New Year’s have come and new Year will go, oftentimes our resolutions follow them. I hear a lot about how this year will be different and that the resolutions we set will actually stick to. But it is currently January 21, 3 weeks into 2025. How many of your resolutions have you stuck to?
On December 27th I made a list of resolutions that I wanted to stick to in 2025 and I wanted to make sure that I stuck to them and made them a habit to both better my mental and physical health.
I wanted to keep it simple yet make sure that I don’t sell myself short. SO, first on my list is making sure that I eat 3 real meals a day. And that can look a lot of different ways for different people, but for me here is how it looked: Breakfast, 50 grams of protein. Lunch, 500 calories+. Dinner, 500 calories+. I chose to do this because I was tired of having low energy throughout the day and always wanting to take a nap before it was 3pm. I also live an intensely active lifestyle and I wanted to make sure that my body was getting all of the nutrients that it needs.
My second resolution is to stop using nicotine. I have been an avid nicotine user for about 7 years now and I decided that now is the time to grow up. I am not the guy who has researched the benefits or negative effects of nicotine, I am more so wanting to quit because I spend way too much money on it. And I am now 3 weeks in without using nicotine and it has not been easy but a few things that have helped are vinegar potato chips, gum, and lemon juice with ginger. I wish I could tell you why that has helped me but that is what I was recommended by my uncle who was a chainsmoker and it has helped me so far. The urges have gone away and the headaches are minimal and I am doing my best to stay strong.
My third resolution is to limit my screen time. I would argue that I do not use a lot of screen time throughout the day but it is subjective and I wanted to be more present and more involved with life. My average screen time in 2024 was 5 hours a day. With 3 hours being social media use and the other 2 being messages, facetime, and youtube. But my goal was to have no more than 3 hours of screen time and no more than an hour of social media. This one so far has been easy for me to achieve and uphold because I am really not a fan of social media and I live in Hawaii so it is really easy for me to just put my phone down and go connect with nature or life.
My fourth resolution is to read 5 books this year. Of all my resolutions I think that this one is going to be the hardest because I am not disciplined enough to just sit down and just read. But I started a book called happiness now and I am 9 chapters in and my goal is to read about 1 hour a week. But this sometimes looks like 20-30 minutes worth of reading inside an hour of time set aside to read. But I am determined to hit my goal. There was no specific rhyme or reason to start reading besides to try to learn something new or even just better my mental health.
My fifth resolution is to go on a 20-30 minute walk everyday. Like I said before, I live an intensely active lifestyle. But I wanted 30 minutes to just have more of a relaxed activity. This was just for me to clear my head while also getting my blood flowing and it doesn’t involve a gym membership or a phone and I can just walk outside my apartment and start my 30 minutes.
I know that these are not the most difficult of tasks to do, but I wanted to make sure that I was able to accomplish my goals. I did not want to make unrealistic goals and then be unable to accomplish them, so I am starting with these five resolutions.
