Coming up with New Year Resolution Ideas can be a daunting undertaking. Resolutions are very often given up on or forgotten before February comes around. While the thought behind them can be inspiring and well-intentioned, without thought and planning, these resolutions can all too quickly become a thing of the past. Here are some New Year Resolution Ideas from our family, plus tips for keeping them for the entire year!
3 Tips for Keeping Your New Year Resolution Ideas:
The way that I have found to make sure that my resolution ideas stick is by evaluating them to three standards. The three standards are beneficial, measurable, and manageable.
Beneficial:
Is this good for me and my family?
Example: Watching new movies every week or month is a fun and harmless activity for me and my husband, but it’s not necessarily benefiting us. We leave this off the New Year Resolution list because we may enjoy attempting to watch something new each month, but there are other more beneficial things that are worth our intentional effort.
Measurable:
What is the quantity of work and time frame in which it will be done?
Example: Read 6 books in 12 months, eat 1 salad a week, or throw out 30 items this month.
Manageable:
Is it doable for me or my family in the stage of life and place in life that we are right now?
Example: My sister just bought a house with property and would love chickens. Chickens would be good for the family because it fits in with their homesteading and dietary goals. It would not be manageable this year though because they have a bunch of renovations to do and are learning how to take care of their own house. She recognized that it would be adding too much to her plate this year and that would cause unnecessary stress and strain.
Below are the New Year Resolution Ideas that we are committing to. Hopefully, these ideas inspire you for some goals for the next year. Let us know in the comments below what you have in mind for your resolutions!
New Year Resolution Ideas
Pick a Theme Instead:
Instead of setting very specific goals that may fall through because of willpower or life circumstance changes, why not pick a theme? To do this, look at all of the goals you have in mind to complete and find some commonality in them. Ideas include education, diligence, honesty, or contentment.
If you are a Christ follower like me and my family, you can pick a fruit of the Spirit that you struggle with.
Write down your theme or word multiple times and place it where you will see it regularly. You can create a vision board or a phone or computer background. This year, I am going to write the word next to each month so that as I’m scheduling my month or working on my to-do list I can continually evaluate if what I and my family are doing is helping us to accomplish our goal. I will be keeping my theme/word private for the year and then evaluate and update everyone in December 2025.
Hold Weekly Family Meetings:
This is something that our family found beneficial this year but we dropped off on doing them in the middle of the fall due to my extreme morning sickness. Our New Year resolution in this category is to keep going with them, even if it’s difficult or we feel like we don’t have the time. (Especially with us expecting a newborn in the beginning of summer!)
If this is something that you are interested in, check out our family meeting blog post with a free download!
Become Debt Free (or pay off a certain amount):
We are very grateful and blessed to be able to say that we will be paying off the last of the student loans in the beginning half of 2025. That’s something we have wanted for many years and have worked towards. This year, debt freedom is our resolution and we know we will accomplish it in a few months.
In the past, we’ve set a specific number to pay off because we knew it would not be possible to become completely debt-free.
To do this yourself, evaluate your monthly budget, and determine how much money you can reasonably put towards your debt each month. Then multiply that number by 12 months. Then make your goal to pay off that amount in the year and make it a game to see if you can do more!
Save X Amount of Money:
Similarly to paying off debt, saving money is our goal this year. We are taking the money we have been putting towards our debt and putting it into savings when we pay off the loans this year.
Evaluate your monthly budget, and determine how much money you can reasonably put into your savings each month. Then multiply that number by however many months you plan on saving. Then see if you can do more.
Complete One Big Home Project:
This one can be tricky if you’re trying to pay off debt or save money, so you have to plan and budget if it’s going to cost you any money. This doesn’t need to be expensive though. You can use resources such as Facebook Marketplace to redo your yard for cheap or free.
This year, we have two home projects on our list. One is to refinish the front porch, and the other goal is to repaint our kitchen.
Purge/Declutter/Minimize:
This is always on my New Year’s resolution list and while I usually follow through at least a bit, I always want to do more. Some ways to measure your goals with this include:
Declutter a specific room
Get Rid of the Year in a Year: This means that in the year 2025, you would get rid of 2,025 items. I am going to try this one!
Declutter specific items: kids clothes or toys, shoes, tools, kitchen items, and home decor are great places to start.
Learn a New Skill (or perfect one):
Learning a new skill is an excellent New Year Resolution. Just make sure it’s measurable. Bennett’s new skill this year is to learn at least one new song on the harmonica this year. I want to improve my canning skills by picking two new recipes to can.
Strengthen a Specific Relationship (spouse, children, grandparents, etc)
Your relationship doesn’t have to be in trouble for this to be a goal. It could be a relationship that you want to emphasize or bring more value to. Here are some ideas:
Eat dinner around the table as a family three days a week.
Call a grandparent every other week.
Write a letter to a spouse once a month.
Read More:
This is an admirable goal but so easily forgotten about and pushed to the side. Instead of reading more, try to be more specific:
Read x amount of books
Read at least x amount of books on this topic
Finish the books I started last year
Read a book to my children once a week
Bennett’s goal is to finish the books on his nightstand (which is actually a large pile) and my goal is to read a book on marriage, parenting, or home management at least every other month.
Grow Something
Grow something indoors or outdoors, ornamental or food-producing! You can grow vegetables from the seeds or roots of produce you purchase if you are on a budget. You can also ask around to see if anyone has plants that propagate that they are willing to share.
My goal is to take better care of my indoor plants to make them healthier than they currently are and to continue our outdoor flower and vegetable garden.
I hope these New Year Resolution Ideas have inspired you to set your own for this year. Let us know in the comments below what your New Year Goals are!
Save it for later!
