More often than not, most people who have made a New Year’s resolution hasn’t kept it past February, let alone the whole year. It could be due to a variety of factors, including loss of motivation and it being a huge change in your lifestyle. Hence, before we get to the new years resolution ideas list, how do you actually keep to these resolutions?
Well, one of the greatest tactics employed by a lot of people who successfully kept to their resolutions is a little thing called “micro-resolutions”. Rather than having a few resolutions and trying to tackle them all throughout the year all together, break it up into segments instead. In fact, even if it’s simply one resolution you really want to get done by the end of the year, try to segment it to smaller goals such that it becomes more realistic and less daunting as compared to a monumental resolution, which is exactly what it would feel like after a month or two.
If you have simpler resolutions, you could segment them by months. For example, you only need to focus on one resolution for the month of January. Let’s say it’s poetry you want to start writing, you can focus on only that for the month of January and leave all other resolutions for other months. That way, when it comes to February and you start a new resolution, you have already kicked into the habit of writing poetry once every few days and will likely not forget to do so or suddenly feel demotivated.
Alright, everyone understood the assignment now and ready to start creating your resolutions again? Here are 10 new years resolutions pertaining to self-care that you may employ into your micro-resolutions:
1. Sleep
Medical research suggests sleeping more than seven hours a night is linked to many positive health outcomes. One of the best ways to get more sleep is to go to bed earlier. Switch off that phone 1 hour before going to bed and you will fall into slumber much earlier than you would as per usual.
2. Meditation
Another very important component of helping in your mental and physical health journey is through meditation. This can be done by anybody and is not just some trend health nuts do. Just try it out for 1 month and you will feel it changing your mental health for the rest of the day as well as increasing the happy emotions in your body. In fact, it won’t even take 1 month, you’d start feeling the positive effects within one or two sessions.
3. Drinking Water
Something you do every single day, but do you do it often enough, such as 8 glasses of water per day? If the answer is no, include this in your micro-resolution list. Not only will it rehydrate you, it will also help you achieve better skin on top of the collagen supplements and give you more energy to go about your day.
4. Fresh Fruit
Don’t like to eat fruits? It’s time to change that, don’t you think? Let’s just say that your parents were right is getting you to eat your fruits as they contain numerous vitamins and minerals not so prevalently found in other food. Start off with a fruit that you love and is filled with tons of vitamins and work your way up from there.
5. Movement
We won’t say the E word (hint: It’s exercise) but simply focus on more movement. If you would like to change this resolution to exercise, more power to you. However, as we know exercise is an ongoing process to make into a habit, you may start off with simply adding more movement to your daily life. It could be something as simple as using the stairs instead of the lift every single day or something more adventurous such as taking a hike at a reservoir.
6. Read More
Whether it has been a long time since you picked up a book or if you have not even touched a book since your school days, here’s something fun which you could add to your resolutions. You do not even need to rely on research, you will feel the amazing results of feeling better after reading a good book. If you are not ready to start reading self-help books, then start off with fiction books such as Harry Potter that you know you will love and make it a habit. In fact, we’ll do you one better: You know our suggestion of putting your phone down 1 hour before bed? Use that moment to read a good book and fall into beautiful sleep after.
7. Go Somewhere You’ve Never Been
Dare to do something that pushes you out of your comfort zone. This will inspire you in ways that you never thought about before and give you a chance to learn new things, as well as it being really healing for the soul.
8. Volunteer
Another one of those things that is extremely beneficial for the soul. There is a reason ByHerbs did a whole month of Season Of Giving this year and encourage everyone to do good and give back. In addition to being good for your mental and physical health, participating in volunteer work is also a kind and selfless act.
Now that you’ve got a lot of new ideas for your new years resolutions and how to apply them much more effectively, go forth and live a better life for yourself, achieve a better state of mental health and prioritise every single aspect of your physical health as well. ❤
