Happy Friday everyone and Happy New Year! 2022 surely had it's ups and downs like every year but the start of a new year gives us hope and optimism. I brought my New year in with some great friends and a championship victory in my fantasy football league (humble brag). As we know the new year is an opportunity to turn a page, start new, refresh or however you want to put it. Realistically its just any other day but it's a predestined starting point and if you need to start over or refresh or change something it's a good time to do that. I'm sure either you or someone you know is the champion of loudly boasting about their new years resolutions yet never makes it past a month or two. To me, a resolution can be announced if you need others to hold you credible but realistically it should be for and about you. Through years of trying to better myself I've found a few tricks. First off, I keep my goals to myself. I don't need any outside opinions or suggestions throwing me off or making me feel like I'm not where I need to be. This also allows me to move the needle a little bit. Most the time our goals can be either a little out of reach or maybe even to easily achieved. This gives you wiggle room to adjust it throughout the year without anyone commenting on your progress. Also I like to either stick to one major change you can really focus on and target or a bunch of small changes that individually aren't drastic but together make a difference. When I used to try and get healthy, I'd try to do a ridiculous diet, an intense lifting schedule and going to the extreme on any health related changes. I slowly learned that I was unable to handle these drastic changes for a long period of time. Plus when you cut out all vices you remove pretty much any type of reward system you can set up for yourself. With that in mind let's check out the top 10 New Years resolutions I've seen for this year! Feel free to try one or a few out or write in and give me some ideas for others!
Get Healthy- Let me start off with the most common and most failed. I decided to group together the work out more, lose weight, eat healthier resolutions into one group. Mainly because not everyone's body is the same and being healthy is more important that any number on a scale or restrictive diet. Plus some don't need to lose weight but everyone can be healthier. This is a great example of a resolution you need to start off small and tailor to yourself. If you have a bad habit of drinking soda, try cutting your soda intake in half and replacing it with water. If you get no physical activity, try adding a walk to your schedule a few times a week. If you're already doing that or more than add a rep, or mile or just up your physical activity 30 min a day from what you used to do. Main thing here is stick to goals that you can maintain all year and build on.
Save Money- Probably the second most popular and I mean rightfully so. Everyone, even the richest people you can think of, always want more money. With money comes freedom, peace, fun and more. Sure money doesn't equal happiness but it gives a lot more possibilities. Plus we can't just ignore the price of gas and food and basically everything going up. I'm all for experiences over goods. So my method for "saving" money is to cut out small things that are considered extra. I might go cheaper on food or clothes so I can save up and go places with friends and family. Thankfully I have a forced savings plan to save for my future because I use the money I save myself for fun experiences.
Spend more time with family and fri
ends- This will forever and always be my number one New Years resolution every year. Recently I've come to a full understanding in what I want from life. Now sure, I'd love to be extremely wealthy, maybe famous, respected and all that good stuff. But ultimately, I listened to others, mainly elders, talk about what they regretted in life or enjoyed the most and combined that with realizing when I'm the happiest and truly enjoying life the most when I'm with friends and family to realize that what I want most in life is to spend my limited time here with the people I love as much and as often as I can.
Try a new recipe every week/month- If you cook a lot then maybe aim for once a week. If you're a rookie in the kitchen maybe dial it back to once a month. But either way this is a great resolution for anyone. Cooking at home can be so rewarding. The food is usually better tasting and better for you. It's fun to watch individual ingredients combine into one delicious meal. Cooking is a great skill to have and it's not hard to learn. If you can follow a recipe you can make almost anything. It's also really easy to fall into routines and eat the same thing over and over. This allows some variation and changes. Plus you'll notice yourself getting better and more comfortable in the kitchen every time.
Do something new every month-I love this one and can't believe I have never thought of this. I'm sure most of you have some sort of unofficial, everchanging bucket list but if you're like me you probably haven't crossed much off recently. There's so many things I want to try or do but just don't ever take the initiative to do. I will admit I am stealing this resolution for myself and am going to try my best to force myself to do one new thing every month. To do this I'm going to pick 12 of my favorite but also reasonable bucket list items and plan one out for every month. If I can book them ahead of time I will in order to further incentivize myself to follow through.
Learn a new skill- I feel like humans are doing less and less with their hands every year as we depend more and more on technology. Which is fine for some but there's also a lot of people who aren't or can't keep up with the everchanging world of technology. I've actually focused on this resolution for a handful of years now. The great part is there are so many skills and so many ways to learn them. Whether you want to learn plumbing, woodworking or coding, there are insurmountable amounts of resources to help you learn. Start with YouTube and Reddit and you will find other like minded people who have learned or want to learn that same skill and will be able to help tremendously.
Give one compliment/act of kindness a day-I'll keep this one short and simple. You don't have to keep it to one but try and at least once a day, consciously do or say something nice to someone. Tell them you like their style, hold the door, compliment their latest Facebook picture. It takes basically no time and energy but can really make someone's day.
Read 1 more book- I really feel like reading books is a lost art. Most people I've met haven't read a book since school and often can't remember what the book(s) were even called. So whether you read 0 or 100 books a year, try and read one more book than you did last year.
Go somewhere you've never been- This is definitely on my resolution list. I love to see new places but between time and money sometimes it's hard to just pick up and go. I am determined to pick a place, save and then go there this year. I hope to eventually up this two 2 or 3 new places a year in upcoming years. This is just a great way to get new experiences, meet new people and do and see things you've never experienced.
Call a friend you've lost connection with- I feel like everyone has a friend or friends who they've inexplicably lost touch with. It's usually nobodies fault and as we grow older and get busier, maybe even move or have a family we just lose so much of that free time we had growing up. Even if there was a disagreement or reason you stopped talking, I'd be willing to bet that fight doesn't even matter any more yet there's still a distance between. Well this year is the year to take that initial step, send them a text or dial their number and just say hey. Maybe make plans to catch up or just enjoy a good conversation. The people in our lives are what's most important and we often regret not speaking or seeing people more.