Test: What’s your personal winter wellbeing focus?

Recognising the good in yourself will boost your confidence at any time of year, but it’s particularly key during times of transition, which can leave you feeling out of kilter. You may be aware that shorter, darker days lower your mood and energy levels but still feel frustrated when it impacts you every year. It’s more than a physical effect – low mood can mean you reframe your life through a negative lens, shaking your confidence, self-image, and self-belief.

If left unchecked, it can leave you questioning whether you can cope or what’s the purpose of your life. Recognising this is the key to managing its impact on you this year. It’s also about taking time to consciously recognise your strengths and achievements as an antidote to your mind’s negativity bias.

That might mean mentally noting something that went well at the end of every day and what part you played in making it happen. Tempting as it may be to hibernate until spring, this is a time when you will thrive on connection, support, and validation. It’s also a time to turn up the self-compassion – not only will being kinder to yourself protect your self-belief, it will help create the emotional space you need to tune into winter’s tiny moments of joy and to be more open and understanding of others.