New Year resolution is a personal resolve one makes to have a positive and successful behavioral change, improve the quality of life and achieve a set of goals for that year.
It is not quite uncommon that just a few New Year resolutions are met. Others are either not met at all or not fully accomplished, because in most cases it might seem to be easier said than done.
But from statistics, people attribute their failures to not being able to follow suit, forgot about the resolution, or having unworkable goals.
But have you ever wondered how New Year resolutions came about?
Making New Year resolutions has been an old tradition. It has been practiced in the western world such as Europe, which started from the Babylonians and Romans.
They started it by making promises to their gods at the start of each year to Christians beginning each year. It normally kicks off with resolutions and prayers that will keep them prepared for the year.
The practices then slowly were accepted and practiced in the eastern world and have since then spread like wildfire all over the universe.
Nonetheless, they are cool ideas that can help you achieve a better New Year resolution. They are not unrealistic resolutions, but the ones that can make your year a memorable and great one.
Highlighted below are 15 successful New Year resolution tips for you
- Be a better version of yourself
Everyone’s prayer or wish is to be better than what they used to be. The rich prays to be the richer, the successful ones pray for more success, and farmers pray for a fruitful harvest. So, you see, no one wants to be limited to where he or she is now.
Therefore, you ought to check all these! When you sit down and reflect on your past, achievements and failures, your personality traits and shortcomings, are they really what you want?
If the reverse is the case, nothing else comes to mind except to do better in order to become a better version of yourself.
- Be organized
Disorganization comes with improper control as well as planning. Again, the inability to plan one’s activities well most of the time leads to failure.
Being organized at all times offers great benefits. Not only will it make you productive, but it will also help you focus on more important things and as well, save you time.
So if you want to have a better year, get organized. Like magic, you will go farther than you never expected.
- Be punctual
Punctuality is a great personal quality which shows seriousness and preparedness, reliability, and professionalism.
Being punctual help in time management, make you finish your task on time and as when needed. And for those in group tasks or projects, it won’t affect your part of the project.
So have you been going to work, school, and meetings late? Then, this has to be on your list of New Year resolutions so as to create a better year.
Here are some quotes that might help give you an insight into what being punctual entails.
- By Wes Fesler – “It is quite difficult to prove yourself reliable when people are required to wait for you”.
- By Thomas Chandler Halliburton –“Punctuality is the business of the soul”.
- By John Andreas Widtsoe – “Preparedness and punctuality are two of the most important qualities of a leader”.
- James Murray Mason – “Want of punctuality is a want of virtue”.
- Meet new people
Meeting new people and making new friends is a hobby to some persons. However, it serves as an opportunity to have increased knowledge. A new friend can offer ideas that can help you solve a problem.
When you are limited to old friends, families and loved ones, you may not be able to explore new ideas or even have better opportunities. But with new friends you can share new ideas and get new chances.
Are you the type that feels content with the people around you? It’s high time to come out of your shell and make this New Year resolution. It can show you and give you a better understanding of what life is.
Expand your horizon now, because gaining new ideas, new experiences and different encounters make life more enjoyable.
- Be skillful
Having skills and developing them is one way to become successful in life – What is a success without skills?
Are you a student? you need skills too, which includes:
- Spoken and written skills
- How to analyze information
- Good time management
- Problem-solving
- Adaptability
- Critical thinking and many more.
Are you an employee, you need skills as well for productivity.
- Good communication
- Being creative
- Able to work as a team
- Positive Work ethic
- Organization
- Self-management
- Flexibility
- Analytical thinking and more.
Having skills are not limited to only students and employees, but extends to every category of individuals. It also helps to build our confidence, makes us better, and great leaders.
- Learn to read
Do you aspire to be a better person this year? then you have to read more. Reading is a wonderful tool that helps us to gain knowledge.
It envelops not just our thought but psychological, emotional and mental wellbeing. Therefore, to be successful and smarter this year, let reading be among your new year resolutions because its importance can’t be overemphasized.
- Have a positive mindset
A popular quote by Roy T. Bennet says– “Be mindful. Be positive. Be true. Be kind.” Another one from Winston Churchill says – “The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible and achieves the impossible.
Sometimes, things don’t work the way we thought it would, and because of that, we might be discouraged to move forward and get blinded to see better days ahead.
To make our New Year resolution a successful one, we have to be positive-minded. Feed yourself with inspirational and motivational quotes that will keep you going.
In this way, you can stand on your feet when you fall and know that every failure is a stepping stone to success.
- Cut back on social media time
Do you want New Year’s resolutions that can help you achieve more this year? Do you want to channel your time on things that matter the most? Do you think you spend more time on social media? Then do not forget to add it to your new year’s resolution list.
From recent research made, most people spend 75% of their time on social media platforms like Facebook, twitter, snap chat, Instagram, YouTube and the rest, with more than 60% being adults between the ages of 18 – 40 years.
These platforms are good when used for businesses because of the large number of the audience. They connect one with his or her near and distant families, serves as a tool to pass information faster and even more.
So when you find yourself spending much time more than supposed on these platforms, then you have to make resolution to spend less. Do so and channel your time and energy to better things.
- Have a quality time with families
As the popular saying goes – family is everything. And one of my popular quotes is -family time is quality time”
Sometimes, work and other issues of life can deprive us of the love and bond of our families, and loved ones. But we can still create time for them because the memories we share with remain with us for a lifetime.
- Stay fit
Fitness is one of the best ways we can stay healthy. It can come either through a healthy diet, exercise or other healthy practices.
Sometimes, we fall victim to not meeting up to our fitness goal, but once you are focused, determined, and have a motivational force, then you are likely to succeed.
Do you want to gain muscles? Are you overweight? See yourself with that dream body by or before the end of the year.
Start seeing yourself as what you want to be. This can serve as a driving force to make you stay focused. We have to greatly take care of our bodies because definitely, that’s the only place we get to live in.
- Hold no grudges
Having grudges can make us not to attain our set of goals in life. This is most certainly true because when we harbor pain, hatred and negative expressions in our heart, it will always pull us down.
- Save more, spend less
Do you want more money this year, then you have to cut back on some expenses like shopping, spend money wisely and prioritize your needs, as it will make you focus on what is more important.
- Travel Often
Traveling helps to improve health and reduce stress. Also, it provides also a platform to learn new things, culture and tradition inclusive.
It makes one explore new ideas, meet and interact with people from different backgrounds, have creative thoughts and memories that will last a lifetime.
- Overcome addiction and bad habits
Most time, our new year’s resolution might come with lists of things that one would like to stop, like drinking, smoking, and other bad habits. This might be harmful to us like eating cold foods which are not proper like biting of nails.
Firstly, you have to list out the effects of those things you want to stop. Then, look at them every day to serve as a steady reminder for reasons why you would need to quit.
- Make yourself happy
When we realize that our happiness isn’t attached to money, work, or other material things then we will have less broken hearts and sad people.
Making ourselves happy is one of the ways to stay healthy and live longer. Success is not the key to happiness.
Happiness is the key to success. If you love want you are doing, you will be successful – Herman Cain.
Bottom Line
These above tips will help you have a successful New Year’s resolutions. But know that when we write our New Year resolutions on a paper, we may lose it or not remember. However, when we have them in our hearts, it will follow us wherever we go and serve as a constant reminder.