TODAY’S NEWS. TOMORROW’S INSIGHTS.A daily newsletter from McKinsey & Company
Brought to you by Liz Hilton Segel, chief client officer and managing partner, global industry practices, & Homayoun Hatami, managing partner, global client capabilities
Hack your goals. Just over a month into 2023, many people may already be struggling to maintain their New Year’s resolutions. Some ideas to help keep them going include making a list of activities that bring you joy, setting a goal, homing in on small wins, adding a new habit to a current one that you enjoy doing, turning to people for support, and bringing along a friend to encourage you. In addition, one US resident, at the age of 66, set a goal of learning to play the piano. Her advice: don’t be afraid to try something new. [WaPo]
Minding mental health. Taking better care of your health also means taking care of your mental health. This includes watching for burnout and its physical symptoms, understanding how burnout is different from depression, finding an enjoyable workout, and spending more time outdoors. An additional tip is to find ways to use anxiety in your favor. As an example, feeling anxious might be a sign that there’s a problem in your life and that something needs to change. Through facing one’s fears, embracing anxiety might also encourage personal growth. [NYT]
Greater control over great health. As McKinsey Health Institute coleader Lars Hartenstein and his coauthor ask in a recent article: “If changing an aspect of your life within your control decreased the odds of acquiring dementia by 25%, would you want to know about it?” Currently, more than 90% of all healthcare expenditures are spent on treating physical disease or physical symptoms. Meanwhile, less than 5% of modifiable drivers of health are defined consistently or at all, captured systematically, and made broadly available as data.
Look closer. McKinsey has identified 23 drivers of health—with many of them sitting outside of conventional healthcare systems. Among the arguments that McKinsey research supports are that mental, social, and spiritual health are as important as physical health and are deeply interconnected; that health is mostly about the ability to function, and not just death and disease; and that people are more than patients, deserving to be empowered with greater health literacy. Learn about the drivers of health, and break out of the healthcare matrix.
— Edited by Katherine Tam, editor, New York
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