7 New Year’s Resolutions Worth Making

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With each new year, we take the time to come up with a new set of New Year’s resolutions that we then promptly choose not to achieve. Typically, we make too many of them, or we choose them unwisely. Either way, the sad reality is that most of them remain unfulfilled, causing a whole lot of grief.

Let’s take a look at seven resolutions that are truly worth making and that you will want to live up to so badly that you’ll set aside the willpower to tackle them by year’s end.

1. Allocate More Time for Yourself

One of the best decisions you can make any year is to set aside more time for yourself. This doesn’t mean that you need to become more selfish – quite the contrary.

Our busy lifestyles often prevent us from getting enough downtime, and we keep rushing from one task to another. When we learn to slow down and focus on our own needs, we feel much better in our everyday lives. And we definitely become able to achieve more.

2. Do More of What Makes You Happy

While you are busy making more time for yourself in your busy schedule, you should also make it a point to add more of what makes you genuinely happy.

Much of life is spent doing the things we need to do: paying our bills, washing the dishes, going to the birthdays of people we don’t necessarily want to spend time with. In order to make the experience more enjoyable, we need to make a conscious effort to do more of what we honestly enjoy.

There are the little things, like reading a book or spending five minutes in the morning listening to a favorite song. Then there are the big experiences, like traveling to a specific destination, for example. Make the decision to include more of it all in your life.

3. Learn a New Skill

Learning a new skill is always worth it. Whether you improve your cooking technique, learn to play an instrument, or level up a job-related skill, the experience itself will help boost your self-esteem.

If you’re stuck for ideas, try taking the smallest of steps. For instance, you can learn some popular travel phrases in Spanish – an effort that will both pay off while you travel and help introduce you to the language if you haven’t yet worked on learning it.

Set yourself small goals. Learning any skill will take a lot of time, and if you focus on the end goal alone, you may end up feeling frustrated and disappointed.

Related: 5 Things You Must Remember To Succeed At Anything

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

4. Recharge Among the Right People

They say we are a mix of the five people we spend the most time with. If these people happen to drain you of your energy and make you feel negative, your life will be much less enjoyable than it could be.

Take the time to re-evaluate your relationships and how they make you feel. Just because someone is a member of your family doesn’t mean they can’t be toxic or make you feel exhausted or worthless.

There are different kinds of toxic people you want to eliminate from your personal space. And while getting rid of negativity is an admirable goal, you also want to make sure that you surround yourself with people who help you recharge and relax.

5. Learn When to Say Yes and When to Say No

We all say both yes and no to things when we would rather say the opposite. There is no time like the present to examine what drives our decisions and start focusing on making only the ones that truly benefit us.

If you find yourself attending a bunch of children’s birthdays but are currently going through IVF and don’t want to tell anyone about it, stop saying yes. There is nothing wrong with saying no, and you don’t even need to provide a reason – just be polite.

6. Re-evaluate Your Spending Habits

No matter how much you earn on a weekly and monthly basis, take some time to examine your spending habits. Identify the ones you may want to change.

You might even find that you are living well within your means and are able to splurge more often. On the other hand, if you are spending too much, find a way to curb your appetites or start earning more to satiate them.

7. Dream Bigger

Finally, we encourage you to dream bigger – much bigger. If you set yourself smaller goals, you will never achieve the really big ones your heart actually desires. Don’t be shy, and don’t be afraid to aim for the sky.

Just make sure you are realistic and don’t dream about something that will most likely never happen. But if it’s a question of going after a job or aiming to live in a certain neighborhood: go for it!

Final Thoughts

New Year’s resolutions don’t have to be something that sparks fear in our lives. In fact, they should be a motivational aspiration that drives us to become the best versions of ourselves we could possibly be.

By choosing to set any of the seven resolutions we have listed, you’ll be setting yourself up for success and taking concrete steps to improve your life. One small but meaningful step at a time.