Top New Year’s Resolutions
- Lose weight
- Set realistic goals
- Make a plan- what exercises you’ll do, how often will you do them, what eating habits you’ll change, who will support your journey,
- You don’t have to join a gym, resolve to walking every night after work, or getting a video to do in your living room
- Use a flexible diet plan- cutting foods out completely leave you feeling deprived and make it harder to stick to- set yourself up for success!
- Be patient, weight won’t fall off over night so don’t give up. Let your body adjust to the new lifestyle and expect ups and downs along the way- it’s normal
- Manage debt (36%)
- Don’t focus on a debt free life, focus on debt management. Paying off debt takes time, so learn how to manage the debt you have and work on getting it down
- Replace bad habits, compulsive shopping and emotional shopping add up. If you find that shopping helps reduce stress, or improves your mood, replace that with something else. Exercise is proven to improve a person’s mood over time, so when you feel stressed or angry, go for a jog and you’ll feel better long term
- Make it fun. Find ways to make paying off debts, set goals and celebrate when a goal is reached. Remember those thermometer looking goal meters for fundraisers? Make one for your debt, and color it in as you pay It off. Anything you find that makes it more enjoyable will help you to success
- Take the credit cards out of your wallet! If you can, cut them up, if you can’t, at the very least hide them, the easier the access to the cards, the easier it’ll be to use them
- Save money (30%)
- Don’t keep your money in the checking account. Let your money work for you, keep it in a savings account and let it gain interest
- Actively search out deals, you can almost ALWAYS find a better deal, so don’t buy something at the first place you see. Shop around. It takes more time but it’s often worth the savings. My son was sick a few weeks ago and the doctor recommended we buy a humidifier, so I went to the drug store (which shall remain nameless, I don’t want to get in trouble) and it was $80. My husband insisted we go look at Wal-Mart which just annoyed me because I was anxious to get home to my little guy, and we found the exact same model for $35, that’s more than 50% savings! So it can really pay off to shop around
- Buy quality products… The cheapest deal isn’t always the best deal. I’ve learned this the hard way, I love a great deal on a pair of shoes, but when they fall apart after only a few wears, I didn’t get a great deal after all.
- Use coupons, rebates and reward cards
- Better education
- Start small- it’s hard to get back into school, especially if you’ve been out for a while. So start by taking one or two courses at the community college and build back up to a full course load. It takes time but is a great goal to achieve so be patient and stick with it. I know it’s much easier said than done, I’ve gone back to college twice and I’m nowhere near a degree… Maybe third time’s a charm? Let’s hope so because this is one of my resolutions this year.
- Quit smoking
- if you feel any cravings you can instantly overcome them by taking three deeper breaths.
- Write down your reasons for wanting to quit smoking on a piece of paper and keep it in your purse or wallet, when you feel the urge, read the list to remind yourself why you’re doing this
- Make your environment conducive to quit smoking. Throw away ashtrays, lights and other items you associate with smoking
- If you use your smoking to take little breaks throughout the day, don’t stop taking the breaks, just do something different. Take a walk, grab a cup of tea, or glass of water.
- Get support, encourage friends or family to quit with you, or help support your goal to quit.
- Reward yourself! Set milestones and reward yourself for hitting one week, one month, one year.
- Reduce stress
- Learn how to say no- don’t take on extra work or projects that you don’t have time for
- Avoid people that stress you out
- Make a Have Done list… We all rely on our To-Do lists to get through the day or week, so make a have done list and move things over a you complete them. Then you can relish in your productiveness
- Be willing to compromise
- Be more assertive, deal with problems head on, or better yet, try to anticipate problems so you can prevent them all together!
- Look at the big picture, we all get stressed out over deadlines or long To-Do lists, so step back and ask yourself how important this is in the long run
- Don’t stress over things you can’t change… You can’t do anything to change the traffic conditions on the freeway, so instead of yelling at the driver that cut you off, leave for work 15 minutes earlier, find side streets or alternative routes
- Get organized
- De-clutter your closet… take out the summer clothes or other items you won’t be wearing any time soon. Donate anything you don’t need and store the things you want to keep in a closet or garage
- Make sure everything has a home, create a place for things around your house, this is especially useful for kids. As long as their toys have a place to go, they’ll get put away
- Computerize your finances… If you haven’t done so already, paying bills online is fast and efficient… and did I mention cheaper? It’s usually free and you’ll save on postage
- When you adjust your clocks in fall and spring, also take the time to weed out old medicine, expired sunscreen and smoke detector batteries
- Don’t buy something unless you have a place to put it. Or better yet, if you bring in something new, remove something old.
- Label anything that contains things, folders, binders, storage boxes
- Stock up on greeting cards, buy enough birthday, Christmas, anniversary cards and organize them by month, so at the beginning of every month, grab the cards you need and mail them out.
- Clean off your desk at the end of every day, it’s much easier to start the day with a clear workspace
