Every New Year’s Resolutions You Should Have On Your List For 2021
New Year’s resolutions can seem daunting and pointless to make, however, if you stick to making realistic and achievable resolutions, you are more likely to accomplish them. Here are some New Year’s resolutions that you should have on your 2021 list!
1. Limit Screen Time
I feel like 2020 has caused a drastic increase in the amount of time I spend on my phone per day. It is honestly embarrassing how much time I spend scrolling through social media and watching videos on my phone rather than being present in my own life. Due to the amount of time spent at home due to the Coronavirus, I think a lot of us have seen an increase in screen time this past year. That’s why I think it is important to try and cut back on the amount of time spent on our phones in 2021. Yes, it is nice to take a mental break and check out of reality for a while, but spending hours and hours on social media every day has been proven to harm your mental health and lower productivity. I have found that the more time I spend on social media, the worse I tend to feel about myself and the less I check off of my to-do list for the day. If you have been feeling the same way, I highly recommend setting limits on your screen time, which you can do on your smartphone. You can actually go into your settings and set time limits for how long you can be on certain apps for each day, such as Instagram or Tik Tok so that you can focus more on yourself.
2. Drink More Water
This has consistently been one of my New Year’s resolutions for the past five or so years, to drink more water! Especially during quarantine, it is so necessary to drink a lot of water. I think we have all heard the statistic that our bodies are made up of about seventy percent water, which means that we need to be replenishing that on a daily basis! Drinking water can help to clear up your skin, flush out toxins, and give you more energy throughout the day. Who wouldn’t want that? Something that has helped me to begin getting on the right track and increase my water intake is getting a water bottle that I like to drink out of. I know it sounds kind of ridiculous, but if I think the water bottle I use is cute and like the straw or mouthpiece it comes with, I am way more likely to drink water. There are even water bottles on the market that have trackers on them with times so that you know how much water you should drink by each time of day. That can be super useful if you want to track your water intake but need a little extra motivation!
3. Make Time For Yourself
Another New Year’s resolution that I would recommend adding to your 2021 list is to simply make more time for yourself. It can be so easy to get caught up in being social and staying on top of work that you neglect yourself and time alone with yourself. It is so important to be able to be alone and just recharge your battery. It is much harder to give energy to your loved ones and put it into your work if you are not giving energy back to yourself. Making time for yourself can look like many different things. You could pour yourself a glass of wine, draw a bath, and do a facemask if that is your preferred form of self-care. Or, it could be taking a nap, coloring in an adult coloring book, or even taking a drive. Whatever it is you like to do to recharge, do not neglect it in the coming year.
4. Cultivate A Work/Life Balance
This next one can be extremely difficult depending upon your job and personality type, but creating a work-life balance is such one of the most crucial New Year’s resolutions for 2021, especially if you are working from home due to Coronavirus. Working from home can kind of blur the boundaries when it comes to work-life and home life because your home has become your office. If you are working in a standard office and have to commute home it is definitely a bit easier to flip that work mode switch off because you do have that process of physically leaving the office and making your way home. That time to decompress is so important, even more so now that a large number of people are working remotely these days. Something that my sister has gotten quite good at is logging off of her work computer once 5:30 hits and leaving any emails that come in after that time, unless they are urgent of course, for her to deal with once the next workday begins. If you can start with that step, creating a balance is much easier. Once you have logged off of work for the day, do something that you enjoy to help you transition into a nighttime mode such as working out or cooking dinner. Once you do this for a week or so, your body will have an easier time automatically knowing when it is time to work and when it is time to relax.
6. Prioritize Your Mental Health
Last on my list of 2021 New Year’s resolutions, is a big one, to prioritize your mental health. This obviously looks different for everyone, but it is important to talk about nonetheless. Whether for you that means keeping frequent appointments with a licensed therapist, meditating, journaling out your thoughts and feelings, listening to music at an incredibly high volume, taking a midnight drive, etc. it is important now more than ever before with increased isolation to stay on top of your mental health. This year has been so hard for everyone and those of us with mental health struggles have had missteps and bad days, but there is hope in 2021! Always remember that you are worth the time you take for yourself and mental health is just as, if not more important, than physical health.
