TRURO, N.S. — The holidays have wrapped up, and 2019 has come to a close. It’s the start of a new year, the time to reflect on the past and to set goals for the future.
According to history.com, New Year’s resolutions have been around for about 4,000 years and to this day, I find people do them all wrong. The main problem is they are designed to be vague so as to be easier to get out of because. let’s face it, humans are lazy by nature. And nothing is harder than working to improve yourself. However, I’m willing to be optimistic here. I do believe most people would actually like to better themselves every year as time goes on.
So, if for years you’ve struggled with actually meeting your yearly goals and are looking to break the habit I’ve come prepared with a few tips to help you out.
The first step is to sit down and brainstorm. Think of all the things about yourself you’d like to improve upon in your life – without beating yourself up. I will note it’s very important to make sure you want to change these things for you, not to please someone else in your life.
Once your brainstorming is done, tweak everything so it is specific, concise, and hard to get out of. Leave anything vague off the page. For example, change “Exercise more…” to “Walk on the treadmill for 30 minutes before work on Tuesdays and Thursdays…” One of these goals is so open ended and unspecific you could count walking around the mall while shopping as “more exercise.” By changing the goal to something specific, it doesn’t allow for you to cheat yourself out of improving.
My next tip is to be realistic. Don’t set too many goals or goals that are impossible for you to reach. If you want to eat healthier, that’s great but you can’t do that and exercise and spend less money and find a new hobby all at the same time, something will suffer – that something being you. If you can, find one goal that’s important above all the rest, and put that first. Put all your self-improvement energy towards it. It’s better to succeed at one goal, than succeed partway at several.
After you have your goals worked out, find a blank piece of paper, or Bristol board if you’re feeling crafty, and write them down. Make sure it looks pretty or at least neat, because you’re going to be reading from it often. When that’s all done, hang it somewhere you’ll see it every day. Mine are taped beside my bedroom mirror so that when I see myself in the morning I also see my goals. Doing this ensures every morning you’ll read them and be reminded of what you want to improve on. That will help you be mindful of it every single day throughout the year. If you don’t like handwriting things you could always type and print, or even screenshot your notes app and make them your cellphone wallpaper. That might be the way to go, since instead of reading them once a day, you’ll glance at them at least 50 times.
Self-improvement is a noble pursuit, one you should be proud of. It takes real effort to look inside yourself and figure out what you need to improve on, let alone take the steps to actually improve yourself.
Hopefully all you readers had a lovely holiday season, and a well-deserved break from work or school. Happy new year – here’s to the new us!
-
Angèle Hatton is a Grade 12 student at Cobequid Educational Centre who hopes to pursue a career in journalism.
