New Years Resolutions: To Make, or Not to Make? (January 2026)
Every year, we see advertisements promoting making resolutions to join a gym or start a diet, as well as many other messages centered around food and movement. But resolutions often start strong only to fall by the wayside by February. Instead of falling into the resolution trap, have you considered working on goals that can improve your life for the long term, rather than the short term?
My goal for writing this is to encourage you to take a fresh look at yourself. How do you communicate with people? How do you live your day-to-day life? What is (and is not) working for you? While I am blessed in my life, I’m certainly not perfect, so I to have taken the time to reflect on what’s important to me and my well-being.
Sleep is a topic that we don’t talk about nearly enough. Prioritizing adequate, quality sleep helps improve our focus, energy, and stress levels, and can help us live up to our desire to be the best we can personally and professionally. For many people, this is a worthy goal to work on. I would suggest not telling yourself, “I have to sleep x number of hours a night.” A better message would be, “I will work on getting into bed 30 minutes earlier each night.” Then see how that feels and works for you. Based on what you notice, you can evaluate what other changes you would like to make.
Movement is something we all need to do. Whether you carry your grocery bags into your house from your car or from an Instacart delivery to your front door, it would be unfortunate if this task made your muscles sore or threw your back out. As we age, maintaining some level of aerobic activity and muscle strength is also important for heavier household tasks such as moving furniture around. To support that strength and endurance, explore what types of movement don’t feel like a chore to you. Perhaps it’s turning music on and dancing in your house. Maybe it’s ironing? Or gardening? We want the movement to be fun and enjoyable, and the classic default of walking on the treadmill usually isn’t something we’d call fun.
Food choices are always a popular topic of conversation. Many of us are too busy to cook, so we end up ordering take out, which is nice, although more expensive. If you find yourself frequently turning to takeout or frozen meals, have you considered adding your own fresh, frozen or canned vegetables on the side? This can stretch one meal into multiple meals and would allow you to know more about what is in your meal. If you don’t like vegetables, perhaps including fruit—again, fresh, frozen or canned—is a more appealing alternative? If you tend to be a “picky” eater, you could explore other options. It’s best to not create rules such as “I can only eat salads for lunch” or “X number of days per week I will eat such and such.” This can set you up for failure if you don’t meet those rigid goals.
Communication is, ironically, not discussed enough. Have you considered how you speak with your family? Friends? Colleagues? The words we use, our tone, and our body language all speak volumes, so they are all are important to be aware of and to work on changing if needed, even if it feels challenging.
If, when you evaluate these topics and how they relate to your life, you see room for change, think of small steps you can make. While it can be tempting to try to make radical changes when we see room for improvement, taking small steps is more realistic, and more likely to help you be successful in making changes that improve your life for the long term.
