Resolution Ideas to Get Every Bobcat Ready for the New Year

It’s that time of year, folks. The time to start thinking about your New Year’s resolutions! Maybe the thought causes you to conjure up images of long lists and goals, or maybe you’re drawing a complete and utter blank. Whatever the case, we’re here to provide you with some inspiration for manageable resolutions for 2024. Below are some key areas to think about as you come up with your resolution list!

Academic and Professional

As a student, at the forefront of your resolutions list might be academic or professional goals, and that is certainly a good place to start. Maybe you want to improve your grades or, if your grades are high already, keep them there. If you’re entering the job market at the end of spring 2024, you might want to work on starting your career. Making it a priority to do more networking or getting an internship are great career-oriented resolutions. While working on these goals, consider reaching out to your advisor or the Career Services team for some added tips and advice – they can help you keep your goals manageable and come up with the steps necessary to make your goal attainable.

Health and Fitness

Health and fitness goals are the most common New Year’s resolutions, but as popular as these are, they are some of the hardest to stick to. If you want to prioritize health and fitness, start off with small, manageable goals you know you can accomplish. Don’t commit to working out five days a week right off the bat; work your way up to that frequency. Maybe join a group or team up with a friend who can help hold you accountable. If improving your diet is your focus, research recipes you’ll actually enjoy, so you look forward to prepping and eating them.

Financial

Behind health and fitness in popularity are financial resolutions. Most people like the idea of being better with money, but budgeting can be a daunting task. As with fitness goals, it’s always good to start off small. Think about your current budget and see what easy changes you could make to your spending and saving habits. It could be as little as saving $5 a day, which seems small, but it adds up. Or you could set up weekly or monthly transfers from your checking account to your savings. Look into expenses you can ditch. Maybe you don’t need that streaming service you access only a couple of times a year. Small changes can lead to a successful financial journey.

Relationships

If these past few years have taught us anything, it’s to value and nurture our relationships. That isn’t always the easiest task if you’re a student, but that’s what makes this such a good resolution. Focusing on relationships as an intention makes it something you actively consider and pay attention to. If you want to spend more time with friends and family, something that might help is to block out time on your calendar that’s reserved explicitly for the purpose of catching up with loved ones. You can set up special mealtimes or coffee dates, or even make the connection as simple as a phone call, but the idea behind whatever you do is to keep it consistent and make it a part of your routine. Like everything else, focus on what’s possible for you to do.

Having More Fun

You read that right. Self-improvement is obviously great, but sometimes you need to prioritize having fun, whatever that looks like for you. Read more books, watch more movies, try that new restaurant, and/or treat yourself to a vacation (you probably need it!). Whatever it is that makes you happy, brings a smile to your face, adds joy to your life, however small or grand, center that in 2024 — and since you’re doing things you enjoy, you can guarantee they’ll get done!

Remember: Your resolutions don’t have to be giant lifestyle shifts; they just have to be relevant to you and your needs. Most importantly, they should be attainable. As you’re formulating your resolutions, keep in mind what’s doable and what you actually want to achieve versus what you feel pressured to do. Finally, just because you didn’t accomplish a resolution this year doesn’t mean that you failed. It just means you have another opportunity to try again next year. Cheers to a fabulous and achievement-filled 2024!