Starting 2022 a step at a time

The start of a new year presents an opportunity to set goals and reconsider what is possible, a time when many people reflect on the past year and start making goals for the current one.

Saraí Mancías, a psychologist at the UTRGV Counseling Center, explained how people can get out of their comfort zone in 2022.

“I think one of the biggest things about getting out of our comfort zone is that [it is] a reminder to us that it’s going to be quite courageous to have to make that first step to get out of our comfort zone,” Mancías said. “There’s courage there. There’s bravery there that a lot of people struggle with and I think part of it is that we have to be willing to push ourselves to do something different if we want things different for us.”

She suggests starting at a smaller level, little by little, rather than trying to make drastic changes or trying to drastically get out of your comfort zone.

Carlos de la Garza, a computer engineering senior, explained what helped him to start the new year off right.

“See this new year as a new start,” De la Garza said. “See the goals that you thought of doing before. See this as a new start so that you can get back at it and start, like, from zero, I guess. From the beginning, building up that confidence to build to reach that goal slowly and, yeah, just take this year to first start.”

Mancías advises students to start at the safest levels. Small steps are something that encourage people to continue. However, if we want things to be different, or for things to be better in our lives, we have to be willing to take that first small step to do so.

“I think it’s important to be thinking about who all is in our circle, or who all is in our environment, whether that’s a physical environment, whether that’s people in our environment,” she said. “If we, for example, are in an environment or live in a space where there are people who aren’t, maybe, best for our well-being, it might be hard for us to make changes.”

So, if we live at home, or we live with people who are not very supportive of our intentions or goals for the year, that can certainly affect our ability to make any kind of change that we would like, Mancías said.

“It’s important to certainly have a supportive environment, an environment that’s understanding of, kind of, your intentions and potentially having a conversation with people about how they can potentially help to facilitate some of those changes or those resolutions,” she said. “And then it’s also thinking about, you know, who all in my circle is supportive, and maybe who is not as supportive.”

De la Garza explained some changes that he would like to make in this new year.

“I think I would like to change being more consistent at things, mainly with COVID and school and all that,” he said. “It’s hard to be consistent at, like hobbies or the gym, for example. It’s hard to be consistent … with all this stress. … This year, I’m trying to change that of myself, just have better time management and just be consistent at what I’m trying to reach, the goal I’m trying to reach.”

With everything that happened last year, De la Garza hopes to continue doing what he likes during this new year since that is one of his goals.

“Definitely going back to the gym, that’s something that I’ve always enjoyed,” he said. “But, since, like I said, like, school and all that work has been hard to be consistent, but that’s something I like to do so that’s something I want to try. To be consistent.”

Mancías said many times it is difficult for people to fulfill their New Year’s resolutions.

“I think one of the biggest goals that people have is to lose weight, right? To be more fit [and] to be able to eat better,” she said. “And so, I think that society plays a big role in that [and] I think families also play a big role in that.”

She explained that when people try to make such drastic changes that sets them up for failure.

“When people don’t reach their goals at the end, it’s because they’re not very realistic about the goals that they set for themselves,” Mancías said.

She said it is important to set realistic, achievable, and measurable goals, to keep track of, whether that is every week or every two weeks.

“So, if someone wants to lose weight, it’s like, ‘OK, what can I do over the next week to try to help with that,’” Mancías said. “Maybe, it’s just eating a bit more fruit rather than eating an unhealthy meal, or when I’m feeling really stressed out instead of going for the chips, let me go for some fruit.”

Making smaller changes to your routine is more helpful than making drastic changes all at once, she said.

Chloe Cabrera, a criminal justice freshman, said she learned last year that communication is key and it is something that she will implement this year.

“For classes, when I’m struggling, I know to reach out to the professor now and most of them are pretty understanding,” Cabrera said. “They, like, give you more time and, like, basically being able to reach out to [them] when you need help.”

De la Garza said the change he plans to make in his lifestyle is to have more peace this year.

“It might be a simple change but fixing my sleep schedule,” he said. “I feel like having more energy throughout the day will help me just be more active in whatever task I’m doing. That would just be a big change that would help a lot and just keep being consistent at these things.”

Macías said the most important thing when starting a new year is setting goals or resolutions.

“I think it’s very important for us to be thinking about how can we improve our overall well-being,” she said. “And it’s really thinking about what are these areas of well-being that I can work on just a little bit more this upcoming year, you know? If it’s my mental and emotional well-being, ‘What can I be doing to take care of that?”

She explained that the Calm and Insight apps can be a great help to many people whose purpose is to improve their mental health this year.

 Calm is a meditation, sleep and relaxation app that creates unique audio content that strengthens mental fitness and tackles some of the biggest mental health challenges of today: stress, anxiety, insomnia and depression, according to its website.

Insight Timer is an app and website designed to help make meditation and yoga convenient, easy and enjoyable to perform as it helps reduce anxiety and stress, according to its website.