New Year Thoughts

When it comes to New Year's resolutions, there seem to be two groups of thought:

• Make resolutions (these resolutions will help to create the new you) or
• Don't make resolutions (you don't need resolutions to be better, anyway!)

In my opinion, having tried both forms, it's a little bit of each to reach the place I want to be.

Making resolutions, or for me, writing out goals, creates growth in my life. If I don't have goals, I flounder dreadfully. If I'm not aiming for improvement, it creates stagnation. And if I'm being truthful, I feel lost without goals. 

Goals give me purpose; a sense of working toward an accomplishment. A way to gauge my progress. Even if that goal is small or simple, if I'm working toward it, then it means I'm in the process of transformation, which means I'm working with change, not against it.

I think the problem with the option of not making resolutions, because you don't want to, is more of a wake-up call to where you're at. 

You may be in the midst of serious life-changing events, and adding the goal of losing 10 pounds is too much. Of course, this makes sense! Making resolutions will only add to the stress... at the moment. 

But what about when things settle down? And you have time to think through what you want? Making a few goals for the New Year, even if you wait a few months to start them, is perfectly worthy.

Also, people make unrealistic goals, myself included. Which is where this whole "I'm not making resolutions this year!" comes from. We've made goals for ourselves, failed, and don't want to go through failure yet again.

This is where I let simplicity take center stage. Less is more. Don't make a list of twenty goals (unless you want to). Instead, make a list of three. Write down three goals for three areas:

• spiritual
• physical
• mental

For me, this looks like "create more moments of prayer" for the spiritual category, "add in a walk every day of the week this year" for the physical category, and "write more" for the mental category.

It's not overwhelming, yet I haven't forgone the resolution-making just to make myself feel better. I do need to do more in all three of these categories, but they can start small and evolve over the year.

And when it comes to your health, start simple: start with three categories, find something you can change for each one, and start.

When we look at it from a minimalist perspective, it takes all of our resolutions and goals, directs them into three categories, and simplifies them into terms that our brains and bodies can work with.

Start the year off right: keep it simple. Shed the 2025 you by slowly changing into the new 2026 you as you work to find what fits best for you right now.

Happy New Year!