With the year almost over, you may have also started thinking ahead about what you want your 2025 resolutions to be. But some people are not waiting until January 1 to go after their goals. A new TikTok trend has emerged called the “Winter Arc” challenge, where people use the final days of the year to get a headstart on the idealized version of themselves they’d like to emerge in 2025.
Instead of taking the late fall and early winter months to slow down as daylight dwindles and cold weather moves in, the Winter Arc folks are taking this time to get serious about their health, wellness, and self-improvement.
What is the “Winter Arc” challenge?
With nearly 500,000 TikTok posts under the hashtag #winterarc, influencers have taken to social media to showcase their Winter Arc goals, using phrases like “dialing in” and not “letting your foot off the gas.”
As one influencer put it, “The winter arc is all about…getting super laser-focused on your goals, on your personal development, on your growth.”
@carlyupgraded WINTER (ARC) IS COMING ⚔️❄️ you tapping in?? #winterarc #mindset #reinventyourself #realityshifting ♬ original sound - CARLY
Like the 75 Hard challenge—another social media trend where you complete a list of objectives every day, no exceptions—the Winter Arc uses a stay-on-the-grind mindset for habit change. The hope is that at the end of the challenge, you’ll adopt these habits permanently.
There is no set list of rules that everyone adheres to for their Winter Arc. Typically people compile a list of around 10 daily goals, based on their desired areas of growth. There are, however, several themes and specific goals that repeatedly emerge among those who have hopped on the trend—all usually having to do with.
Here are some examples of daily Winter Arc rules:
- Wake up at 5:30 a.m. (or 30 minutes earlier than usual)
- Walk 10,000 steps
- Drink more water
- Read 10 pages or 10 chapters of a book
- Don’t use your phone within the first half hour of waking up
- Exercise (working out X days per week or X minutes per day)
- Journal
- Eat a high-protein diet
Does it work?
Abbey Sharp, dietitian and host of the Bite Back podcast, doesn’t think the challenge is a sustainable way to build healthy habits.
“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,” Sharp tells Fortune. “We’re already so overworked as a culture.”
Sharp says one reason people often don’t stick to New Year’s resolutions is because they’re too unrealistic.
“A lot of the [Winter Arc] recommendations I’m seeing are so over-the-top punishing,” Sharp adds. “It’s so militant to me.”
@justtcocoo Winter arc challenge #workoutchallenge #winterarc #fitnessmotivationdaily #fitnessmotivaton #workoutmotivationforwomen #workoutmotivation #fitnessgoalsinprogress ♬ original sound - Liam Conner
Another pitfall of the trend, Sharp says, is how people can become influenced by videos on social media of others sharing their own—often strict—Winter Arc routines. Followers may believe they should adapt the same rules—only to realize they can’t keep up with trying to improve their diet, exercise, water-intake, and mindfulness every day, especially if they’ve never done those things before. That can lead to someone feeling as though they’ve failed, when in reality the trend itself isn’t safe or practical, and sets you up for failure to begin with, Sharp says.
“Good for one person and healthy for one person may be disordered and stressful…for another person,” Sharp says. And when these strict, short-term challenges are over, people may bounce to the other end of the spectrum.
“Because they’ve been deprived of pleasure for so long…you see a little bit of a rebound,” Sharp says.
“We don’t like as humans to be in a scarcity mentality. We will always compensate in future seasons of life.”
Try this mindset instead to see results
Rather than trying the all-or-nothing approach where you have a set timeframe to get on your personal-growth grind, Sharp recommends setting wellness goals throughout the year that you can easily incorporate into your daily routine over time.
To start, Sharp recommends reflecting on what your intention is when you identify what you’d like to improve in your life.
“Is the intention to punish yourself? Or is the intention coming from a place of self-care and body kindness?” Sharp says. “Does waking up at 4:30 in the morning feel helpful to you?”
Focus on one habit at a time rather than a long list of daily wellness to-dos that might be discouraging. For many people, that is sleep. Once you master that, Sharp says, you’ll likely have more energy to dedicate to other habits like diet and exercise.
“When you start taking care of yourself in one area of life, it often has a trickle effect,” she says.
Sharp also firmly believes in an additive mindset. Incorporating more healthy behaviors can help edge out ones you’re trying to grow out of. That can look like adding more fruits and vegetables to your diet, rather than hopping on a restrictive eating plan, Sharp says.
Over time, you may find you’ve naturally built up a healthy routine, instead of forcing it to happen.
More on healthy habits:
- Here’s the right way to start running
- Waking up at 5 a.m. every day could improve your life. 5 key steps can help make it work for you
- How TikTok’s ‘October Theory’ can make you happier and more successful by the end of the year
- Working out just 1 or 2 days each week may lower your risk of over 200 diseases, new study finds
