2025 the year of…mental fitness

I like having a “theme” for the year. Something that is important to me that I want to work on, which is also simple enough to be able to keep at the front of my mind. One year my theme was “I don’t care”. It was my way of saying I wanted to be less overly-invested in things (Although I did find actually saying to someone: “I don’t care” caused a lot of confusion!).

My theme for 2025 is going to be growing my mental fitness.

I like the term “mental fitness”. According to Smiling Mind:

Mental fitness reflects our ability to be at our best each day, navigate challenges, and support a state of positive mental wellbeing. It's our foundation for thriving.

(I take it that mental health refers to our overall psychological, social and emotional health, whereas mental fitness focuses on the ability to navigate challenges).

Why become mentally fit

I can see that being at our best each day and thriving is a worthy goal, but what more specifically could that look like? I asked the other Reframe contributors, YiQin and Bec, and here’s what they had to say.

YiQin: “Often I reactively look after my mental wellbeing. What would it mean for me to be proactively working on my mental fitness so I have greater capacity to adapt to setbacks and not become overwhelmed. Being a working mother of two small children - I’ve definitely come close to throwing in the towel during a 3pm afternoon slump.”

Bec: “I can see that if I was to work on my mental fitness, then I would be able to think more clearly, remain calm and be able to make good choices between competing demands and be able to recognise when I was out of balance and needed a realignment….”

And as I (Caro) have pondered this question, I think if I was mentally “fitter” then I wouldn’t let some things get to me as much as they do. I’d have my feelings, but I wouldn’t think with my feelings. When I think with my feelings, the pain and hurt I’m feeling clouds my judgement. While I want to act on my values like kindness and generosity, my feelings win out and I end up being irritable, impatient or resentful.

Q. What would a mentally fit version of yourself in 2025 look like?

Challenges to mental fitness

In discussing our answers, it became clear that we all had different challenges to our mental fitness because of our different personalities, experiences and life stages. I asked YiQin and Bec to share a couple of challenges.

YiQin: “If I want to be someone who adapts to setbacks better rather than just giving up, then there are two challenges to that. Firstly, it’s a question of sleep. I’m more irritable when I’m tired and more easily triggered. I could blame not enough sleep on my kids but actually I’ve always struggled with not getting enough sleep.

The second challenge for me is around the automatic negative thoughts that pop into my head. It’s related to the first challenge because when I’m tired and there’s a setback, it’s much easier to buy into and believe those ANTS (automatic negative thoughts)”.

Bec: “A challenge I have around maintaining my mental fitness is finding and keeping the balance between work and recreation. I can get caught in a zone and ignore all my other responsibilities. When this is too heavily weighted to one side I then feel overwhelmed, I don’t think clearly and end up with tunnel vision and hyper fixated on all the wrong things. Recognising the warning signs and triggers early and finding a way to manage the areas of my life appropriately are opportunities I am focussing on this year.”

As I (Caro) think about being someone who has their feelings but doesn’t think with their feelings, two challenges spring to mind.The first has to do with how connected I feel. The isolation of covid, living on my own and hybrid work arrangements has shown me how much I use the input of others to help me regulate my own thoughts and feelings. As I share what’s going on for me, and they share what’s going on for them, I gain perspective on my own thoughts and feelings. However, connection takes more work now when people aren’t physically around. Being vulnerable is hard. So sometimes I don’t have the energy to reach out. When I don’t, my feelings can become very loud in my head.

The second challenge has to do with ageing. I realised lately that I have lost a lot of confidence in how I relate to the world. I think it’s because I have quietly bought into the conviction that becoming old makes us useless, worthless, ugly and irrelevant. It’s become an identity issue. If my identity is based on what I can do or what I look like, then it’s hard to think well when I notice that my body and my abilities aren’t what they used to be.

Q. What do you think are some of the challenges will be to your mental fitness in 2025?

2025 Reframe topics

Q. What would you like to work on when it comes to your mental fitness? Here are some examples that might resonate with you:

• Being more present in the moment
• Responding more thoughtfully in the moment
• Becoming more flexible in your thinking
• Building better connections with others
• Being more connected to your life purpose
• Becoming better at recharging your body

(Working out what you’d like to work on is a way of sharpening your answers to the previous questions).

For the rest of the Reframe sessions across the year, we have the opportunity to explore working on our mental fitness. Here’s a list of topics YiQin, Bec and I came up with. We’d love your feedback to help us make the Reframe material and discussions even more worthwhile.

Connecting well when some friendships have an expiry date

Being kind to others as well as ourselves

Staying emotionally connected to the other person when we are hurt or angry

Managing ANTS (automatic negative thoughts)

Connection in an age of of isolation and loneliness

How to accept, forgive and move on

Q. What feedback do you have on this list of topics? Which ones do you like (and why)? Are there some tweaks you’d like to make, angles you’d like to explore or additions to the list you’d like to see included?

Moving forward

There are numerous physical factors that contribute to mental fitness - for example, YiQin mentions sleep. Others include diet, exercise and hydration. While we won’t be focusing on these physical factors this year, they are important prerequisites to good mental fitness.

Q. Given that we are used to having goals for these physical factors - what goals have you set for yourself for sleep, diet, exercise and hydration in 2025 that you’d be happy to share?

Q. How could your Reframe group support (and challenge) you as you work on your mental fitness this year?