Welcome to my very first podcast in 2022 “59 New Year’s Resolutions you can actually keep."
Today’s podcast follows up on my blogs on how to help you reach and make your new year’s resolutions stick. The new year just started and with the new year, many people already made lots of good resolutions. But by mid-January, the lull sets in. Need a little inspiration for your New Year's resolutions to stick? I have 59 more suggestions with lots of tips for you!
New Year's Resolutions | 59 Ideas for New Year's Resolutions
Welcome to my very first podcast in 2022 “59 New Year’s Resolutions you can actually keep” I hope you all had a great, healthful, and productive start of the new year. As always, you can check out my Living Well Community page on Facebook to look for ideas and tips on how to live a healthy, rewarding and above all, happy life. If you’re a new listener don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast, so you’ll be notified about my upcoming episodes. You can also join my blog that precedes each podcast by clicking on the link in my show notes.
Today’s podcast follows up on my blogs how to help you reaching and making your new year’s resolutions stick.
But before I go on, I want to give you my first google buster question of the year. 50% of Americans are focused on this New Year’s resolution. What is it? As always, I will give you my answer at the end of the podcast or you will find it on my Facebook group “The Living Well Community”.
The new year just started and with the new year, many people already made lots of good resolutions. But by mid-January, the lull sets in. Need a little inspiration for your New Year's resolutions to stick? I have 59 more suggestions with lots of tips for you!
Since I haven’t podcasted for a while and yes, I’m a week later than promised, this podcast takes a little longer than usual. But I guarantee you it will be worth your while. Since it will be difficult to remember all my good resolutions, I will post a file with all 59 resolutions. Leave me your email at beyondyourscale.com and I will send you the link.
I have divided the New Year's resolutions into 5 different areas of life. Which area of life are you particularly interested in?
Health and Wellbeing
Family and Friends
Finance and Money
Do Good
Personal Goals
Listen to them all and I’m sure you will find quite a few that will stick.
Health and Wellbeing
You are not satisfied with your body? Could you be fitter, or you have a health vice? The following health resolutions for the New Year will help you:
Exercise more
– that is the classic par excellence and that is why I am starting with this. A very commendable resolution, but doing more exercise is very vague. Therefore, you should formulate this resolution in more detail. How often does "more exercise" mean? Write down a specific goal, like “I exercise 3 times a week.” Check out my blog “Don’t stop now” with 3 power tips to help you implement your New Years’s resolutions and 4 bonus tips on how to get started with exercise.
Quitting smoking
… is another classic on the New Year's resolution list. Smoking not only burns money but also valuable lifetime due to the health effects. There are lots of guides and apps to help you how to quit smoking. It is very important to find your personal why that motivates you, even if you have low motivation. Does the money you save motivate you? (many apps calculate the amount and visualize it for you) Or maybe you do it because of your children? Find your personal pain point so that from January 1st you will never touch a cigarette again. Check out your app store for great apps like QuitNow or SmokeFree that you can really do the whole thing with.
Lose weight
Another classic. Do you have a few pounds too much after the Christmas season or should you generally pay attention to your weight? Then this good intention is just right for you! But take it easy, avoid all crash diets if you want to see a long-term effect. You have two parameters that you can turn to: physical activity and nutrition. To succeed you have to turn on both and do more exercise as well pay attention to your diet. If you want to celebrate long-term success, then by no means forbid yourself from eating, but observe the simple basics such as little sugar or sweets, avoiding sugary drinks, eating consciously, and taking enough time for each bite. Losing weight will certainly not happen overnight, but if you pay attention to these things, you will achieve lasting success!
Build Muscle
Feeling small and want to build some muscle? Perfect to start at the beginning of the year or, as a matter of fact, any time of the year. Off to the nearest gym and off you go! However, as with the first good resolution “do more exercise”, make a plan of what you actually want to do so that you don’t become a dead weight in your gym. Write down how often you want to go to the gym and enter the dates in your calendar. If you've never been there before, then invest a little money in a personal trainer first, who will show you how to do the exercises correctly and who will put together a training plan for you. If you would like more tips on how to be guaranteed to go through with the training and not lose your mojo, then you can finally implement the New Year's resolutions article. Don’t forget to check out my blog “Don’t stop now” with my 4 bonus tips, so you are guaranteed to stay tuned to the training!
Less alcohol
Another resolution that will have a very positive effect on your body and your health! Try to formulate clear rules that you can live with. For example, a rule could be “no alcohol during the week”. On the one hand, try to give yourself plenty of rest days when you completely abstain from alcohol and, on the other hand, avoid excessive alcohol consumption.
Go out into the fresh air more often
Do you also feel like you spend most of your day indoors? Be it at work or in our free time, we are going outside less and less. Set yourself a fixed workload again, on how many days you want to consciously go outside in the fresh air - a little sunbathing can work wonders.
More activity in everyday life
Smart people integrate more activity into their everyday life. This takes little time but has a big effect on you and your body. You can find out how to integrate more movement into your daily life by listening to my podcast #46 diet vs. exercise and my very first podcast “Cutting calories? Exercising? Still not losing weight?”
Floss More Often
A good resolution for dental health is to floss more often. Many people clean their teeth dutifully, but the spaces between the teeth are often forgotten or one is too lazy for it. Approach the matter with the minimal principle and ask yourself: “How often can I minimally floss?”. If your answer is 3, then from now on floss your teeth at least three times a week. Your minimum goal should not stress you but should be the value that you can easily achieve every week. And even it’s one time, flossing every Sunday evening is still better than never flossing at all.
Fewer sweets
There was no shortage of something during the Christmas season or any other time of the year: yes, sweets! How about reducing your sweets consumption a little again? Not only your waistline will be happy about this, but also your bathroom scale.
Eat healthier
This resolution is suitable for anyone who wants to eat more fruit and vegetables instead of schnitzel and burgers. It’s best to prepare a few healthy recipes right away so that you don’t fall into the “unhealthy eating trap” when you’re shopping. Eating healthy can be delicious and fun, all you need is the right recipes. Check out beyondyourscale.com for recipes that are easy to make for the whole family and everyone will enjoy.
Drinking more water
There are two things to consider: 1. How much do you drink and 2. What you drink. For people who are struggling to get to the recommended daily amount, they can take a water bottle and keep it near them at home or at work. The best thing to do is to use a cup because the smaller "drinking portions" make it more pleasant for you. This way you can also check how much you already drank during the day. There are even apps that can help you to keep track of how many you had. The second New Year's resolution, which can be understood as "drinking more water", is to rely more on water or unsweetened tea. If you omit sodas and energy drinks in everyday life, you can save a lot of calories - this way you lose weight without having to do a lot of work for it.
Getting up at the first sound of your alarm
The snooze button is indispensable for many people in the morning. As pleasant as it may seem to you, it is bad for you! If you get up on the first ring, you'll feel better throughout the day. Integrating it into everyday life will take some effort at first, but if you manage to do it for 30 days, you won't have any problems with it anymore! You can find insider tips on how you really manage to get up without the snooze button in my upcoming course “Rock your morning to success” for a successful start to the day. Sign up for my blog and you’ll be notified when it becomes available.
Get more sleep
Sleeping more can also be a good resolution for the New Year. Do you often regret not going to bed earlier when you get up in the morning? If so, set yourself a fixed bedtime for the new year by which you will be in bed at the latest (if you have to, let your cell phone alarm clock remind you of this). It is a well-known fact that "sleep before midnight is the healthiest".
Get check-ups regularly
This tip is especially important for men! As a man, you have a natural "doctor's laziness" in you. Nevertheless, preventive medical check-ups are extremely important. If you can identify a type of cancer in its early stages, the chances of recovery increase rapidly. So get a thorough check-up at least once a year – pick up the phone right away and make an appointment.
Get things done immediately
The last good resolution idea is balm for your well-being and your nerves. Everyone knows the little things in life that you like to put off: making a transfer, making an appointment, making a quick phone call... These little things are done quickly, but if they aren't done, they create unnecessary stress and you can no longer focus on the important things. So for the new year, you could make a resolution to do anything that takes less than 2 minutes to do right away. Guaranteed to save you a lot of nerves and even time! You can thank me later.
Family and Friends
Would you like to improve your relationship with your family and friends or spend more time with them again? With these good family resolutions, you are guaranteed to succeed:
Spending more time with the family
In the "Family" category, spending more time with the family is of course at the top of the list of good intentions. However, like “do more exercise”, this resolution is very vague and can mean many things. Define together with your family what you mean by that. For example, one family day per week that you devote entirely to your family would be conceivable.
Have dinner together with the family more often
This resolution also falls into the “more family time” category. It's a nice ritual and so you can talk about what happened during the day, it strengthens the family bond and even the food tastes much better together! Here you can also proceed with the minimum principle, which I mentioned in the resolution "Use dental floss more often". Think about how many days you can always make it - no matter what the circumstances, that you can have dinner with your family. Take the number 3, for example. Then you would eat with your family at least three times a week. Of course, it doesn't always depend on you alone. This decision can therefore be a joint decision on how often you can eat together at least during the week.
Do something with friends more often
You are very busy in your job and of course, the family must not be neglected either. However, you should not forget your long-standing friendships. Try to define concrete goals here, how often you want to do something with your friends per week or per month. There are many joint activities. From a game night to eating out/going to the movies or taking a vacation together. I am sure you'll find plenty of fun things to do together!
Visit your grandparents or parents more often
Your parents or your grandparents will be happy if they see you more often! With this resolution, you always keep in touch with them, because in our stressful everyday life we often neglect to visit our parents or grandparents more often.
Being more patient and understanding with your children
Not looking for a moment and a glass is broken or you have an unnecessary argument with your children. Sometimes it's a good idea to take a look at yourself and see if you're mirroring your own bad moods on your kids. They certainly don't deserve that. Understanding and patience help them more than a moral lecture.
Spend more time with your spouse or partner
When you have children, your relationship with your spouse or partner often falls short. Never let it fall asleep and try to spend time together more often. Whether it's a run together or a short vacation without children. A good resolution could therefore be to establish a spouse or partner day during the week/month where you only spend time together – even if it is only for a few hours.
Showing understanding for one another
In the family, one should always show understanding for one another. Try to walk in the other person's shoes and put yourself in their situation. This will help you better understand why a person acts the way they do in a certain situation. Great for good family structure whether in a small or large family circle.
Less time on the smartphone
You wouldn't have needed this New Year's resolution a few years ago. The smartphone is both a curse and a blessing. In general, we can say that we spend too much time on our cell phones! As a good resolution, you can set yourself a fixed smartphone time for the day (e.g. 20 minutes on Facebook in the evening). You can then use the time gained to meet your "offline" friends - you will benefit from this much more than from hours of chatting, commenting, and sharing. As an option, you can also make a whole day "smartphone-free".
Finance / Money
Are you not satisfied with your finances or could they be improved? Then these financial resolutions for the new year will help you:
Save more
This resolution is also a classic among New Year's resolutions! Saving more is always good - but often you fail because of your own behavior. A quick bargain or a great special offer for a dress and you have nothing left to save at the end of the month. As with the other resolutions in other areas of life, set yourself more concrete goals here. Define a percentage for yourself that you want to save from now on. A good value is 10%, for example. You put 10% of your earnings as a fixed amount away at the beginning of each month, consistently - preferably by automatic transfer into your savings account. The magic is, if you put the amount away at the beginning of the month, you don't even notice it. You can then give the access code to the savings account to a trusted person, so you cannot withdraw anything during the month, once it’s deposited.
Get an overview (keep track of your household finances)
With household bookkeeping, you can get an overview of your finances
A very good financial resolution is to keep a household finance book! At least for a few months. This gives you an overview of where all your money goes (which is often a big mystery anyway). If you find yourself eating out too often, for example, you can stop or go out less often. You can document all income and expenses either by hand, with a self-made Excel sheet, or with an app (there are really good ones out there - e.g. Mint by Intuit (available as an Android and iOS app). This overview can then show you quite a few things like where you still need to optimize or where you are already well-positioned.
Cut Expenses
This resolution goes hand-in-hand with the previous one. In order to be able to reduce your expenses, you must first know what you’re actually spending money on. Once you have this overview, you can optimize your expenditure. For example, is your smartphone contract overpriced and maybe you don't need that many free gigabytes anyway? Or do you have other fixed costs that you can avoid completely or improve on? There is also a lot of room for savings for variable expenses. A coffee-to-go at the 7/11 or Starbucks every day in the morning costs you $3 a day, $15 a week, and around $65 a month and thus $780 a year - money that you can easily put aside - making your own coffee.
Working toward the next raise
There's a saying, "The wise man cuts his expenses while increasing his income." With the New Year's resolution I just mentioned, we've already tweaked the expenses quite a bit. But the higher income is still missing. As an employee, you can set a goal for the new year that you want to get a raise. Think about how you can bring even more added value to your boss and how you can become more valuable to the company. Document everything that you do. This is a very good starting point for a review or salary raise interview.
Build Financial Protection
If you lost your job, wouldn't you like to know how to cope with all the expenses? Then this could be the right resolution for you in the new year! Financial protection helps you to sleep peacefully at night. Save 3 monthly salaries as an employee (min. 6 as a self-employed person) and put this amount in a separate savings book. This buffer avoids a lot of stress and anxiety for you and gives you enough time to sort and reorganize your life. Sometimes it can happen very quickly that you lose your job, and you don't even have to be to blame for this (e.g. due to your employer's insolvency or unexpected pandemics).
Always keep your account in the black
Many people like to live off tomorrow's expenses. Another financial New Year's resolution could therefore be to only spend money that you actually have. So this year your account will only be in the black – going below 0 is an absolute no-no! What tips could help you? When making purchases such as new shoes or other consumer goods, you always give yourself at least a couple of days or even a week, if it’s a big purchase to think it over. Avoid impulse buying. If you still want something specific after that time, then you can buy it – provided you can afford it. I often use the list feature on Amazon. Instead of buying something right away I just list it on my shopping list. This is how you avoid spontaneous impulse purchases. Another trick is to put a note in your wallet with the phrase "Do I need this or do I want this?" This tip might also keep you from making one or the other impulse purchase.
No consumer credit
Consumer credit can be very dangerous. Many financial advisors have a clear opinion on this: "Consumer loans are like drugs - it's fun at first, but eventually lethal". So if you tend to pay for consumer goods such as a new television or vacation in installments, your New Year's resolution is to reduce all existing consumer loans and stop taking out more. Consumer credit can be as addicting as it is to drugs - there comes a point when it's no longer fun and hard to get away from it. Work towards your goals and then reward yourself. This way is the more sustainable and healthier one!
Reduce debt
All previous financial New Year's resolutions can help you to reduce your debt sustainably. If your resolution for the new year is to finally get rid of your debt and live a carefree life, then make sure you have a plan. As I mentioned before, use a budget, reduce your expenses, increase your income, and treat consumer credit as an absolute taboo. Another tip that can help you is to build wealth at the same time. That sounds bizarre at first because you only see a huge mountain of debt and wonder how you can build up a fortune because your money is not even enough to service your debt. Follow this train of thought: Once you have reduced your debt, then you're in the black – isn't a very attractive goal. If your debt is 20,000 and you are reducing your debt while building a reserve fund at the same time, then you might be at plus $20,000 - a goal that is much more attractive. If you consistently rely on this system, you will be very successful in getting rid of your debts. Because the magic is, when you see your wealth grow, you'll cut expenses with fun and you won't feel compelled to do so and your earnings will increase too - if you don't believe this tip, try it - it works 100% and has been proven hundreds of times in practice. You should also set up your own investment account to build up your wealth. Once you see the amount growing here, you'll start to really enjoy reducing debt.
Do good!
(New Year's resolutions for the environment, fellow humans, and society as a whole)
Do you have the feeling that you should help your fellow humans more often and do more for the community? With these resolutions for the new year you will help other people and society as a whole: (it's cool that you want to help others, there can't be enough people like you - plus a cool tip with the last resolution, how we can increase this number further!)
Donate more
Like before with the financial resolutions, you got good resolution ideas on how to have more money available to you during the month. With this money, you can now do very positive things for society. What does your heart desire? Do you want to support the local animal shelter? Or organizations that help people in need or those that help the environment? Everyone has a specific matter they care about. So your good resolution can be to support this organization or association regularly throughout the year. Plan an amount of money that you will donate to one or more organizations each month. You will definitely make someone happy with this! If you want your donation to be used 100% for the purpose you give it for, you can of course also help directly with donations in kind (such as animal feed).
Donate more to charity
Instead of money, you can donate time to charity. Many organizations only function because of their many volunteers. Do you also want to be a part of it and do good with your time? Great! Examples of places where you can help would be the Red Cross, a food/grocery distribution center for the homeless, an animal shelter, or your local athletic club in the youth department. To make your resolution concrete again, think about how many hours per week or per month you would like to donate to charity. Then when you go to the place where you would like to help, the people in charge can then find an ideal place for you if they know how many hours you are willing to volunteer.
Putting Your Expertise to Good Use
This good resolution is a small extension of the previous one. For example, you are a web designer and would like to donate some of your time? Then you could make your professional expertise available to a charitable association! For example, if you have a local association that supports people in difficult situations, you could offer the association that you build a website for free so that you can publicize what the association does. If you have certain talents/skills that you can use to support charity, you should definitely use them that way!
Smile more often
This good resolution sounds banal until you try it yourself! Just smile more in your everyday life. You can make a person's day with a smile. It costs you absolutely nothing, but with this resolution, you will do yourself and those around you a lot of good.
The little things in life
Just like smiling, there are many little things in life where you can help someone else a lot and you invest no more than 20 seconds in them. For example, help someone carry their stroller onto the train, donate to a street musician, or just hold the door open for someone. We often encounter such situations every day. So your New Year's resolution could be to consciously keep your eyes open for such situations. You do a lot of good with it with little expenditure of time or effort!
Buy less plastic products
This New Year's resolution helps the environment! The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is around 1/2 million square miles – bigger than Texas. It will nearly triple by 2040. We clearly use too much plastic and instead of properly recycling it, it ends up on the streets or in the sea. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), packaging accounts for 40% of plastic. More than 90% of these end up in the garbage after a short period of use. So a very important New Year's resolution could be to avoid this unnecessary pollution! In the supermarket, either make sure to buy products with packaging that is as plastic-free as possible or you can also go to your own packaging-free shops. Here, you can purchase food, like cereal, pasta, and rice from bulk bins and fill a reusable bag or container. You save money and unnecessary packaging. Or just search google for tips on how to use less plastic.
Drive less
This New Year's resolution is also good for the environment. The car is our dearest friend. It's convenient and you can get anywhere with it quickly. However, we often use it to travel distances that we could easily have covered on foot, by bicycle, or by public transportation. This New Year's resolution is good for both the body and the environment. How would it be in the new year to rely more on environmentally friendly means of transport?
Donating blood
More than 38,000 blood donations are needed every day. These blood donations come from people who have voluntarily donated their blood for the common good. With this good resolution, you can save lives if someone has lost blood or needs a transfusion for whatever reason. Any of us can get into this situation where we are suddenly dependent on blood donations from other people. With this resolution, you help yourself and other people to ensure that there are always enough blood reserves and thus save lives.
Eat Less Meat
We, in the western world, clearly live in abundance. This is also noticeable in our meat consumption. Many people eat meat almost every day and it often comes from factory farming. Eating too much meat is not good for the environment or for your body. Animals in the "meat production process" often have to suffer unnecessarily. And there are three big environmental issues with the production of meat - feed sourcing, manure processing, and climate change. Raising meat takes vast quantities of feed. This releases harmful substances like antibiotics, bacteria, pesticides, and heavy metals not only in your body but also into the surrounding environment. So how about making a New Year's resolution to have one, two, or more meatless days a week? A sensible resolution with which you can do good in many areas including yourself.
Buy fair trade and organic products
With the previous resolution "Less meat" you will already achieve a lot. If you now combine this resolution that when you buy meat, you only buy high-quality meat from regional suppliers, then you are a true model student in this area! There are big quality differences not only in the meat but also in the other products. With the New Year's resolution "buy fair trade and organic products", you would make another important contribution to our society!
Buy more often directly from the farmer or at the farmer’s market
This New Year's resolution goes hand in hand with the previous one. Be very careful about where your food comes from. Buy more often from farmers in your area, either directly from the farm or at the farmer’s market. In this way, you not only support local, regional providers but also do good for the environment and save on unnecessary delivery routes (just think of the convoys of trucks that thunder over our motorways every day).
Throw away less food
A good intention that everyone should take to heart. In an FAO study by the United Nations, the agency estimated that 1.3 billion (!) tons of food are thrown away worldwide. That is around a third of the food produced. 2 billion people could be fed from the estimated food waste the world generates each year. And according to the USDA's Economic Research Service, roughly 30 to 40 percent of the food in the United States is wasted. That amounts to more than 20 pounds of food per person wasted each month.
What are the reasons why so much food is thrown away? For now, let me only concentrate on the consumer, us: On the one hand, it’s due to excessive caution with the best-before date. Food can often be enjoyed for a long time after this. Of course, this must always be decided on a case-by-case basis, based on appearance, smell, and taste. On the other hand, there is also a lack of proper planning. Therefore, you should buy and prepare smaller portions, unless you’re cooking ahead for 2 or 3 days. You can often freeze food so you don't have to throw it out right away. Every food saved and not thrown away is worth a lot. Think before you have to throw food away.
Giving time
There are many people who are lonely and would like someone to do something with them. As a resolution, how about spending a day/afternoon with such a person, say, every two weeks or once a month? For example, you might spend time with an elderly person who has no relatives or an orphan who is missing significant others. No matter who you give this gift of time to, you will be more than rewarded with a smile and a good feeling!
Helping a Friend With His New Year's Resolutions
Not only do you have many plans and resolutions for the New Year, but so do your friends! Why don't you support each other in this? An English study of 3000 participants showed that 88% did not keep their New Year's resolutions. That's a pretty big percentage. In addition to my 3 power tips (read my blog) on how to make your New Year's resolutions sustainable, you can get a friend on board. You formulate your goals together and then you check on each other. This not only helps you, but you also automatically help a friend to achieve their goals. A very useful resolution to help a friend with their New Year's resolutions, right?
Encourage your fellow humans to do these good deeds as well
Do you sometimes have the feeling that you can achieve relatively little on your own? Then this New Year's resolution is for you! The more people participate and pick out one of these resolutions, the more positive things are done for this world! If you forward the link from this post to 5 or 10 friends and tell them to pick just one resolution from the "do good" category, you'll multiply your impact. Suddenly not only you are doing something, but 10 other people. So that's how you manage to get 10 times as many good deeds done through you. Then, throughout the year, encourage your friends to stay tuned. With this good resolution, you will do a lot of positive things for our society in the next year!
Personal Goals (New Year's Resolutions)
Do you want to develop yourself personally and have big goals for the new year? Here are a few inspirational New Year’s resolutions that might work for you:
Devote more time to your own hobbies
Do you have a hobby that has been neglected in recent years? Then your New Year's resolution could be that you devote more time to this hobby again. Again, formulate a specific number of hours that you definitely want to have per week or month for your hobby. With this resolution, you finally have time again for one of your favorite activities!
Start studying
Have you been toying with the idea of starting a degree or improving a skill for a while? What do you think of a resolution to finally get down to business on this topic? Write down which points you still need to clarify for yourself: What would I like to learn? Does the course content meet my expectations? How much time do I need for the course? How do I finance it? Now, you schedule exactly what you want to know by which specific date. For example, if you are interested in several courses or training courses, you can go to the information days you marked on your schedule to get an idea of what suits you best. The goal of this resolution is that you finally start your studies or you might even decide, "No, this training doesn't suit me that well".
Read More
"To read more" will help you in many areas! Do you have a specific topic that has always interested you, or do you want to develop a skill in your job? Lifelong learning is the order of the day these days. Those who stand still will soon be overtaken by others and you make yourself replaceable with your "old" knowledge. Everyone can find the time to read for half an hour a day. You can do a lot with this little investment of time. If you read one book a month, that's 12 in a year, and after ten years you'll have read 120 books - after reading that many books, you'll realize how much more fun life can be and how book after book will get you further in life. Tip for people who drive a lot in the car: audiobooks! Saves time and you use the time that cannot be used for anything else, besides listening to the radio or phone calls.
Learn something new
When was the last time you learned a new language, sport, or instrument? Has it been a while? How about resolving to finally learn something new this year? Which language have you been interested in for a long time? Or would you prefer a new musical instrument? There are many things you could start with. The only important thing is that you decide beforehand how many hours you want to invest in it. If you then consistently spend that number of hours on the new thing, whatever it is, you'll have greater success and have a lot of fun sticking with it!
Watch less TV
Every minute you stare at the TV, you're ingesting mental garbage. There are many benefits to making a New Year's resolution to watch less TV: TV programming is riddled with negativity. Quarrel, terror, traffic accidents. You absorb these negative things every day - often in the evening before going to bed - watching television. So if you watch less TV, you are exposed to less negative things and this affects your mood. Many people watch TV to relax. You get relaxed when you read a book, but definitely not in front of the TV. Here you are constantly at the mercy of impressions that our brain has to process. Another big factor is the amount of time you spend in front of the TV. Is it an hour, two or more? If you sit in front of the television for two hours a day, that's 730 hours a year. This corresponds to over 30 full days. That means you spend a month of the year 24 hours around the clock just in front of the television. These three reasons should be enough motivation for this New Year's resolution. You've already been given enough opportunities to do what you can do with the time you've gained.
Participate in a run
When it comes to activity goals, one often has the challenge of how to stay motivated. You don't have that with this resolution! When you're looking for a run to complete, one that is organized with a beginning and an end, you have a very specific goal to work toward. Your health will definitely be happy about this resolution and you will also feel fitter in everyday life.
Become self-employed
Everyone has dreams in their life. A dream that is often mentioned is to become self-employed. Finally, be your own boss, work only for yourself and realize your ideas. What do you think of the resolution to finally turn this into reality? One should certainly not go into self-employment with false expectations and false hope. It can be very hard, but at the same time very fulfilling. How about you? Do you want to finally turn your dreams into reality?
Travel more and explore the world
Have you always wanted to travel to a certain country or city? Then this year make a resolution that you really go there and explore the country or city of your travel dreams. Traveling is good for the soul and you get a new perspective on the world. This resolution will greatly enrich you and your personality. If you still don't have the necessary money to travel, you can take a look at the financial resolutions. You'll get lots of ideas on how to set up the financing.
Be more grateful more often
When you have a roof over your head and enough to eat, you are better off than most of the world's population! You live in one of the best-situated parts of the world - but that's often forgotten. A very useful resolution can therefore be to be more thankful more often for the wealth that one has. Pause for a moment in everyday life and just be thankful. You can also implement the resolution with a gratitude journal. Here you write down 5 things every morning for which you are particularly grateful. This resolution will ground you and you will be able to enjoy life to the fullest. Need help? Download a gratitude app like Bliss or Delightful from your app store.
Take more time for yourself
Do you have time for everyone and everything, just never for yourself? Then you should change that this year! Take time for yourself. Be it with regular relaxation exercises, with a massage or with a beauty treatment for the ladies. What do you think of consciously creating time-outs for yourself? Then you can do all the other things full of energy again.
Don't take everything too seriously.
This resolution saves you stress and is good for your blood pressure. In everyday life, you shouldn't always take everything so seriously. This creates unnecessary quarrels and problems. If you're the type who likes to "run hot" once in a while, then you'll do yourself a lot of good with this New Year's resolution!
Clean house / Getting rid of unnecessary stuff
We have so many things at home that we never use and that are just sitting in some corner. What do you think of the idea of cleaning out the whole apartment or house for once? This will free you from the inside and you will have more breathing room in your home. As with the other resolutions, make a plan. For example, take on a room every week until you've cleaned out everything from the living room to the kitchen to the basement. You can give some of the things away and sell the other stuff with a garage sale or online, for example. With this New Year's resolution, you not only create a lot of space, and it will also do you good!
Reward yourself more often
Anyone can make this resolution if they dutifully stick to another resolution. Reward yourself when you follow through with a resolution. This will help you keep going and you'll realize that sticking to your resolution is really worthwhile and a lot of fun
With this resolution, I’ll also stop the list to conclude this podcast. It's already long enough but certainly not short of all the many things you can do to set yourself up for the new year.
And by the way, you don’t have to wait until the end of the year to make your new year's resolutions. A new year can begin at any time, your birthday, the start of spring or any other time of the year. Remember today is the first day of the rest of your life. Make it count.
So, therefore…
Now it's your turn:
You have now received 59 impulses for New Year's resolutions. What resolutions will you implement in the new year? Tell me on my Facebook group “The Living Well Community”. Also, share this podcast with your friends so you can tell them what resolutions you're going to make and learn what resolutions they have. If you want to see a written list of all the resolutions check the link in the show notes to download a copy. Just leave me your email. Thank you!
For now, I want to wish you again a happy and most of all, healthy and successful 2022. I hope I can be part of your journey and help succeed in all areas of life.
And here is today’s answer to my google buster question “50% of Americans are focused on this New Year’s resolution. What is it?”
According to a Statista study of 1,500 Americans, the top three resolutions for 2021 were exercising more, losing weight, and saving more money. Fifty percent of respondents said they were focused on exercising more, 48% said they wanted to lose weight and 44% said they wanted to save more money.
"While some might say that they do not need New Year’s Eve to finally turn their life around, making resolutions on December 31 is a common, well-liked tradition, especially in the Western world. They are usually meant to contain some kind of improvement or betterment of one’s conduct or life choices," the Statista study said.
So here you have it. Re-listen to this podcast, if you have to, and continue your new year on the right foot by setting real goals and stick to it. Picture yourself a year from now. You won’t regret it!
I also want to remind you to leave me your email if you wish to receive a link to my written document with all my 59 resolutions. If you still feel overwhelmed keeping your resolutions, I want to remind everybody that I’d love to Skype or Zoom with you for more ideas of how I can help you start the new year right and create a Living Well, healthy, and happy lifestyle for you and your family.
Check out my great packages & as always, our first get together is free! You can find the link to all my personalized coaching services in the Show Notes. Take a look and let me know how I can help.
And, of course, I am continuing to work hard so you can join me for my upcoming digital course: “28 Days To A Healthier You”. It’s the perfect way to enjoy the journey how to live a better, healthier, and happier life. Don’t forget to check out my show notes and my website BeyondYourScale.com for tips, recipes and so much more information.
Take care for now and thank you so much for staying tuned. I love having you & look forward to getting to know you better soon! Have a safe & happy rest of the week.