New Year, New You? How to Set Realistic Mental Health Goals

January brings pressure to reinvent yourself. Social media is filled with transformation stories while everyone around you seems to be fixing their entire life at once.

The problem with dramatic New Year’s resolutions is that they usually fall apart by February, leaving you feeling like you failed before you even got started.

At Mind Space Wellness, LLC, in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Caroline Bjorkman, DO, helps patients set mental health goals that actually stick. The approach focuses on small changes that build on each other rather than ambitious overhauls that collapse under their own weight.

Your brain can’t act on vague intentions

“Be less anxious” or “feel happier” sound like goals, but they don’t tell you what to do differently. Dr. Bjorkman works with you to translate broad intentions into measurable, trackable behaviors.

Instead of “manage stress better,” you might aim to practice five minutes of breathing exercises before bed three times per week. Instead of “improve relationships,” you could commit to calling one friend every Sunday afternoon.

The specificity removes guesswork and makes it clear whether you’re following through.

Starting with small behaviors increases your chance of success

Dr. Bjorkman teaches you to start with changes so small they feel almost trivial. Two minutes of meditation feels manageable even on difficult days. Writing one sentence in a journal requires minimal effort.

Research shows that simpler actions become automatic more quickly. Once the small behavior becomes routine, you can gradually increase it. The meditation might grow to five minutes, then ten. The journal entry might expand naturally as the habit solidifies.

Process goals focus on what you can control

You can control going to therapy or taking prescribed medication consistently. You can’t directly control whether your depression lifts by a specific date or whether your anxiety disappears completely.

Goals focused on outcomes you don’t directly control set you up for frustration.

Dr. Bjorkman helps patients identify process goals that support mental health:

• Attending scheduled therapy appointments
• Taking medication at the same time daily
• Getting outside for 10 minutes each morning
• Limiting news consumption to once per day
• Eating lunch away from your desk three times weekly

These behaviors influence your mental health without requiring you to manufacture particular feelings or force symptoms to disappear on a timeline.

Tracking makes progress visible without creating pressure

Writing down when you complete a goal makes progress visible. You might use a simple calendar to mark the days you followed through, or a notes app to log each instance.

Dr. Bjorkman encourages you to review your tracking data without shame. Missing days is information, not failure. You might notice you skip your morning walk every Monday because that’s when you have early meetings. That information helps you adjust the goal to Tuesday through Friday rather than abandon it entirely.

Getting back on track matters more than perfection

You’ll have weeks where everything falls apart, but resuming a goal after a break matters more than perfection. Mental health improvement happens in waves, not straight lines, so the goal is getting back to the behavior when you’re able, rather than maintaining a flawless streak.

Some goals need professional support to maintain

If you’re working on reducing alcohol use, managing medication side effects, or addressing trauma, trying to handle everything alone makes the process harder than it needs to be.

Dr. Bjorkman often combines goal-setting work with medication management and psychotherapy. These tools work together to address the underlying conditions that make behavioral change difficult.

If you want to set mental health goals that fit your actual life rather than an idealized version of what January should look like, call Mind Space Wellness, LLC, in Fort Lee, New Jersey, or on the Upper West Side of Manhattan to schedule an appointment with Dr. Bjorkman and our team.