Welcome to the Very Well Mind podcast. We've interviewed over 100 authors, experts, entrepreneurs, athletes, musicians, and others to help you learn strategies to care for your mental health.

This episode is hosted by psychotherapist and bestselling author Amy Morin. Now let's get into the episode.

Okay. You're listening to the Friday fix. Every Friday, I share a quick mental strength exercise that will help you fix the thoughts, emotions, and actions that drain you of the mental

strength you need to be your best.

Today, I'm going to share five New Year's resolutions that will help you grow mentally stronger

in 2021. Over at Very Well Mind, where I serve as editor-in-chief, we conducted a survey to learn about

whether people are more or less likely to set resolutions in 2021, given that 2020 has just been such a

strange year. We pulled over 1,200 people and found that 30% said they were actually more likely

to establish a resolution due to the pandemic. Not surprisingly, the number one thing people

said they want to set a resolution about is their physical health. The second most important thing people want to address is their mental health.

And the third most important thing is their friendships. It's not surprising that during this

year where we had to create so many changes and confront a lot of issues head on, that those are

the things that people want to use to create positive changes.

In a minute, I'm going to explain how to establish resolutions that will help you build mental muscle,

which can improve your physical health, your mental health, and your relationships.

But before we talk about how to create resolutions that will help you build mental muscle,

let's talk about why resolutions usually don't work in the first place. Depending on the study that you read, most of them show that resolutions only work out

about 8% of the time. In fact, most resolutions are abandoned by about the third week of January.

If you go to a gym, you'll see this firsthand. When you go on about January 2nd,

the gym's crowded. But if you show up on January 18th, you'll see that there's far fewer people

working out. There are several reasons why resolutions like that tend to fail. The first one is

that resolutions are often vague. People set goals that they want to be healthier or they want to be happier in the new year.

...