Hands up, who else is guilty of setting unrealistic New Year's resolutions? I'd be lying if I said I hadn't spent the majority of my teenage and adult years using January as an excuse to list off heroic New Year’s goals. *Get in shape, become fluent in French, sort my finances, and read 52 books.* You know the drill. As ever, reality and I had different plans. By the second week of January, I would be back where I started: tired, shamed by my lack of willpower, and wondering why a fresh year never actually felt fresh. It turns out I wasn’t failing at discipline so much as failing at expectations.
Three years ago, I tried a different experiment: a self-care advent calendar from the 1st to the 25th of December. Each day is one small, achievable ritual - five for the body, five for the mind, five things my future self will thank me for, five for others, and five little treats for me. The point isn’t to overhaul my life in one month; it’s to show up, repeatedly, in small ways. After doing this for the past three years, I can honestly say: it works. I arrive in January feeling calmer, steadier and free from any unnecessary pressure to overhaul my lifestyle just because it's the first day of a new year.
I first shared the idea on TikTok three years ago, and the post quickly went viral - a clear sign that many of us are exhausted by the grand-gesture script of resolutions and secretly craving something gentler. That hunch was backed up again this January, when a report found that 35% of people in the UK had already given up on their 2025 resolutions. We’re not short on ambition; we’re short on systems that actually fit into our messy, real lives.
A self-care advent calendar is not intended to be a moral crusade against goal-setting. It’s an evidence-informed, anti-guilt method for building momentum and a kinder inner climate. As osteopath Manjot Kaur Dehala explained to Marie Claire, wellness rituals, when practised with “spaciousness, self-compassion and support, reinforce the body’s memory of safety and pleasure,” creating what she calls a “compound effect” that quietly rewires the body and brain toward balance.
Before you read on, you might want to check out our guide to habit stacking, or discover the best wellness planners, plus our how-to on goal setting. Interested in trying a new wellness challenge for yourself? Read what happened when MC UK contributor Georgia Brown tried Kindle walking.
Struggle to stick to your New Year resolutions? Try a self care advent calendar instead
What is a self-care advent calendar challenge?
A self-care advent calendar challenge is exactly what it sounds like - a “calendar” of small, ritualistic acts of self-kindness, spread across the days of December (or any time you pick), designed to nurture different parts of your life. The beauty is you can shape it how you want. Maybe you care about movement, mindfulness, creativity, connection, rest, or all of the above.
Each day is a small invitation: stretch, breathe, call a friend, organise that drawer, read, rest. The aim isn’t transformation overnight - it’s aimed to set you up for the new year mindfully and steadily.
In my version, which I created in 2023, I divided tasks into five categories: five things for your body, five things for your mind, five things your future self will thank you for, five things for others, and five things to treat yourself. But your calendar might look totally different: a creative-only December, a digital-detox countdown, or a journalling calendar. The only rule is: choose rituals that feel nourishing, feasible and aligned with your own rhythms.
Who is a self-care advent calendar challenge good for?
I follow a self-care advent calendar challenge because I like to ease myself into the inevitable pressure of what a new year brings, and prefer to start the year feeling refreshed and rested. However, it could also be good for:
- Anyone worn out by “New Year, new you” theatrics and wants steady, realistic momentum.
- Those with busy or unpredictable lives, because the challenges are adaptable and often short.
- Anyone who prefers consistency over intensity (and, frankly, anyone who likes the idea of starting the year already a little more composed).
- Anyone who wants to build small systems (declutter a drawer, set up a budget, call a friend) rather than overhaul everything at once.
As Tam Kaur, self-help expert and author of Buy Yourself The Damn Flowers, puts it: “Habit stacking can help you build routines around simple habits that require little effort. When you pair something that feels like a chore with something you enjoy, it builds momentum and makes it easier to stick to it.” That’s exactly the spirit of this calendar: pair what you should do with what you want to do.
What does the science say about why we give up our New Year resolutions?
It’s not just you - the stats show that in the UK, a lot of people end up abandoning their resolutions. One survey this year found that only 29% of British adults plan to set a resolution.
Among those who do set them, adherence is patchy: just a third stuck to all their resolutions, while 45% managed some but not all. And older data from another UK survey suggested that within the first week of January, around one in five people had already failed some of their resolutions - a trend that only worsens as weeks go by.
Why does this happen? According to researchers at Loughborough University, part of the problem is that our brains simply aren’t wired for radical, sweeping change in one fell swoop.
Plans made with high ambition, dramatic scope, or vague promises, such as “this year I’m going to become fit, happy, organised, productive, and healthy all at once”, tend to overwhelm the brain (and the habits it relies on). Without small, repeated actions, the old routines creep back in. The result? Resolutions unravel.
That’s why a self-care advent calendar rooted in small daily rituals sidesteps those pitfalls.
How to successfully complete a self-care advent calendar challenge
1. Make each task small and actionable
Be specific with your challenges. Don’t write “get fit”, write “do ten minutes of yoga” or “walk 20 minutes.” Small wins build momentum.
2. Set your self-care challenges with intention.
Use wellness stacking to link tiny habits together, such as listening to an audiobook on your morning walk, or practising morning yoga whilst factoring in a short meditation.
As Dehala notes, when you “layer conscious breathwork, journaling, gentle movement and mindful stillness,” you create sensory cues that the nervous system learns to associate with calm. The trick with setting these challenges is spaciousness - not overfilling your day.
3. Use your mornings wisely
If you can, schedule small practices in the morning. Mindfulness artist and meditation teacher Dora Kamau explains that the mind is “naturally quieter” before the day’s noise intrudes, making it a more receptive time for creating calm. Even a daily five-minute self-care challenge can reduce mind-wandering and steady attention.
4. Design for your future self
Include practical tasks - sort a subscription, schedule a dentist appointment, declutter a wardrobe - that will take a small amount of time now but save future friction and guilt.
5. Prioritise connection with others
At the end of each week (or the whole month), take a moment to check in: which rituals made you feel good? Which felt like a chore? What could you carry forward beyond December? This is key to transforming temporary rituals into long-term habits or mindset shifts.
6. Reflect weekly, not daily
Instead of policing every missed day, reflect at the end of each week: what landed easily, what felt like a chore, and what practice do you want to keep? This transforms a 25-day experiment into a lifestyle change that you can carry into the new year.
Shop MC-approved self-care essentials
I have used the Sweaty Betty Balance Yoga Mat for my at-home yoga flows for years, and its dual-sided grip and cushioned support make practising poses as a beginner feel like a dream.
When you swap your outdoor runs for indoor flows or a few laps in the pool as the afternoons fade, these flared yoga pants from Tala are the ones you’ll keep coming back to: comfy enough to relax in, sturdy enough to move in. Think of them as your go-to winter workout companion - cosy, practical, and easy to wear.
Meal prepping is a simple way to take control of your nutrition, helping you make thoughtful ingredient choices and manage portion sizes. If you’re aiming to cut back on sugar, packing a balanced lunch in one of these mason jars is a smart strategy - it keeps you full, nourished, and far less tempted by the 2 pm biscuit or office cake run.
Why do so many people give up on their New Year’s resolutions so quickly?
Most resolutions are built on pressure rather than practicality. We tend to set huge, sweeping goals on 1st January - often after a hectic December - and expect ourselves to change overnight. That kind of all-or-nothing thinking means the first wobble feels like failure, so people give up altogether. There’s also the simple fact that life gets busy again: once routines return, lofty resolutions rarely fit into real schedules, energy levels or budgets.
That’s why gentler, more flexible rituals (like an Advent calendar challenge) work. They prioritise consistency over perfection and acknowledge that small, sustainable habits are far more likely to stick than grand, once-a-year declarations.
