Wellness Wednesday: Turning This Year’s Lessons Into Next Year’s Healthiest You
Every December, health and wellness conversations tend to split into two camps: “I crushed my goals” or “I completely fell off.” But most real lives don’t fit neatly into either category. They’re made of mixed signals — progress interrupted by stress, wins overshadowed by chaos, and good intentions competing with the realities of work, family, mental load, or trauma patterns.
If you’re ending the year feeling like you failed your wellness goals, you’re not alone — and you’re not broken. You’re experiencing what psychology describes as all-or-nothing thinking, a cognitive distortion that often intensifies in people with a history of dieting, perfectionism, or weight-based trauma.
From a trauma-informed coaching lens, the most important truth is this: You didn’t fail. You adapted. And now you get to learn from it.
The real question isn’t “What went wrong?”
It’s: “What information did this year give me about who I am, what I need, and how I function under real-life conditions?”
And that shift — from judgment to data — changes everything.
De-Shaming Wellness Setbacks: The Psychology of Lapses vs. Relapses
Health behavior research shows that setbacks are not signs of failure — they’re part of the expected curve of change. In addiction psychology and habit science, experts differentiate between:
A lapse: a brief return to an old behavior (skipping workouts for a week, stress-eating during a chaotic month).
A relapse: a sustained return to a previous pattern that disconnects you from your goals.
Most people mistake lapses for relapses, and then react with shame — which the research consistently shows is one of the strongest predictors of giving up entirely. Shame disrupts self-efficacy, increases stress hormones, and makes self-care feel undeserved.
A trauma-informed health coach sees lapses differently:
They are information points, not character flaws.
They tell us something about stress, capacity, environment, trauma triggers, or unmet needs — and that means they can be worked with.
Cognitive Flexibility: The Science of Resilience and Why You’re Not Starting at Zero
Resilience isn’t willpower. It’s cognitive flexibility — the ability to shift strategies when obstacles arise. Research from behavioral psychology shows that flexible thinkers:
rebound more quickly after setbacks
feel less shame when their routine breaks
maintain better long-term outcomes across diet, exercise, and mental health habits
If you’re reading this article right now, you are displaying resilience already. Reflection is an adaptive response.
From a wellness coaching standpoint, resilience grows from compassionate curiosity, not self-criticism.
Ask yourself:
When things got hard this year, did I stop caring? Or did I struggle because I cared so much and ran out of capacity?
What did I survive or manage that past versions of me might not have?
You may discover you’ve done more emotional heavy lifting than any gym session could measure.
Turn the Year Into Data, Not a Verdict
Instead of grading your year, analyze it like a coach or scientist would. This removes moral weight and increases clarity.
Try asking yourself:
What were the conditions during my most successful stretches?
(More sleep? Less pressure? More structure? A supportive routine?)What were the conditions during my most difficult stretches?
(Workload? Illness? Emotional burnout? Trauma triggers?)
This approach mirrors how coaches perform case reviews: identifying correlations, capacity limits, and stressors, rather than making personal judgments.
Patterns reveal root causes.
Root causes allow real solutions.
Solutions drive sustainable change.
Turn Wins and Losses Into Lessons [Reflection Prompts]
Below is a reflection framework used in our coaching practice.
The Wins
What are three things that worked well this year?
What habits or behaviors came naturally when life felt stable?
What progress did I make that I’m overlooking because it didn’t feel “big enough”?
The Losses (Without Shame)
What attempts fell apart — and what was happening in my life at the time?
Where did I use outdated strategies that no longer match my current needs?
Which “failures” were actually signs of exhaustion, not lack of discipline?
The Patterns
When I was stressed, what coping mechanisms resurfaced?
Which triggers consistently disrupted my routines?
What expectations did I set that weren’t aligned with my actual capacity?
Patterns tell a story.
Your job isn’t to judge the story — it’s to understand it.
Choosing One Anchor Habit for the New Year
Most people set 17 resolutions and burn out by February.
A psychology-informed coaching approach flips the script: Choose ONE anchor habit - the behavior most likely to improve everything else.
Examples:
A consistent bedtime
A 10-minute morning movement routine
Eating a protein-rich breakfast
A daily 5-minute nervous system regulation practice
A weekly meal-planning ritual
A Sunday night check-in with yourself
The anchor habit should:
Be doable on your hardest days
Support your nervous system
Create a cascade effect on other behaviors
Strengthen your self-trust
When you rebuild trust in your ability to follow through, confidence grows — and then bigger habits become easier.
You Didn’t Fail the Year - You Just Haven’t Read It Correctly Yet
A coach sees your year as a case study, not a crisis.
Health professionals know that progress is non-linear, behavior change requires multiple attempts, and psychological safety matters more than perfection.
So instead of asking “Why did I fail?”
Try asking:
“What did this year teach me that I don’t want to forget?”
Because this time next year, you could be looking back not at a year you abandoned — but at the year you finally learned how to build a life you don’t have to escape from.
