I have a confession to make. Some of my New Year’s resolutions in recent years haven’t exactly been ambitious. One year, I told myself I’d have one less sugar in my coffee – I know, it’s pretty embarrassing, but at least I stuck to it.
Since then, I’ve always told myself to reach for the stars when it comes to New Year’s resolutions. I’m aware that, for some people, these resolutions are the target of ridicule. They get plenty of flak from the more cynically-minded who like to poke fun at, what they’d argue is their futility. That every year, millions of people make themselves a promise that they won’t keep.
But I’m an eternal optimist. New Year’s resolutions can be broken promises, but they can also represent an individual’s acknowledgement that they need to make a change in their life. These resolutions are the first chapters in the success stories for millions of people, and that’s worth celebrating.
As I alluded to earlier, I’ve taken my New Year’s resolutions more seriously lately and had some success. The changes I’ve made have all revolved around making myself happier and healthier, because, frankly, what is more important?
Without any further ado, here are some of my recommendations:
Drop Your Vice
I’ve chosen to be quite broad here because, with the bitter pills that life asks us to swallow all too often, we all choose something different to help it go down. Personally, I was a smoker. While I was an avid smoking enthusiast – going through a pack every couple of days, I knew that it was doing me no good. Even the packs told me so.
So when January 1st, 2024, rolled around, that was it. I restructured my life to fill the cigarette-shaped hole with a renewed focus on sport; I set myself the goal of running a 10K in May, so much of my free time revolved around that instead. And if I ever had any cravings, I either went out for a run, chewed gum, or used Killa Nicopods, which granted me a dose of nicotine, minus the 7000 harmful toxins inhaled in a cigarette.
But just to be clearer, this resolution is about more than smoking. I’m sure lots of you reading this are fighting other battles, whether it’s drinking, drug abuse, or even struggles with food. I suppose what I’ve learned is that there are no shortcuts. You are the only person who can take the necessary actions to end your dependence on something that, like it or not, is unhealthy and doing you no good.
You will need resilience and determination, and you will need to make broader changes in your life to help you move forward. There will be dark moments where it’ll feel so much easier to turn around and walk back. But after enough steps forward, there will come a day when you’re happier and healthier, and you will allow yourself to finally feel something that you may have struggled to let yourself feel before: pride.
Reach Your Physical Potential
January 1st is probably the busiest day at every gym on planet earth. Becoming fitter and stronger is a popular New Year’s resolution for good reason. Besides a slight risk of injury, it’s difficult to come up with any negatives to training in the gym a couple of times a week.
With every workout, you’re improving how your body functions. Whether you’re focusing on cardio – hitting the bike, rower, or stepper, or putting your time into building muscle and lifting slightly heavier weights every single week, you are making your body better at what it was designed to do.
This rings especially true for those of us who are working sedentary desk jobs – my legs are about as useful as a chocolate teapot at work. Our bodies were not designed to be glued to a chair for 40 years of our lives – screw that.
I’ve also found that an underrated element of training at the gym is the improvement I’ve seen in my mental health. I’ve previously suffered from depression and social anxiety. My mind was either filled with feelings of inadequacy or reaching breaking point, with too many unhelpful thoughts to count. But if I put an 80kg bar in my hands and tell myself to lift it again, and again, and again, you can bet that my mind is only thinking about one thing: that 80kg bar.
Then, when I went to work after a morning workout, meetings that might’ve previously caused stress or anxiety no longer did. After all, I spent my morning pushing 300kg with my legs, so what’s a meeting at the office after that?
It’s never too late, either. Recent evidence has shown that weight training in the over-60s helps prevent falls and reduce the risk of muscular aches and pains. So what are you waiting for?
If You Don’t Like Yours, Get a New Job
I said healthier and happier, so this resolution falls into the latter category. Last year, I’d spent four years of my life working a perfectly ok, well-paying job. But with each and every monotonous Teams call, forced-fun corporate away day and Sunday scary, I could feel it in my bones that I couldn’t do it for much longer. So I made it my resolution to change jobs and pursue something that I’m more passionate about, which could eventually evolve into a more fulfilling career.
Now I’m glad I did, and I’d wager that there are plenty of people out there, in that same boat, feeling trapped in a job that they ‘fell into’. This might be a tough pill to swallow, but your life shouldn’t just be a series of things that you ‘fall into’. You can make stuff happen, so when that concerns your work – the thing you will spend most of your life doing – I’d recommend taking it seriously.
Final Thoughts
If you’ve struggled to think of any resolutions, then I hope you’ve found something here that gives you some inspiration. Being healthier and happier is something that we should all strive for, and you probably don’t even need to make any massive changes; just tweak and refine, and try to be better. You don’t need to become a ‘new you’ this new year, just a happier or healthier one.