5 Alternatives to New Year’s Resolutions

New year, new you? Wrong! Many are jaded to making new year resolutions, technically we get a new start with every day and don’t need to wait to resolve anything that’s going on in your life. However, there’s something about the new year that makes you feel like you do something new, even if it is a small pivot in something you’re trying to improve or goals you’re trying to meet. This feeling can arise on your birthday, a new month, new week…every day is truly a new start for you to do something different. While you don’t have to wait for the new year, the new year can prompt or reignite something you want to accomplish.

 

There are a few ways outside of making new year resolutions that you can do to feel inspired for the new year that can remain with you throughout the year. These alternative options serve as reminders of what you want to accomplish, with no pressure.

Make goals not resolutions

Resolutions can be empty: “I want to get on a budget”, “I want to spend more time with family”, “I want to eat healthily.” None of these have a concrete solution to how you’re going to execute. Goals are always important and don’t have an expiration date. With goals you’re forced to break it down into how you’re going to get it done and measure yourself over time to see how much you have achieved. Using the previous examples: “Make a monthly budget and track spending weekly”, “From 6-9pm in the evening I’ll just spend time with family”, “I want to eat a salad and drink at least 3 glasses of water a day.”

Creating realistic goals that you can manage over time puts less stress on the specific outcome and more on the process of being able to do it over time. You may fail, but each day is a new opportunity to try until you’re consistent at whatever it is that you want to achieve.

Choose a theme or word

Having a theme word is easy. Pick a word that represents how you want to feel or what you want to do for the year.

Thrive

Lead

Compassion

Excel

Travel

These are all examples of words that can define your year without holding you to a particular resolution. Even if you’re in the middle of goals that you want to accomplish a theme word can inspire you to finish the goal. Write it a put it in a place you’ll see every day.

Choose a theme song

Similar to a theme word, the right theme song can motivate you to take on the world. Find a song that gets you amped to do more. Last year my theme song was Voice’s “Far from Finished”, this year it’s Chronixx “I Can”. It’s a song that reminds of how blessed and capable I am.

Vision board

Visualizing your life gives it a permanent and emotional feel. A vision board is great because it’s clear about your aspirations and serves as a visual reminder of how you want to feel and what you want to accomplish. However, instead of visualizing your whole self, choose things that inspire you over time. Put a few things on at a time so that forces you to come back to it and be re-inspired by your own vision.

Journal

Writing things down in a journal can be very therapeutic, especially when you go back an read your previous entries. I used to feel like journaling needed to be this long emotional process, but it can be as simple as a gratitude for the day, a quick feeling a doubt that you want to get off your heart, a simple line about sometimes just being still in thought. Journaling can help give clarity of self in a way that only you truly understand. It’s deeply personal, reflective and forces you to look at your challenges with deep thought in the written form. If you have a hard time writing, there are many planners and journals with daily writing prompts that can help get your thoughts going.