Top 8 New Year’s Resolutions

It’s a few days into the New Year, and probably anyone and everyone around you is committing themselves to New Year’s Resolutions – some may succeed if they are genuinely committed to them and have come up with clear and compelling reasons to follow through. The majority, however, will ultimately fail – it’s the harsh truth, because they haven’t thought about the reasons that resonate with them most on the deepest level.

If you’re reading this, I know that you want to make some lasting changes – even transformations in your life for the better. The side benefit is that you’ll be more attractive to the opposite sex. If you’re still thinking about what New Year’s Resolutions or goals to take on – that’s great – taking the time and thinking about the reasons why you want to do something give you a stronger foundation to grow from rather than arbitrarily taking resolutions on or doing something because someone else is doing it.

Here’s a list of the Top 8 New Year’s Resolutions that are measurable and specific enough. For more on sticking to following through on New Year’s Resolutions, you should check out this great article on Zen Habits.

1. Get into the best shape of your life
There are so many reasons to not get into the best shape of your life in order to lead a healthy and active lifestyle. If invested even 30 minutes a day into a workout routine, your body, partner and even your love life would thank you for it.

As of now, all the rage is in Interval and Circuit training programs in the forms of the massively popular P90X, it’s predecessor Power90 and Insanity. You put in the work and discipline, and you’ll get the results. There’s even an entire community on Youtube dedicated to P90X and Insanity.

If it’s general fitness that you prefer, you can take up running, and a great start would be at a Running Room clinic, where you can train for a 10K run, Half Marathon or if you’re up for it – a Full Marathon. I took one at the and the community and support they provided were invaluable to me for following through and running back-to-back half marathons.

2. Read more

Too often we’re inundated with distractions, TV shows we don’t care to watch, being tired before AND after work that we rarely get to sit down and give a brains some much needed nourishment and exercise in the form of reading. Be it fiction or non-fiction, whatever your persuasion is, creating a ritual of reading even on a daily basis for even half an hour can help you disengage from your day to day stresses and worries as well as give your brain a workout at the same time.

3. Do something you’re afraid of

Is there anything that you’re afraid of that you never considered trying to overcome or conquer? Phobias come in all forms, shapes and sizes: be it spiders, fear of heights, or public speaking, make it a point to overcome one fear at a time, you’ll realize that it’s all in your head.

Some ideas might be skydiving, joining a public speaking club like Toastmasters.

4. Take a class and learn something you’ve always wanted to do

Have you wanted to take a new hobby or thought that a class that your friend or colleague took was really interesting? Wait are you waiting for? There’s no better time than diving straight in and trying out something new. Who knows? You might even find a new passion out of this resolution. Some cool classes you might want to consider are improv, drawing, pottery, swimming, creative writing and the list goes on…

5. Get your finances in order

Having your finances in order is a tricky situation, especially if you’re fresh out of school with plenty of student loans to look forward to.  If you’re not conscious of where your money is going or how you’re spending it, how do you get out of this pattern of spiralling debt?  In addition that, credit card interest can be killer if you’re not trying to negotiate better rates or at the very least consolidating your debt.

A great book that I’ve recently read called “I Will Teach You To Be Rich: No Guilt. No Excuses. No B.S. Just a 6-Week Program that Works” from Personal Finance blogger Ramit Sethi, a graduate from Stanford University,  teaches how easy it is to get your finances in order and actually automate so you could put it into automatic pilot mode, so you don’t have to worry about your finances as much.

6. Take breaks and get more balance into your life.

Ever feel tired or overworked ALL THE TIME? This is partly because we’re not mindful enough to take breaks through the day in order to replenish our reserves. Even taking a simple 20 minute break and doing a crossword or sudoku puzzle in order to disengage from daily stress can help you push your performance through to the next level. While this helps, you can take it further by taking the time to take up a workout program (see above) or engage in some physical activity such as walking or jogging and engage your physiology.

7. Get your dating life handled

If you’ve been single or been in a string of toxic relationships for quite some time, perhaps it’s time to change it up a bit and take some advice from dating workshops or bootcamps from experts. Some great programs may be, if you’re a woman – the Authentic Woman Experience, Zan Perrion or David Wygant. If you’re a guy, some great programs are run by the guys over at The Social Man, Charisma Arts, David Wygant and Zan Perrion.

8.  Keep a Journal on a Regular Basis

Reflecting on a regular basis is great for not only keeping you accountable for your goals, it also can be an outlet to express yourself and helps you raises the level of awareness of how you’re leading your life.

A great option for journals can be any spiral ring binder or if you’re really into the journalling experience – a Moleskine journal makes the experience much more enjoyable.

A life worth living is a life worth recording – Tony Robbins

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