The end of the year is a time of reflection, community, family, isolation and loneliness for many, and indulgence and resolutions for health and well-being in the next year's resolutions. Each year, motivation spikes, the January sprint ensues, and for many, it then fades away into all-too-familiar regret and a sense of failure. So, how can we sustain well-being long after the excitement of the calendar flipping over has faded into remembering to write the date correctly?

I spoke with well-being expert and physician Siddharth Ashvin Shah, an old friend and colleague with a wealth of experience and wisdom, about this very subject. Hope you find this as useful as I do.

Grant H. Brenner: What are the biggest challenges over the holidays?

Siddharth Ashvin Shah: For many of us, the holidays can feel like we are a Tree in the Storm: The wind is gusting on all sides, and we’re expected not just to bend, but to stay rooted, upright, festive. Our well-being is challenged by affordability concerns, busy scheduling, rich food, calories, and the internal pressure of expectation: to be joyful, generous, connected, and whole—all at once.

Three challenges are frequently stacked on each other:

So the real challenge? Not the weather—it’s fragmentation in the face of so much happening at once. It’s finding ways........

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