The Metro: New year, new you? Creating healthy habits in 2025

It’s the new year — a time when we often reflect on the things we did well last year and — more often — the things we’d like to improve. 

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Many make New Year’s resolutions to hit the gym more often, develop better work habits, or to be kinder or more generous to others. But embodying New Year’s goals takes practice, dedication and persistence. That kind of repetitive action we know as habits — something that we do again and again and again, until it feels like it’s part of us. 

But how do we get to that point? Andrea Spyros, a behavior design consultant with BD3 Solutions, joined the show to dig into this topic and give some reassurance and advice on becoming your best self in 2025. 

Spyros says success can be as simple as reframing your goals and thinking about them in a different way.

“Goals can also help us grow,” he said. “It’s really about who we become in the process of trying to attain that goal right, and how we experience ourselves.”

In the second hour of The Metro, we asked listeners:

“What are your goals for 2025?”

Carlos in Redford said he doesn’t have a resolution, but a word that’s helping him through the year. 

“I have just a one word mantra for the new year, which is intentionality — just doing things more intentional when you actually get to doing them,” he said. “It can be overwhelming when you want to do this, do that, do that, and the other thing. But for example, if you want to visit your parents more, just make sure when you do it that you’re more intentional on the type of quality time you’re spending.”

Use the media player above to listen to the full conversation.

More headlines from The Metro on Jan. 7, 2024: 

• Every day, we’re exposed to chemicals that can affect our health. Endocrine-disrupting chemicals are of particular concern. They’re in everything from plastics and pesticides to personal care products. And they can alter how our hormones behave and lead to serious health problems and disease. Wayne State University Professor Christopher Kassostis studies these chemicals. He joined the show to discuss his work, helping us to better understand how endocrine-disrupting chemicals affect metabolic issues, like obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
• The Detroit Police Department released its year-end crime report and recorded the lowest number of homicides since 1965. It’s the second consecutive year homicides have dropped in Detroit. City officials point to a relatively new community violence intervention program as the reason why. In 2023, the city partnered with six community groups to reduce gun violence. Zoe Kennedy, executive director of Force Detroit — one of the partnering organizations doing this work — joined the show.
• Martin Luther King Jr. Day is coming up and to honor him, Hamtramck’s Planet Ant theatre is presenting the musical “Nixon/King,” a fictional account of a meeting between President Richard Nixon and MLK Jr. in a Georgia prison. To talk about the musical and the perceptions of these two figures, Assistant Director and actor Dylan Mirisola and actor Itaysha Walker both joined the show.

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