Wish you all a very Happy New Year from Young Scholarz! We’re so glad to wrap up 2023 on a successful and positive note. The past few days we’ve also had a chance to focus on personal health, giving us time to reflect on the past year and look ahead with hope for the new year.
On that note, we’d like to share our take on setting up new goals and new perspectives for the new year’s resolutions, so read ahead!
New Year’s Resolutions
They sound very clichéd, but are they effective? New Year’s Resolutions are considered quite clichéd – the whole ‘New Year – New Me’ attitude can wear off before January ends, and taking them lightly makes them all the more cringe worthy. But, these are subjective and it depends on how serious an individual is about changing their lives for the better.
There are many goals that we set throughout the year, but how many of them do we actually follow? Considering most of them are either difficult or complicated, we’ve come up with 5 – yes, only 5 (or maybe 6) resolutions that you can, and absolutely should, achieve this year.
2024 New Year’s Resolutions
It’s easy to come up with aims and goals without giving it much of thought – but are they effective? To help navigate through the tough years of academic life, it would be easier to stick to a common theme that brings together the core for 2024. To make things easier, we’ve come up with a theme – GROWTH.
1. Love thyself
It’s absolutely essential and non-negotiable! Only after attending a reunion school party, perhaps 20 years down the line, do we realize how pretty girls and handsome boys back then aren’t all that pretty anymore. Looks change, but your personality shouldn’t so love yourself despite glasses and braces and baby fat – embrace yourself as you are and never let anybody’s comments and sniggers affect your core.
Our early adult years are largely based on other people’s approvals and validation. We focus so much on what our friends and family would say that we oftentimes forget what makes us happy. Being obedient and being a pushover are two different things, and one must learn to draw their boundaries.
We need to detach ourselves from others and give ourselves more heed – listen to ourselves when it comes to health, academic, and career goals, and make individual choices in a group. Don’t say yes just to look cool, and don’t do anything if you aren’t happy doing it.
2. Eat healthy!
We now live in a world dominated by packaged meat and sugary snacks. If that isn’t enough, eating out is more common than preparing your meals now. Following food bloggers, and scrolling through reels on top new spots in town does nothing but aggravate cravings and tendencies to eat out 4-5 times a week.
Eating junk food and fast food does not only impact your physical but also your mental health and well-being. On a micro level, high levels of sodium, glucose, and sucrose dramatically affect blood sugar and hence the organs, indirectly affecting your hormones and even your cognitive abilities. Studies suggest that high levels of glucose can even cause seizures in severe cases.
On a macro level, don’t you personally feel sluggish and heavy after having a cheeseburger or a greasy pizza? Truth be told, it is rather tempting but safer when had once in a few months. However, having cholesterol-heavy food is detrimental to your health in the long run. Just a couple of consecutive meals outside can cause issues like acid reflux and upset stomachs.
Turn your focus towards fresh fruits and crunchy veggies – raw vegetables like cucumbers and carrots taste excellent with chickpeas and hummus. And, you can always leave yourself a cheat day once a month to indulge in salted eggs and french fries.
Moderation is key.
3. Create a healthy work-life balance
Appearing for the IGCSEs this year? Prepping for your IB exams for the first half of this year? Exams, college admissions, job interviews – these are all crucial, no doubt! But while studying and preparing for our academic and career growth, we often tend to neglect our familial relationships.
Birthdays, weddings, and festivals are the only times when the family gets together. Living a healthy school life with friends is equally important as these are the formative years to building not just memories but also everlasting friendships. Don’t get so lost in your assignments that you forget to relish the pot roast that your mom made for you and your siblings!
Also, don’t miss out on a sleepover to study for your exams the next month, or hamper your exam the next day by going out the night before! Create a proper balance between your study and your social life. Have a little fun so you can re-energize yourself for study and academic growth, and turn down offers to hang out when you have too little time left to study.
4. Sleep well
Many influencers claim that less sleep leads to productivity and success – some just feel that sleeping 8 hours a day equals losing out on 33% of opportunities and productivity that you’d otherwise get if you didn’t sleep. But, if you fall sick and meet a doctor, they always prescribe not just 8 hours of sleep, but also early bedtime and early sunrise.
We tend to get to bed early but scroll through our phones for hours before we close our eyes. If you too are guilty of the same, you should change this practice soon before it turns into a habit. Sleep early, and sleep well so you can start your day on a happy note.
We’ve tried it, and it works! Go for a morning walk or a jog to get the right amount of vitamin D and adjust your daily metabolism rate. You’ll feel lighter and fitter in a few weeks.
Good sleep and early exercise also improve your skin by flushing out toxins and erasing dark circles, thus reducing your aging process from your teens.
Don’t take us lightly – we know the cost of anti-aging creams and procedures and how they aren’t effective at all!
5. Stop procrastinating – start doing
Don’t wait for the year to end so you can make the same new year’s resolutions again next year! Why wait for tomorrow to start your Internal Assessment when you can very well begin with it today? Don’t focus all your time and energy on a low-priority task when you have a high-priority task and a deadline by the end of this week!
Use the Eisenhower Matrix to prioritize your tasks and also eliminate tasks that aren’t important or urgent at all.
Many of us procrastinate because we want to avoid the anxiety that comes with the work. The task itself might be very easy, but sometimes there’s so much apprehension built around it, involving potential failures and imperfections, that we tend to delay the task as much as we can, and then rush it off at the last minute. This only compounds our anxieties and may end up in failure, thus reinforcing the same behaviour the next time as well.
To avoid self-inflicted disappointment and the anxiety that comes with it, we need to tackle the task head-on and face our problems right away before they amplify even more.
And lastly, be kind to others
You don’t have to go out of your way to perform any acts of kindness. You can focus on the smallest of the things that could be an act of kindness to others. Smiling at a stranger who seems like they’re going through something tough, letting an older person ahead of you in a queue, holding grocery bags for your elderly neighbour – these are small yet impactful and can make someone’s day.
No matter how rude they’ve been to you, don’t forget who you are and keep your ground. No one else’s attitudes and behaviours should shake your core and your belief system.
So, be kind, be generous, be you!
