Winter Arc “Self Improvement”
The Winter Arc has largely replaced New Year’s Resolutions as a way to start a journey of self-improvement as the seasons change.
Starting your Winter Arc begins with figuring out what you believe you want to add to or begin in your own life. A common misconception held by people who decide they want to commit to the Winter Arc is relying on other people to figure out what you want to do better or simply picking up something random and labelling it “self-improvement.” I spoke to Demetra Stamboulos ’25 about what she thinks is the best way to start your self improvement arc during winter rather than summer and she said, “You have to start through small steps so it leads to bigger steps and I would personally start in the winter, because I do two sports in the spring and summer and I’d have more time in the Winter.” Demetra’s commitment shows you have to take action to get started.
But how to commit to it?
Committing to anything starts with making small steps, small achievable goals you can reach realistically. Let’s say hypothetically you want to gain weight or muscle mass. You start off by learning what you have to do to gain weight and muscle mass with legitimate research (so you don’t just randomly follow some guy online). The first stepping tool for this would be eating slightly more than yesterday, do it again, then do it again all the way until you’ve built up the discipline where you can eat a lot more than you could before while doing simple exercise whether that be at the gym or at home with push ups or dumbbells. Or if you wanted to start reading more. You slowly read more everyday setting a time aside to do so. I asked Lucas Rosario ’25 what committing to something in your daily life looks like. “Putting in all my effort into something and dedicating time for improvement,” Lucas replied.
Transitioning this to your daily life is the final step and it’s only possible if you went through the previous two steps. I asked Jaylene Hernandez ’25, when you want to transition something into your life permanently what do you do “I slowly begin to incorporate it into my daily routine.” Transitioning the “Winter Arc” into your daily life is something that can only be done if you want to improve your life for the better because at the end of the day you have to be willing to change habits to build bigger and new ones.
The self improvement arc should be broken down into 3 parts: starting, committing and transitioning it to your life.
