Fresh start to a new year of 2025

As the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve, people around the world welcome 2025 with cheers and changes. Many still have their own New Year’s resolutions to write and reflect on in the next new coming year. The New Year really does feel like a fresh start. The calendar flips over. We brush off the burdens of the past. And in this moment of conception, in some countries, we set intentions for the future instead of resolutions. We try to imagine what we want our lives to look like in the coming year.

In addition, the pressure that society places on resolutions can lead to a harmful environment. Everyone has a different point of view about a New Year's resolution. Seeing the constant social media displays of others' successful resolutions can intensify the inadequacy we are already feeling as we fail to achieve our own. The more we focus on the resolutions themselves, the less we seem to make any progress on them. The whole tradition of New Year's resolutions could really just use a reframe.

There are so many New Year’s resolution ideas to start, such as prioritizing your mental health and starting daily journaling. Mental health is just as important as physical health, going to the gym and even meditating is a great resolution. Also exploring a new hobby, cleaning your room, improve financial health, stay active and positive and much more. 

It would be unwise to disregard New Year's resolutions altogether. For many individuals, the very act of resolving propels them into a state of dynamic and desirable change. The point in Earth's trip around the sun when we make resolutions serves as a natural point for reflection; its place in the calendar allows people, in the quiet moments of post-holiday life, to think seriously about what they want to achieve in the coming year. 

In the end, what makes New Year's resolutions worthwhile isn't whether or not we accomplish them but rather what they help us change. They are not goal-setting exercises in the conventional sense. Instead, they're an avenue through which we can express a fundamental hope that we might become more fully ourselves in the coming year. Let's not throw out the tradition of making resolutions just because some people might be tempted to equate it with the tradition of making New Year's brownies.

Resolutions for the new year can be a truly sharp sword with two edges. They can inspire and motivate us, but also make us feel like we're falling short when we don't live up to them. This year, it might help to be a little kinder to ourselves as we make our plans to improve and change. We should remember that the path to self-betterment is long and winding, not a straight shot to the destination. Gratitude is a practice that can transform your mindset and sharing your reflections with a friend is good too. As 2025 approaches, resolutions do not have to be perfect.