21 Realistic New Year's Resolutions 20-Somethings Should Strive For
To be honest, 2014 was a rough year for me; I’m sure I’m not alone with this.
Thankfully, I did manage to improve on several areas of my life that helped create a more prosperous outlook for 2015. The truth is before you can shine, you have to polish yourself.
You have to take the person you are, what you are, and mold yourself into what you want to be. Here are a few resolutions I worked on over the last 300+ days.
Hopefully, you can find a few that appeal to you and incorporate them into your own resolutions for 2015.
1. Get into shape
This is usually everyone’s first priority.
In fact, it tends to be most people's resolution every year -- year after year, after year. You’re in your mid-20s. I’m not sure what you've been told, but getting into shape later on won’t get easier.
You're at your prime now; look like it.
2. Eat healthier
I’m not even recommending eating only healthy foods -- it’s not fun. Stuff your face once in a while because it gives you comfort.
However, you need to start eating healthier. Always focus on improving your diet just slightly, but do it continuously.
It’s much easier this way and even though results take longer to show, they stick around longer.
3. Spend less time focusing on the trivial things
There are countless trivialities that we come across in life. I’d even go as far to say that most of what we experience in life is entirely trivial.
There are, however, plenty of worthy things to actually devote our time and energy to. The trick is understanding the difference. Think about it.
If you find something to be trivial, ignore it and go about your day like nothing ever happened.
4. Spend more time finding your purpose and passions in life
The time you have to do and experience all the things that you want to do and experience is extraordinarily limited. If you calculate how long it takes to create significant change of any sort, you’ll find that it isn’t possible to accomplish all that you wish to accomplish.
So why waste what time you do have? If you want to change your life in 2015, find a direction to head in and don’t look back.
5. Only keep those individuals in your life who deserve to be there
You know who they are -- you just might not be willing to admit it yet. Eventually, you'll end up cutting these people out of your life. The question is whether you have the backbone and foresight to do so sooner rather than later.
6. Quit the job you hate
Anything you hate will only continue to bring hatred into your life. Hatred can be toxic if not disposed of accordingly.
If you’re not ready to take the next step, vow to get ready in the early months of 2015. If you’re smart and hungry, there's nothing you can’t accomplish.
7. Learn to make your own decisions
It’s true… some people are natural leaders and others, followers. And that’s all fine. Every person, however, ought to be capable of leading his or her own life.
Getting advice is one thing, but taking orders is another.
8. Trust yourself
If you don’t trust yourself, you clearly don't trust the decisions you make. Why is that? Without the ability to trust, you'll never have enough control over your life to create the life you dream of.
You have the ability to live however you wish. You just need to believe you can and then refuse to fail.
9. Create fewer reasons to lie
Lying is a part of life -- and it forever will be. Some lies are necessary while others are neither necessary nor moral. It’s always best to avoid lying whenever possible.
Leave the lies for the times when they are wholly necessary.
10. Spend less time on lovers that will never transition into life partners
Having someone to spend time with regularly is healthy. Focusing too much on developing such relationships, however, is counterproductive.
There's more to life than your next lay. Keep in mind that every moment you spend with someone you shouldn’t be with is a moment you might lose with the person you ought to end up with.
You may even miss that special someone entirely because you were too busy kissing someone else.
11. Spend more time with family
The older you get, the more important family becomes, and the more you regret missing out on all the times you could've spent together. One day your family won’t be in your life any longer.
If you’re going to spend time with anyone, spend time with those who love you most.
12. Spend more time thinking about life’s greatest mysteries
Instead of focusing on Kim’s ass or some other pointless human being's pointless behaviors and pointless fame, focus on things that you most likely will never answer.
Why? Because mystery is important, and the only way to have mystery in your life is to focus on the thing that people have -- thus far -- failed to answer.
13. Stay up-to-date on happenings around the world
Everyone has an opinion about just about everything that's going on in the world. Unfortunately, most people are entirely clueless on what is actually going on in the world.
If you don’t know the facts, understand that your opinion is useless. Likewise, be wary with what you claim as fact. Many of the things we believe to be facts are merely the opinions of others.
14. Rely on logic above all else
If you don’t know how to think logically, read some books. Google the methodology. In fact, drop everything else that you're doing right at this moment and figure out how to think logically.
This is the most important thing you can learn in your life, as an advanced level of logic is the only thing that differentiates human beings from the rest of the animals on planet earth.
An illogical human life is a failed life.
15. Live life passionately
Get excited. Be passionate and hungry. It’s not that difficult -- simply choose to be. If you think you don’t have anything to be passionate about, be passionate about finding something worthy of your passion.
Don't remain stagnant. Don’t give up.
16. Learn to communicate effectively
The reason some systems fail and others succeed is that some systems have efficient communication between the individual part of the system while those that fail are lacking in the communication department.
This goes for any and every system -- from the smallest of organisms, to relationships, to companies, to countries, to the entire universe and existence itself.
Communication is less about what you say and more about what the other party takes from that.
17. Focus on simplicity
Human beings like simplicity and efficiency. Unfortunately, we have a difficult time differentiating simple from complex, and efficient from inefficient.
As a rule of thumb, as long as less is both sufficient and efficient, less is more.
18. Maximize efficiency
If you do more than you need to do, or spend more time doing things than you need to do them, you’re being wasteful. You're cheating yourself out of time, experiences, energy and all that comes with these things.
Always strive to work smarter. Make sure this one is on your New Year’s Resolution List.
19. Finish what you started -- and don't start things that aren’t worth finishing
It may be a learning experience, but not a great one. You could learn more from doing things that you believe to be valuable.
If we don’t care, we don’t learn.
20. Be happy
It’s not something you find or stumble upon. Being happy is two things: the realization of lacking sufficient reason to be unhappy, and the decision to be happy.
It’s not easy, but it’s that simple.
21. Make others happy
Feeling like we're alone is one of the worst feelings in the world. For this reason, we need to interact with people. We need to feel that our actions have an effect in the physical world.
Likewise, we want to believe that we matter more than just to ourselves -- and that can only be accomplished by bringing love and happiness into the lives of others.
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