Win the Moment: A Better Alternative to New Year’s Resolutions for Mental Fitness
I walked into the gym last night in Columbia, South Carolina and it was packed. Like, shoulder-to-shoulder, weights-section-slammed-like-tinned-sardines, every-treadmill-occupied, people-hovering-like-vultures-near-the-water-fountain packed. I stood there bewildered, scanning the sea of suddenly-motivated humans for a solid 30 seconds before it hit me:
Oh right. It's F!@#$@*& January!
And then… I had to wait for an elliptical machine. As a pregnant woman. (Surprise! I'm pregnant, y'all! Also…I'm spending too much time in the South 🤠) So I’m pissed because —I dragged myself out of work early, waddled through the parking lot, made it to the gym, which is already 73% of the battle, and now I have to just... awkwardly stand here pretending to stretch while watching someone else gets to pursue their resolution? The wait was a weight on my mind … a workout in itself, if you will 😉
Okay, back to it: Woah…was I frustrated. Was THIS how I was trying to start the year? No. Was this glamorous goal-achievement? Not at Planet Fitness it’s not. I was attempting one of my resolutions but it wasn’t “working” …
This is where my new thang™️ comes in 😎
Last year I told you I had a new approach for the New Year. And look—I know 2025 has probably started as a bit of a @#$show for most of you too. This is normal. January always feels like trying to put a queen fitted sheet on a king bed while trying to make cacio e pepe...messy. So let me help you (and angry, preggers me…last night).
Whether you're a New Year's resolution person or not, there's something genuinely useful about January. Psychologists call it the “Fresh Start Effect”—your brain actually performs better when you get to hit reset.
But “new year, new you” vibes can come with a lot of Instagram-fueled, high-drama pressure. So here's what I want to propose instead of the usual big-bang goals and mighty resolutions to "win the year":
What if you only had to Win the Moment™️?
Winning the moment isn't about doing more. It's about figuring out the next best—and only—* next thing you need to do. It’s about pausing. It’s about making the really hard decision about what that thing is. It’s about taking the actual smallest step towards progress.
And honestly? The real magic isn't even in doing the thing. It's in writing it down and making a choice. In a world of scattered attention and competing priorities, this is how you refocus.
In this moment at the gym, I took out my phone and wrote down, “I could walk uphill for 20 minutes.” VOILA…I did it. I won. You heard me. I won the moment. Well actually 2 moments, because the first was in writing it down. The next was in actually walking uphill for 20 minutes. I crushed last night.
If you want to practice winning the moment—new years resolution style:
Grab a pen and paper (ideally a post-it)
Write down one word that describes how you want the year to feel. Just write it down. That's it.* (My word of the year is spacious→ wrote down slow, fun, momentum, and focus… but had to choose: and feelin’ good about spacious).
The challenge is in choosing; the power is in focus; the effect is clarity that drives motivation. Win the moment. Today, tomorrow and all year. Because NOBODY’s got time for the big stuff. Certainly me and my newfound hormonal rage 😬
