New Year Resolutions 101

by Mallika (Molly) Moo-Ming, 8C

Regardlessof whether you write a new year’s resolution or not, 2023 should be a year to create one. COVID restrictions are starting to loosen, and the old opportunities we had in pre-COVID times are now back. But even if you already wrote one this year or haven’t even started yet (you can go grab some lined paper and a pencil now), you should look at adding effective goals to strive for. But struggling with writing useful resolutions to follow is common, but refer back to the purpose of a new year’s resolution: to resolve the practices that you participate in. Keep this in mind while you look at ways to fill that paper titled “My 2023 new year’s resolution:”, and when you find different resolution ideas on this page here!

Fixing The Old

If you have already started on your resolution and find that you haven’t written enough about anything you want to improve from the past, this section can help you find inspiration for those things you’ve retained from last year to improve on next year.

Having time to fix old skills is just as important, if not more important, than learning new things, like the phrase our English teachers always remind us of, “quality not quantity”.

DO YOU ALREADY HAVE A HOBBY THAT YOU WANT TO CONTINUE WORKING ON FROM 2022?

You can set a resolution for yourself, to find a way to get better at your skill or find ways to continue challenging yourself with your hobby. However, this doesn’t mean you write on your sheet of paper: Get better at so-and-so skill or find something challenging to do with my so-and-so hobby. Set something specific that you want to do in particular, for instance to play a difficult piece of music, to create a watercolour sunset scene, or start writing another novel that you have been planning out the previous year.

Look for things that are still within range but just far enough to be able to work on it for the whole year, so don’t expect yourself to be able to play Turkish March if you just started learning piano, or make a masterpiece with paint if you only learned how to mix colours.

Follow the daily routines you have set up with your hobby, find a community or maybe a few friends with whom you can do these challenges, be flexible with your schedule but don’t let yourself be loose (for example make sure you practise your instrument once a day but it can be anytime). You can use either these tips or some others you know work for you to help with either picking up your hobby again, or to help you reform your routine.

For any small habits or vicious cycles you are going through, a goal this year you might want could be a way to get rid of a bad habit you have, whether it be something small like cracking your knuckles or something like not connecting with friends. Habits are hard to get rid of, since is the purpose of a habit, so fighting these will be difficult.

Small habits always occur when you’re thinking, either scratching your head or tapping your nails on the table. Remind yourself instead to stop doing it, just find a different less annoying habit. Whether you have a thing for scratching your head, you would instead move to just tapping your finger on your head.

New Skills And Challenges

This section is for things that you’ve always wanted to do but you have procrastinated on, because you didn’t have a set goal or you gave up in the middle. Whether you’ve seen year-long challenges that have piqued your interest, or a hobby that you want to join in doing, this section will help you with those.

IS THERE ANY SKILL THAT HAS INTERESTED YOU?

Learning a language, drawing a portrait, doing a handstand, anything. Something you’ve always wanted to do? Put it on your list, but make sure to highlight it or underline it, since it is a big goal. Achieving big goals is always daunting, which leads to procrastination, but you can break that large into small goals for each month or any amount of time you need for achieving it.

For example, if drawing a portrait is your goal, you might put “learn to sketch” as a miny goal under “Draw a portrait” and set the deadline for a week or two, and put “learn to draw basic shapes” under that with a deadline, and so on. Breaking large complex goals into smaller, more manageable goals with smaller deadlines will make achieving this goal easier, since small goals that have tighter deadlines can encourage and motivate you more.

Note down where you started. Learning a skill can make you want to quit at times, because you don’t see your progress. Remember where you started and where you are at, so if you are a beginner with zero experience, put that on your resolution. It can help you by knowing how much you have already done. If you have a friend or family member who has mastered or is trying to learn the same skill, you can consult them to help each other work together.

Learning something with someone can be a good bonding experience, and can make it more fun knowing you have another person to work on it with you. Assign a daily part of your life with this goal, for example if you like to practise an instrument at a certain time of the day already, you can also practise the other skill you have chosen to go for after you practise your instrument. Things you can do along with learning the skill: create a playlist with your favourite songs that are reserved for that skill; have a notebook to write down your progress after each session of practice; change your youtube recommendations to videos of the skill you’re learning (for example, gymnastics challenges videos, calming art videos, bands performance videos). I recommend you also have a few tips of your own to help you achieve your goals.

HAVE YOU SEEN THOSE YEAR LONG CHALLENGES WHICH INVOLVE FILMING YOUR LIFE IN SHORT BURSTS AND THEN PUTTING IN A VIDEO?

Start them now, record a 1-second video of yourself everyday for the rest of the year, which will amount to a 6 minute video of the year. The video doesn’t have to be of your face necessarily, you can take a picture of your hand in front of different things you have been doing everyday like with your friend at the mall one day, and performing at a concert another day. This video you can watch and show to your friends (and show off to them if you want!) can be stored in your photos, to reminisce and leave a little piece of you as a physical memento.

To remind yourself to do these things, make sure to set an alarm at a certain time of day for the first few weeks to get into the habit of taking those photos/short videos. Once you don’t need the alarm anymore, you won’t have to set it since you will always think in your mind “I need to take my photo/ short video now”.

I also recommend that you try to make a pattern in your photos, a normal school day can be a picture of a laptop, holidays are photos of your scenery/hotel during that trip, while an interesting event happening that day could be the photo of that day, etc.

(This is for the people who haven’t had a chance to be creative often). Think of ways to be creative and express yourself, Getting into literature (to create a new story or read a book), art (acrylic painting or drawing etc.), music (whether making, playing or listening to), things like these are good ways of distracting yourself a bit by having a peaceful time to yourself doing something unique. Things like this might not come easily to you, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do it. Being creative is always available, to create something new and unique, and it doesn’t even have to be considered good, just whatever you like to do that is one of a kind, then do it.

THE KIND OF THINGS THAT MAY INTEREST YOU IN BEING CREATIVE:

•Spend a day cleaning your room/study. Tip, you shouldn’t try and spread it over a week, pick a weekend to declutter. It’s better to have a whole day to be in the mood to be productive to guarantee a full and proper clean.

•Use a music streaming service to find songs that you vibe to. I suggest having a few that you already know you enjoy, and let recommendations roll in by themself. Asking friends for song recommendations is also a good idea, but they might have similar tastes to you or not, so listen to the song first before you would add it to your playlist.

•Learn to cook! It’s simple, yet also complicated. Have a skilled chef with you to make sure while you learn to make something, like cupcakes or pad thai, that you don’t do something completely wrong, like if you’re a beginner learning from a website that isn’t helpful.

Extra Ideas

•Aim to exercise more often, dedicate some time in your week to exercise, however you want to. Whether you want at least two days per week, or an hour per day.

•No screens an hour before bed, instead of looking at your screen, you should read a book or draw before bed.

•Delete useless apps/files on your devices, you might have some files that were used for a single project, or have apps you never use that have been cluttering your storage and screen. Delete them, or hide them from your phone screen.

•Clean your computer and phone (any belongings you touch a lot), get a damp tissue and wipe down your screen, and dry it with a clean paper towel. While for computer keyboards, use a toothbrush or a keyboard cleaning brush to brush away the dirty bits in the nooks and crannies that you can’t reach.

Source: 70 Really Good New Year’s Resolutions [Updated for 2023] (collegelifemadeeasy.com)

GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR RESOLUTIONS AND HAVE A GREAT 2023!