After your crazy night partying and celebrating for the New Years, it is time to settle down and decide on the best, most effective way to spend your New Year. Every day you wake up you can decide to be a better version of yourself to make changes. You do not have to wait for this one holiday to make changes, but it is a convenient time to start the change because you can follow through on the change for the whole year and for the years to come. 

There are always the classic resolutions, such as to do better at school and to go on a diet. These are good habits and lifestyles to live by, but there are other resolutions that no one thinks of that can help change a life for the better. Not all resolutions have to be huge and major. They can be a lot of little things you do that add up to a big change. In this article, I will be discussing a wide range of resolutions. From big ones to little ones, resolutions regarding a person’s physical, spiritual, and emotional state. The major resolutions that make the most change are often the ones that positively impact others as well. For instance, if you spend more time with your family and try to have polite conversations, rather than arguments then that helps both you and your family. You benefit from this because you become a better son or daughter and your family becomes happier that they are closer to you.

Let’s start with the easier resolutions that can help your physical state.

Go to the grocery store and add some citrus to your diet. Citrus foods have vitamin c which is amazing for the skin, hair, nails, and overall health. It contains an important property, collagen. Collagen helps tremendously with agins. It stops from wrinkling and keeps the outward appearance healthy and glowy. Some tasty citrus foods would be grapefruits, clementines etc. you can even incorporate these foods into a smoothie to start off every morning.

Another easy way to take care of your body on the inside is by booking a doctor visits to check up on your health. People tend to only go to doctors when they are sick or need them. As you get older and even when you are young and vibrant it is always a good idea to visit your local doctor to make sure you are healthy, therefore you do not get to the point of being sick as frequently. Sometimes you may think that you are healthy, but in fact are lacking in one area or another. And sadly, there is always the case that you may have a form or cancer or something terminal that you can stop by finding out about it before the sickness is past the point of curing.

Another resolution I strongly believe in is therapy. Often, people believe that they only need to go to a therapist when they are severely depressed or have a mental illness. This is in fact not true. Even if you are only stressed or mildly depressed. If there is something weighing heavily on your mind, it feels good in the heart to simply talk to someone who has great advice and is willing to be there for you and listen. Just the act of talking to someone sets your mind free and receiving helpful advice is even better. Sometimes we store things up throughout the year until we blow up. It is great to see someone monthly to get out our feelings and our stress. Talking time for our issues and bringing attention to them is the fastest and healthiest way to help them to change you for the better.

If do not have the money or are not willing to spend it on therapy then there is a simple, cheaper solution at home. Every night or every morning you can reflect by writing in a journal about what is bothering you, how to solve it, what happened in your day, your feelings etc. writing out your feelings is also effective similar to talking. You can keep these reflections to yourself and as the years passes you can see how you have improved.

Now this resolution may be hard for every teenager out there, but a very effective change would be to spend less time on social media. I am not suggesting to spend no time at all because I will always believed that social media can and should be used for good rather than a platform to feel worse about yourself or to bully others. Let’s be honest, we pretty much all wake up to our phone. It is our alarm and the bright screen wakes us up as we scroll through instagram feed or send our snapchat streaks. Instead of starting your day that is open to all possibilities, it would be wise to start your day off by listening to music, getting ready, thinking, or even journaling. It is okay and healthy to go on social media now and then when you have free time, but it is wrong and excessive to spend hours screenshotting pictures, comparing yourself to other people on social media, and watching thousands of youtube videos. When it is family or friend time it should be spent by talking using your mouths, rather than remaining silent and letting the videos sound to fill the room. If we live vicariously through other people, following their lives, making judgements about their lives, then we lose our own. Make your own story by getting up and doing anything and talking to people around you that you should cherish since you never know how long they will be around.

The next tip that cost nothing is a form of organization. For resolutions, everyone tries to tackle everything at once. Instead of burning and stressing yourself out, do something little everyday that will add up to a big change. The point of resolutions is to create a positive change in your life that also feels good to do. If you do this all at once, it can tend to not feel good, but rather intense and stressful. Create a to do list for the day of your daily routines and then add one different thing that you can do. For example, if you are trying to clean up your bedroom then you could clean up different portions of your room everyday. If you attempt to clean up everything all at once it can too much work leading the room to be not as clean as it could be and less enjoyable then it could be.

For fitness, a great tip is that everytime you have to go up the stairs, run up them instead of walking. This may seem like little work, but by running up the stairs or walking a little everyday, it can improve your health. Another easy way to get healthy mentally is by meditating. Before bed or at any time during the day, take a moment to reflect in your head and have silence. Close your eyes and get a break from the world. This may seem a little ridiculous, but what life gets too hard, you can find better inner peace by just closing your eyes and giving your body a break from that day. If you are not into meditating another destresser that makes you more fit at the same time would be yoga. Yoga can make you more flexible, release toxins, clear your mind, and connect your body and mind to one.

A great lifestyle resolution that can help make you happier and others around you happier would be to volunteer for your community. Everyone can make volunteering more enjoyable by first picking something you enjoy. Next, try to convince your friends to come along with you. Lastly, remember why you are doing this. You are helping people who can help themselves and that act alone is something you will never forget.

The next resolution is for all the girls out there who have way too much clothes and way too little space. Go through your clothes and if you have not worn that piece of clothing during last year, then donate it to Goodwill. By doing this you are organizing your room and clothing kids who have not enough clothes in their closet.

The last resolution is one that I have set for myself in 2019. This goal is a major one that you can apply throughout every aspect of your life, learning to balance. Balancing takes practice, but if you prioritize and plan out with the help of schedules then you can achieve everything you want and take time for things that matter. Make sure that in your daily schedule you take time out of each part of the day to do what you want. For example, if you are the most awake in the morning then do your work in the morning while using breaks. Next, in the evening take time for friends or your significant other. Go on a fun date or relax at home. Then at night, go see your family and take time for yourself. By separating the day into parts you can achieve everything you could want to do in a day and not lack in one area of your life.

Overall, resolutions can help change your mindset and through healthy habits you can make yourself happy and other people around you happy that you are doing well and that you make time for them. The best part about resolutions is that everything connects. When you feel healthy or physically better than your mental states changes for the better and you become emotionally happy. Happiness through health travels all throughout your body and changes your overall appearances for the new year.