10 New Year's Resolutions for Your Best Self - ft. In Its Season Blog

Good riddance to 2020! …Right?

It's hard to know what to think about everything that happened this year, but I’m feeling grateful right now.
This year, I reclaimed myself from abusive relationships, workplaces, and limitations. I feel more like myself than I have in a while, and I have the realities of quarantine to thank for much of it.

One golden outcome of this year has been the way relationships have thrived. I haven’t seen people in months, but I feel so surrounded thanks to technology and this blog. In this spirit, I loved collaborating with Genesis from the In Its Season blog on our best suggestions for resolutions to consider in the new year.

Here’s some food for thought as you reflect on 2021:

1. Adventure at least once a month
   Think about trying only twelve new things a year. If you let a month go by without trying something new and outside your comfort zone, you could be limiting yourself to less than this number. If you can’t get out of town: visit a local state park for day, try a new dish at a local restaurant or from a cookbook, listen to a podcast. Planning these adventures at the beginning of the year makes it easier to invest in things which really inspire you.
   
   Related: Travel the World with Food & Coffee

2. Create a financial plan to follow
   It doesn’t have to be complex, but managing your finances will help you to travel more and with confidence. When I first started traveling, I didn’t have much money, and trips were often filled with pangs of guilt over spending. I often wondered whether I was gambling away my future. Taking some intentional time to get aligned with your finances will help you spend without a pit in your stomach.
   
   Related: How to Travel Without Jeopardizing Your Financial Future

3. Create a daily self care routine
   Habits and discipline mean more than any motivation or inspiration. Even the practice of setting goals helps! I use an app Habitica to keep track of my daily goals. You can create groups with your friends and earn imaginary gear, etc. It’s fun! Some type of next level to aspire in each of these areas is a good place to start: physical, mental, emotional/social, spiritual.
   
   Related: 5 Tips to Traveling with Anxiety & Depression

4. Brainstorm your ideal life
   Things may have felt out of control this year, but life hasn’t stopped. There’s still the opportunity to work towards a life that works for you. The Ideal Day Visualization exercise is a good way to walk through how everything looks and feels in the best day ever. I did this exercise with a health coach and it was so informative! It gave me a lot of feedback for what I actually want life to look like - it was actually much more humble and accessible than I often dream about.
   
   Related: 15 Inspiring Quotes on Growth

5. Spend the holidays minimizing
   Spending the holidays a few years ago executing the KonMari method from The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up was such a game changer. It completely transformed my mindset on owning things, and focused my attention towards truly treasuring what I choose to keep in my life. It’s a philosophy that’s applicable to any energy exchange (relationships, work, locale), and I still think about it all the time today. Read her book, and take a half day this holiday to work through her suggestions. I can promise you, it’ll change your life and home!
   
   Related: 6 Black Friday Buys to Consider

   In Its Season is a lifestyle blog all about helping you create a seasoned life that is authentically you. With posts about seasonal routines, self-improvement and productivity tips (among other things), you will be encouraged to experiment with many different aspects of life in order to discover which ones are right for you in each season of your journey. Come cozy up in this little corner of the internet, where authentic living is celebrated and we aim for progress, never perfection!
   
   Here are suggestions from Genesis:

6. Track a habit for the whole year
   It may be tempting in the New Year to try to pile on a huge list of things that you want to change, but it is quickly going to overwhelm you to approach your resolutions this way. Instead of trying to tackle hundreds of goals in one year, choose just one that you want to really improve. Not only will this make it much more manageable to achieve, but the act of tracking a single habit for an entire year builds discipline. The skill of discipline will help you with so much more than you think! It will give you the ability to tackle more items on your list with ease because you have developed the bigger skill of sticking with one task until it is achieved. Don’t let yourself pick a bunch of habits to track this year. Instead, stick with one that you can manage so that you don’t give up on it and move on to something else. 

7. Cut gossip out of your life
   This task is way harder than it sounds. You will be surprised by how many times you complain or gossip about other people throughout your daily routine. This year, resolve to stop talking about other people negatively or for your own gain. Not only will it make you a kinder, more trustworthy person, but it will improve the way you see yourself over time. Gossip may feel good at the time, but it is actually hurting your life more than you think. By cutting the habit of gossip out of your life, you are helping your mental health. Refusing to gossip will also force you to connect in a different way with friends and family, ultimately helping to deepen your relationships. 

8. Set limits on social media 
   Our culture is so filled with digital noise and it can be hard to notice when things have gone too far. You might be using your digital devices in a way that is unhealthy for you and not even notice it. This year, try to add some intentionality to your use of digital devices. Start the year with a serious digital detox and take the rest of the year to experiment and try to find a healthy balance with social media and digital boundaries. Quit some platforms if they are not helping you, join new ones if you feel they will benefit you, and establish appropriate boundaries to help your mental health. You will be surprised by how much time and mental energy you have available for other activities! 

9. Develop weekly and monthly routines
   Throughout the year, we often miss a lot of things because we simply don’t have reminders to do them. The email accounts fill up, tax forms get missed, and birthdays get forgotten. Creating a weekly and monthly system will help you keep on top of those things, but there’s no one-size-fits-all. You need to spend the year trying out your own routines and adjusting them accordingly. Create checklists for yourself that will remind you of the things that you want to remember and be prepared for. With a system in place to help you, it will be easier to manage all of the things you need to do throughout the year to stay organized. You can get started by checking out the monthly routine checklist that I use.

10. Read a book from 5-10 different genres
    On a personal level, I am actually really excited about this resolution! Books are an amazing way to open your mind and affect your thinking, but we often get ‘stuck’ in a thought comfort zone. We tend to go to the same style of books every time we read because it repeats what we are already thinking. As a challenge to the way you think, choose a book from different genres to open your heart and your mind to new things from the comfort of your own home. It might not outright change your life, but it will definitely make you a more understanding person. And who knows? You might actually discover something you never knew that changes the way you live in the future. Choose from my list of book recommendations.

    Here are some genres to consider: 

    • Mystery

    • Fantasy

    • Historical Fiction/ Historical Non-Fiction

    • Autobiography/Biography/Memoir

    • Experiment with Authors from different backgrounds (ie. Aboriginal, Canadian, Chinese-American, an author with a mental illness, etc.) 

    • Classics

    • Poetry

    • Spiritual books, especially one that is not your own religion or belief

Despite all these plans, the next year feels like a complete mystery. I’m planning safe travel in the US, and otherwise continuing to put life on hold. My prediction is it will be late in 2021 before things are close to anything resembling the pre-pandemic norm. What do you think next year will look like?