Lifestyle changes I’m making in 2023

New Year’s resolutions are a time-honored tradition of setting out huge goals with no actual plan on how to achieve them. We’ve all found ourselves sucked into the excitement of change but the follow-through isn’t as enticing. So this year I’m making resolutions and planning to bring them to life.

First, let’s review what most Americans aim to accomplish in the New Year. According to Statista.com, the top resolution is (unsurprisingly) to live healthier followed by personal improvement and happiness, losing weight, and reaching career goals. Another survey showed that only 22% of people followed through with their resolutions.

I’m following suit and prioritizing health and wellness. My big goal is to walk more. While studying abroad in Italy this past year, I walked thousands of steps a day and even hit 30,000 steps one day. Once I returned home I still walked but nowhere near as much as I did. I declare 2023 will be the year of walking. For the office, I plan on getting a small treadmill that can fit under a standing desk. I’ve seen TikToks of people using these and they get shit done. Even just staying at a low pace all day can lead to some amazing results. In addition to the desk treadmill, I’ll opt to walk to work as much as possible but I live in Minnesota so it’s not like I’m walking 20 minutes to work in the winter.

For mental wellness, I’m getting back into journaling. I’ve been journaling on and off for four years and have fallen off a bit in the past few months. I greatly enjoy journaling and love going back to old entries and reflecting on how I’ve grown and changed. Writing down my thoughts also allows me to sort them out and work through them. Plus, I have this whole vision of my children and grandchildren reading through them when I’m old and grey. But I might have to give them a curated version with some of the more scandalous bits left out.

As I said, I haven’t been as diligent about my journaling so how do I plan on fixing this problem? I’ve never tried gratitude journals or journals that have prompts to guide writers in their entries so I’m going to give them a shot. Often times when I’ve had a dull day I feel like I don’t have anything important enough to share. Having these guided journals will help take some of the brainwork out of figuring out what I should talk about. I’ll keep a more open-ended journal as well to write about things that won’t necessarily fit in a guided journal.

Last year I tried to learn how to budget, but being a student with a flexible income and variable spending made it difficult. For several months I tracked spending but wasn't able to make anything out of it. Now as I enter adulthood (sensing a theme here), I need to set out and get down to business with my spending. To get started, I'm going to budget out the money in very broad terms into spending, saving, and investing. Within that spending money, I'll just have to learn.

My final resolution is to get out there and make friends. This December I graduated college and have moved to a new city where I really don’t know anyone. Making friends stopped being easy in third grade so I’ll have some trial and error figuring it out. My plan for this is to just get myself out there. I’m talking trivia nights, crochet groups, book clubs, and anything that aligns remotely with my interests. Another route to take is by trying out BumbleBFF, a platonic version of the popular dating app Bumble. Others have reported mixed results but I need to give it a shot myself. Maybe I’ll even give a little review of my time with it.

In the end, any attempt at self-improvement is extremely admirable. The pressure to be better is always looming above us and it can be crippling at times. Remember to be forgiving and know that resolutions can be made at any time of the year. Party safe, and have a happy New Year.