If you’re anything like me and you still have yet to pick a New Year’s resolution, here are the top 10 resolutions people try to keep from least to most. Maybe you’ll find one you want to adopt as your own or find out why you could never keep yours.
#10: Learn Something New Every Day
Lots of people try to learn something or at least find out something new every day for a whole year. Most people end up giving up after a few days because they “don’t have enough time.” If this is something you want to adopt as your New Year’s resolution you can subscribe to Wikipedia’s Featured Article mailing list or check out Crash Course videos or TED Talks on YouTube. This resolution can be a fun way to learn new things; you can excel in classes or just delight your friends with random bits of knowledge.
#9: Read More
Another resolution centered around learning more is reading more. Whether you want to read more fiction or nonfiction or even both, this is a fun way to spend your year. Unfortunately, once again, people do not have enough time to read very many books. If you want to try reading some good books in 2017 you can check out my article on 9 books everyone should read. Even if you only read one book this upcoming year it would be one book more than you had read before.
#8: Spend More Time With Family and Friends
This is one of the resolutions most people can follow through on. Spending time with your loved ones is something everyone should try to do more because you never know how much time you have left with them. There are so many fun things to do with your family and friends all year long. You could go to a movie, get lunch, or even go for a hike.
#7: Pick Up A New Hobby
Whether it be knitting or playing the ukulele, at some point everyone has tried to learn a new skill or hobby. And what better time to start than the start of a new year? If you can make the time to practice something, it will take 21 days to form a habit and then you can really get better at whatever you decide to pick up. As long as you stick with it, you can pick up any hobby and become very good at it.
#6: Save More Money
Whether saving more money means you spend less money on trivial things or picking up more shifts at work when you can, it is always a good idea to have money saved in case of emergencies or if something special comes up. There are several helpful ways to save more money and stay on budget, including free budget worksheets. You could even create your own spreadsheet or use good old-fashioned pen and paper.
#5: Keep A Journal
A journal can be something as simple as a diary or as complex as a daily bullet journal. Your journal can be a place to vent your emotions or keep track of things to do. Journals are very helpful, but a lot of people struggle on what to put in them. Here is a list of 6 things every bullet journal needs. If you are looking for a more relaxed method of journal taking, try writing a diary. It doesn’t have to be every day, but just writing down your feelings is a good way to vent and get things out.
#4: Get and Stay Organized
Everyone tries to get organized at some point, but most fail because they get so caught up in other things that their stuff just piles up and never gets taken care of. Once you get organized, if you set aside 20 minutes every day to stay that way, it won’t seem like such a daunting task after long. And if you’re anything like me, your first step to staying organized should probably be to set a reminder to get organized.
#3: Enjoy Your Life
Even if it’s just going outside for a few minutes or meditating to stay peaceful, enjoying your life and living it to the fullest is very important. Everyone deserves to be happy and if you can set aside at least an hour every day to do something you enjoy, then you will be on the fast track to becoming the happiest person alive. Here are 50 ways to enjoy life and if you can set aside time to do at least a few of them you will be much happier.
#2: Stop Procrastinating
This is one of the biggest New Year’s resolutions, perhaps because so many people do procrastinate. And if you’re anything like me, you’re reading this article because you’re procrastinating doing something right now. This is one of the hardest things to follow through on because literally everything else is so much more interesting than what you’re supposed to be doing. Trust me, as someone with ADHD I know how hard it can be to stop procrastinating and get down to business (to defeat the Huns!) but it is something that has to be done. If you can get yourself to focus and work on what you need to do you will have more free time later. Stopping procrastination is a hard task, but these 11 tips should help you stop procrastinating and start focusing.
#1: The Big One: Lose Weight/Exercise More
The resolution most people say they’re going to do is work out and stay healthy. Staying active is very important if you want to stay healthy. Most clothing retailers and sports stores play to this desire of people’s to work out around the new year; so they have big sales on activewear and equipment. If you really want to keep this resolution try these 10 tips to stick to your resolution.
So, if at the end of this, you still haven’t found a resolution you’d like to try, you can check out this book of "50 New Year's Resolutions: How to Make Them, How to Keep Them." Hopefully, you find one you feel confident you can stick to.
