Photo by Alena Darmel
The “Winter Arc” is a TikTok challenge that has been booming this period, with influencers encouraging people to focus on self-improvement and goal-setting during the colder winter months.
With the year almost coming to an end, people are already thinking about their 2025 resolutions, but some people are already planning a few months ahead to enter 2025 with the version of themselves that they want.
What is the “Winter Arc” challenge exactly?
Over 500,000 TikTok posts include the hashtag #winterarc, where they use TikTok to talk about their Winter Arc goals and what they’re doing to achieve them. They’re encouraging others to “dial in” and “disappear and come back in 2025”.
It’s basically a trend where people will be incredibly focused on their self-improvement goals that they will prioritize them over other aspects of their lives.
Like other challenges that arose, the Winter Arc uses this grinding all-about-productivity mindset, in hopes of maintaining these habits for the new year.
There aren’t specific goals mentioned, depends on what you want the best version of yourself to be like, however, there are some themes that were more popular than others.
Here are some of the daily Winter Arc habits:
- Reach your protein intake every day
- Journal
- Use your phone maximum of 1 hour a day
- Walk 10,000 steps
- Read at least 1 chapter a day
- Drink 3 liters of water daily
- Wake up at 6 am
- Stick to your workout plan
Thoughts on the Winter Arc challenge…
There are many opinions about this, but one that I completely agree with is by Abbey Sharp, a dietitian, and host of the Bite Back podcast, where she says: “All of these challenges bother me because it’s contributing to a culture of literally running ourselves into the ground for the sake of productivity”.
She also mentions that one reason people don’t stick to New Year’s resolutions is because they’re too unrealistic.
It all feeds into this grinding and militant mindset, and it totally disregards us being different as human beings. Some people don’t enjoy reading, why is “reading at least 1 chapter” a part of the challenge?
Another pitfall of the trend is that the videos of people sharing their militant routines can influence others into thinking they’re not doing enough, especially if they’re entirely new to these habits.
Someone who exercises once a week cannot just jump into 5-6 days a week like someone who is used to doing 3-4 days. How does this challenge not lead to discouragement and affect people’s self-esteem?
This leads people to think that they’re a failure, when in fact, the trend isn’t practical or sustainable. We all start from somewhere and have different ideas of what our “ideal selves” look like.
Influencing many people, especially in their early stages of adulthood such as Gen Z TikTok users into believing that they should be following these strict routines is the recipe for having a generation that cannot enjoy the simplicity of life, is burnt out, competitive, and individualistic.
Not to mention that when the challenge is over, they might jump to the end of the spectrum… and that’s mostly how eating disorders start–deprivation.
Habits are not built overnight, they are slowly leaned into, and that’s how they become sustainable.
We’re not created to just do do do. Winter is a magical season–and a great time to connect with friends and family, cozy up, and take up your PTO, there’s no need to add unnecessary stress, we’re already overworked as a culture.
What do we do instead of the winter arc challenge to improve ourselves?
Instead of adopting this “go big or go home” Winter Arc mindset where there’s a strict timeline and laser-focus on the end goal, prioritize setting wellness goals that could be distributed throughout the year, and can be easily incorporated.
Wellness goals look different for everyone and depend on where you’re at in life. What you can do first is to start reflecting on what aspects of your life you would like to improve.
Ask yourself questions like: “Do I really think I would feel better if I woke up at 6 am? Is that desire to change coming from self-love or self-punishment? Are these goals that I set things I genuinely want to achieve, or things I’ve been influenced to think are what makes us better? What percentage of these goals are focused on outer appearance?”
Take these goals one step at a time.
Here are some realistic wellness goals.
- Improve the quality of your sleep
- Do your yearly blood tests and take the vitamins needed
- Declutter your space
- Be able to stay for 10 minutes plus doing absolutely nothing
- Connect with some old friends
- Adding real foods to your diet
- Not being on your phone first thing in the morning/ last thing before bed
- Being able to not take criticism personally
- Finding your style of clothing
- Finding a balanced training program
- Keeping your space tidy
- Finding ways to style your natural hair
- Stretching in the morning to naturally wake up the body
- Eating something before caffeine
- Planning more outdoor activities
- Finding a relaxing shower routine
There are so many things out there that contribute to your personal growth. Sometimes these habits are very simple that people might see as insignificant because we’re focused on getting results that are seen and are fast.
Small and sustainable goals are buildable, and you’ll find yourself having that healthy routine that suits you, your lifestyle, and what you think is an improvement, instead of forcing yourself to do things you’re not even sure you care about.
There is simply nothing that says all humans must journal, and that this is the only outlet you could have for your thoughts. Some might prefer journaling, others might prefer just going on a run to think things out, and others will pick up the phone and call someone they love. We’re all different, and shouldn’t be following a one-size-fits-all challenge.