A Better New Year’s Resolution:
Objective: Find one (two at the most!!) resolutions from this list to try and keep. Keep, meaning to allow these changes to become habits! These resolutions are specifically meant to be very small changes in the beginning that can have very big effects on your life and the lives of others long term.
Tips and Tricks:
- You don’t have to wait until a new year to try and make a positive change in your life.
- You are human. You will fail and miss a day, or two, or three…. Don’t give up and go back to your usual self because you took a small break. Pick up where you left off and keep moving forward.
- When you do pick a resolution for yourself, make sure it is something you enjoy doing. Don’t try and force yourself to train for a marathon if you absolutely hate running.
- When you do pick a resolution for yourself, be specific and detailed about it. Plan ahead and work backwards from the end goal. If your resolution is to save $1,000 in 2020 for retirement or a trip or a kid’s college fund, plan out where that money is going to come from. Do you pack your lunch once or twice a week instead of buying it? Do you find one or two things you subscribe to monthly that you don’t use and cancel those memberships? Don’t expect your resolution, whatever it is, to just happen without planning for it.
- Start small. Don’t try and achieve your entire resolution in one day, one month, or even longer! A resolution is supposed to change a bad habit you have, or address something about you that you wish to improve. It is not meant to be a short-term trial that you quit after a few weeks and then just return to your normal self. Studies show that you need at least 21 CONSECUTIVE DAYS to develop a habit.
- Get a friend involved! Studies show that if you have a friend or partner to help motivate and guide you, you are much more likely to succeed and keep your goal.
Physical Resolutions
- Lose weight
- Just a warning, this is going to be the hardest resolution to keep and is not a good idea for most people because it takes so much more than just going to the gym more often. It takes mental strength, emotional strength, physical strength, and most of the time, the results don’t equal the work you put in.
- If you do decide that this is the resolution for you try these tips to help
- Start off with small goals. Don’t set a number of pounds you want to lose. This sets you up for failure. Start by losing one pound and maintaining that new weight. Then work on losing another pound and maintaining that weight. The biggest loser is not real life and how weight loss works. You will have weeks (or months) where you don’t lose any weight or actually gain some back. This resolution truly has to be a life change, not something you can do for 6 months and then quit.
- Don’t set a number of days a week you want to work out, this sets you up for failure. Instead, start by just exercising one day a week more than you do now. After a month or two or once you have established this as a new habit, exercise an additional day a week.
- When you do exercise, know your limitations. If you can’t run, then walk, if you can’t lift weights, then do body weight exercises. Injuries will derail anyone’s New Year’s resolution.
- Don’t burn yourself out. If you need a break or need to take a day or week off, take it. You will fail if you push yourself too hard and burn yourself out.
- Download a calorie counting app and make sure you log the food you eat accurately! You won’t believe how many carbs and calories are in some foods!
Mental Resolutions
- Lose “mental weight” or baggage
- Not all weight you are carrying is stored around the midsection or thighs. Some of the weight you can lose is stored in your mind.
- People walk around with mental baggage every single day. Maybe you did something wrong years ago and never forgave yourself for what you did. Maybe somebody did you wrong years ago and you never got over it and let it go. Not leaving the past in the past can slowly suck the life out of you and leave you drained physically, mentally, and emotionally.
- What things, events, or people cause you stress and need to be removed from your life? Do you have a bad habit or addiction that is limiting who you are and what potential you have?
- Have a more positive attitude and outlook on life
- Do you surround yourself with negativity and depressing things? Reading negative articles online can make you feel depressed or even angry about the world you live in. Watching the news can make you sad or fearful of the people and communities around you. Social media can make you feel envious, resentful, greedy, depressed, and enraged towards others in your life. A lot of these feelings stem from the inability to control or change the world around you leaving a sense of anxiety and hopelessness.
Spiritual Resolutions
- This does not have to relate to your religious beliefs. Actually, you can be an atheist and still be able to make spiritual resolutions. As long as you know the difference between “right and wrong”, you make spiritual decisions every day of your life. Some people say that they have a “soul” inside of them, as if it is a body part like your stomach or liver. Some people use their “conscience” to help make decisions. And some say they just “had a gut feeling”.
- Conscience – an inner feeling or voice viewed as an active guide to the rightness or wrongness of one’s behavior.
- If you know the difference between legal and illegal or right and wrong, you make spiritual or moral decisions. Birds do not make moral decisions, neither do lions or bears. They rely solely on survival instincts to live. They kill without remorse or regret, and every decision they make is to their benefit. This is called “survival of the fittest”.
- This is what separates humans from animals. If we didn’t have a spiritual or moral part to us, murder would not be wrong. If we didn’t have a “soul” or “conscience”, there would be no children’s cancer hospitals. Children with a life-threatening illness would not be saved and the parents would simply just have another child with better genes and a better chance of survival.
- A good example of this is with sea turtles and how they reproduce.
- A female sea turtle will lay up to 100 eggs on the beach when she is ready to reproduce. Those sea turtles hatch and immediately have to crawl their way from the beach back into the ocean. Along this couple hundred feet journey are several different types of predators ready and waiting to snatch up the newly hatched baby turtles and eat them. Many of these turtles who haven’t even been alive for one day end up as dinner for another animal.
- If the human race acted under the same guidelines, we would need to have a lot more kids to make up for the few that “didn’t make it back to the ocean”. Otherwise, our species would not survive long term.
- Resolve to make better spiritual decisions
- Are you involved with something that you know deep down is illegal or wrong?
- Do you use or abuse drugs?
- Do you use or abuse people?
- Do you gossip about others behind their back?
- Do you cheat on your taxes?
- Do you steal from others?
- Do you lie to others or yourself to make yourself feel better?
- This area again is what makes us unique and special as human beings: the feeling of empathy towards others
- What things can you resolve to change that will make you a more righteous person to yourself or to others around you?
- Is there something you can do to make yourself a more self-LESS person instead of a SELF-ish person?
Emotional Resolutions
- Has someone hurt you emotionally or do you feel envious or jealous of others around you? Are you holding a grudge against someone that you just can’t let go of? These kinds of feelings can leave emotional scars.
- A physical wound over time heals and leaves just a small scar behind. An emotional wound can be left open if you don’t allow it to heal. Unlike physical scars, emotional scars can be reopened easily over and over again.
- These wounds in turn can not only effect you emotionally but can spill over into your mental health and your physical health, leaving you depressed, tired, and sluggish.
- Emotional scars left open and untreated will then affect those around you, from coworkers to those closest to you.
- If this is the area of your life that you want to make a “new year’s resolution” in, you may not be able to do it on your own, and that’s ok.
- Get a professional counselor or see a psychologist
- If it is really severe, see a psychiatrist and see if prescription medication to supplement along with counseling is right for you
Relational Resolutions
- Some of us need to end a relationship with another person to start our “new year’s resolution”. You can be stuck in an abusive or toxic relationship that can be harmful to you on all of these levels that were discussed.
- These toxic relationships can be with a coworker, a spouse, a friend, or even a parent.
- This one again, depending on the relationship you have with the person, may need intervention with others to resolve this issue. The first step is talking to someone that can lead you in the right direction and get you started.
Now go back up to the top of this article and re-read the tips and tricks. Pick only one or two things to change about you. Start small. Take baby steps in the right direction. If you miss a day, pick up where you left off the next day. Over time you will notice your bad habits disappear or turn into good habits leading to a happier and healthier life. Best of luck with your “new year’s resolution”.