Reflecting on the Year: Using the Relational Wellness Wheel to Set Meaningful Goals

The days between Christmas and New Year's always feel a bit fuzzy and low-key for me. I'm out of my regular routine, still in holiday mode, and have to remind myself what day of the week it is! I'm also still working my way through Christmas leftovers. When I worked in child protection for all those years (what feels like a lifetime ago!), I never wanted to work those days between Christmas and New Year's. But when I had to, they were usually pretty quiet. Time seems suspended until the new year gets under way.

I hope you have had a lovely holiday season so far, and I wish you all the best for the year ahead.

As we wrap up 2025, I invite you to take a pause and reflect:

• What have you accomplished this year?
• What were some of your highs?
• What were some of your lows?
• What are some outstanding goals?

The Relational Wellness Wheel: A Holistic Approach to Wellness

Back in 2011, I developed a Relational Wellness Wheel (you can learn more about it on my website). This model is based on the idea that all areas of wellness have an interactive dynamic with the quality of your relationship. The relationship is central, with the areas of wellness acting as spokes of a wheel coming out of it. If the relationship is strong, it has a positive impact on the areas of wellness. If the areas of wellness are strong, that has a positive impact on the relationship. The same mutual impact takes place if the relationship or the areas of wellness are negative.

The wellness areas include:

• Financial
• Spiritual
• Physical
• Emotional
• Social
• Vocational
• Sexual
• Environmental

You can explore each of these wellness areas in more detail on the Resources page of my website:
https://thecouplewellnessexperts.com/relationship-wellness-wheel

If you're in a romantic relationship, you may place that relationship at the centre. If you're religious, you may apply this model to your relationship with God. And if you're single, the central relationship can be your relationship with yourself. Yes, you can even date yourself! I'm learning more and more about mindful self-care and I'm finding the idea of dating oneself really interesting.

Setting Wellness Goals for the Year Ahead

Each year, I take some time to reflect on goals for each area on the Relational Wellness Wheel and clarify what I'm aiming at for the year ahead. Often, I also update my vision board to reflect these intentions as well. In recent years, I have also chosen one word to be my 'Word of Intention' for the year, and I put it on my fridge. I've engaged my son and other friends/family in this too, and it's become a nice New Year's tradition.

If you would like a worksheet to support your wellness goal-setting, feel free to email me and I'll happily send it to you. You can also download a resource I recently created featuring Monthly Mindful Minute exercises. To access this immediately, simply scroll to the very bottom of my home page, and you will see an email sign up form for it there:
https://thecouplewellnessexperts.com

Why Accountability Matters for Achieving Your Goals

I know sometimes it's hard to keep on top of goals. They can easily fall by the wayside as we get busy with our day to day lives. Research from the American Society for Training & Development (ATD) highlights how powerful accountability is in achieving goals:

• 10% success when people just think about a goal (no commitment).
• 25-40% success when people make a plan or decide when they will take action.
• 65% success when people commit their goal to another person.
• 95% success when people set a specific accountability appointment (scheduled check-ins or reporting)

That difference is significant, and I want to set you up for success for 2026! I'm currently offering a free self-care workshop for helping professionals the first Friday of every month. Anyone who attends one of these workshops and wants additional support with accountability is invited to join a Self-Care Peer Accountability Group!

The Peer Accountability group runs on Slack, where I post weekly discussion prompts to support reflection, encouragement, consistency, and follow-through.

Interested? Find out more about my monthly workshops and peer group here:
https://thecouplewellnessexperts.com/group-workshops

A Special Invitation: Couples Retreat - Early Bird Ends Today

And finally - if one of your goals for 2026 is to feel closer to your partner or to navigate conflict more effectively, we have a couples retreat happening the last weekend of May that may be a perfect fit.

✨Early Bird pricing ends December 31, 2025 (today!)
Prices increase on January 1st, so be sure to register before then if you'd like to take advantage of this discounted rate.

Here's to a year of intentional growth, deeper connection, and relational wellness.

Have an amazing New Year's!!
Melissa