it doesn’t mean you are unhealthy. Stop commenting on people’s bodies because you never know if someone’s weight loss or weight gain was done in a healthy way and when you praise weight loss you could be patting someone on the back for not eating. I don’t even like telling my own family my specific weight or doctors who do not need it for treatment because often it leads to some kind of body shaming that is not helpful! Stop commenting on people’s bodies because healthy isn’t just about the number you see on the scale and there are so many other factors that make a person healthy. If you can move well and your blood work doesn’t show anything concerning you probably don’t need to go on a juice cleanse every time your weight fluctuates and it is diet culture that is telling you that you need to be smaller!
Expecting the same things from disabled people as abled people- Parents of disabled children sometimes struggle to accept their diagnosis and want to treat their disabled child in the same way as their abled children. If you are a parent of a disabled child you shouldn’t talk to them any differently than your abled kids but you can’t hold a disabled person to the same standards as someone without a disability because disabled people can’t do a lot of the same things abled people can. Disabled people will struggle with more than abled people and when you don’t acknowledge that, it creates unnecessary barriers and is hurting your child in more ways than you know. Disabled kids should not be treated as if their disability does not exist because when you do that it holds disabled people back from reaching their full potential and when you try too hard to hide your child’s disability you will inevitably teach your child that disability is something that you should hide and be shameful of. You don’t have to publicly talk about your child’s disability but it’s important that you don’t hold them to the same standards as abled people because when you act like your child’s disability does not exist it will make their life three times harder than it has to be and you may notice that your child is struggling more with accepting their diagnosis than would have if you were to teaching them how to cope with their disability instead of ignoring it.
Comparing yourself to others- Social media makes it easy to compare ourselves to our followers that may have better bodies than us and are achieving their fitness goals at a much faster rate than we are. As a blogger, it’s very easy to compare ourselves to other creators because sometimes people have a much larger follower count than we do and spend a lot less time on their posts. Stop comparing yourself to people in real life and on social media because people will exaggerate how much money they make to get a few extra likes or will photoshop their image to make them look super fit but if you were to meet them in person you would see that they are not as buff as they are on Instagram. I am guilty of comparing myself to other creators that do less than me but still have significantly more followers and brand opportunities than I do but I am trying to let go of that in 2023 because even though someone has more followers than you it doesn’t mean they are more popular. I have seen a lot of social media influencers that have thousands of followers with almost no engagement and smaller creators with less followers that has tons of engagement.. A large following doesn’t necessarily mean someone’s more popular or makes a lot of money and you shouldn’t compare yourself to other people online because you don’t know how popular someone is by their follower count and some people will lie about how much money they make or severely exaggerate it.
Caring too much about what other people think of you- As a blogger, you naturally want to please everyone but unfortunately, you are not going to and sometimes people will disagree with you. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and that is why it’s called an opinion but sometimes people are very mean when they do disagree and let one negative opinion really get to them . There is nothing wrong with caring what other people think of you but sometimes people care a little too much and they let the opinion of one person ruin their day but you will be happier when you stop being overly concerned what other people think of you and learn that it’s okay to disagree with someone!
Being too hard on yourself– Failure is a part of life but it’s not necessarily a bad thing because failure means you are trying and people who have never failed have not tried anything new. People sometimes are overly hard on themselves when they do not master something the first time they try but you have to stop being so hard on yourself and use that as a learning experience because even great doctors didn’t get things right the first time.
In 2022 I had a lot of new challenges because I had to have my hip redone which basically restarted my recovery when I thought I was coming to end but even though you had a hard year it doesn’t mean it was a bad one. Some people like to make new years resolutions at the beginning of the year but you don’t need to make new years resolutions to improve yourself or make any goals that are way out there that you probably will fail at by February. I don’t make any New Years Resolutions that would be impressive if I were to achieve them but I do try to look at my previous year to see what I can improve on because it is good to have goals for yourself and you don’t grow when everything is easy but it’s through the challenges that make someone who they are! Do you make New Years Resolutions and what are you looking to get better at in 2023?
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