7 Benefits of Making and Keeping a New Year’s Resolutions

It’s that time of year again – time to make New Year’s resolutions you may or may not keep. Most of us make resolutions with a high level of commitment, but, as life gets in the way, they may prove too difficult to maintain. The act of making and then keeping these resolutions is one way we can show up for ourselves, and in so doing, raise our level of self-esteem and confidence.

Benefits of Making & Keeping a New Year’s Resolutions

If you resolve to lose 10 pounds, and work toward it throughout the months of January and February and eventually see a proof on the scale that you did it, it can instill a positive sense of empowerment and self-esteem. Finding ways to foster positive self-esteem and confidence is one of the benchmarks of happy living, so take the opportunity that the New Year offers by creating reachable goals for yourself.
Every milestone brings with it a sense of nostalgia. Whether it’s a birthday, an anniversary, retirement, or end of the year, you’re bound to think back about things you’ve done right, things you could have improved on, and gaps that need to be filled. This time of reflection will help you realize where you want to be in the future, and what you need to do to get there.
Dancing through life like a plastic bag on the wind might be low stress and freeing some of the time, but it’s not likely to get you where you want and need to be. Setting realistic goals helps us move through life like climbing a ladder: graduating high school, then college, preparing for a big job interview, and doing our career-best all require setting goals. Resolutions can serve as low-pressure life goals, which will help to master the real thing.
Are you stuck in a rut? Do you wish your life would change for the better? Setting one or multiple resolutions can put you on a path for change. Maintaining efforts to obtain those changes will serve as motivation for more positive changes in the future. Now that you’re figuring out what needs to change – and you’re proving to yourself that you can change it – you’re more likely to make more positive modifications in your daily life.
There are many aspects of life that we are unable to control. What others say and do, how other people feel, and – sometimes – it can feel like we have no control of our own present or future. Making and keeping resolutions gives us a sense of control of our lives. Trimming the budget and following through with it, vowing to lose 10 pounds, and feeling and seeing the results can remind us that we do have a measure of control if we choose to exercise it.
Did you make resolutions last year? Were you able to keep them? While oftentimes setting goals for the New Year might seem like a joke, if you take them even remotely serious, it will guide you toward a sense of gratitude. As people get older, they realize how quickly time passes, and it’s common to utter “where did the time go?” Write down your resolutions so that next year, you can be grateful you were able to make them in the first place, and let the quick passage of time direct you toward real change.
None of us are robots or computers that can be given a bit of code to then execute it accordingly. When we set a goal for ourselves, it means that we have to fight through obstacles of the physical, emotional, and social variety. Reaching those goals means that we are a better, more improved version of the person we used to be.

Whether or not you make New Year’s resolutions is a personal decision. However, if you do feel the need to set them, show up for yourself the best you can to turn the vision of your future self into a reality.