5 Skills for a Better You in the New Year
- 5 January, 2017 //
- For Parents, Teaching Resources //
- Tags : goals, new year resolutions, self-improvement
- Comments Off on 5 Skills for a Better You in the New Year
Every year, people make New Year’s Resolutions and every year they fail to keep them. The most popular resolution every year is to lose weight, but some of the other top resolutions may surprise you. Regardless of what resolutions are going to top this year’s list, you only need to make one – resolve to better yourself. How are you going to do that? We’ve got you covered with a few skills that will lead to a better you this new year.
Handle Your Stress
Now that the craziness of the holidays has died down, it’s time to get back into your normal everyday routines. For high school students, this often means prepping for finals. For others, it means dealing with the stresses that come with work and other daily activities. Rather than letting stressful moments get the best of you this year, take some time to learn to handle your stress.
What are some ways to keep stress from getting the best of you?
- The American Heart Association recommends using positive self-talk as its number one tip for handling stress.
- The American Psychological Association encourages you to take a break from the stressor.
- The Anxiety and Depression Association of America suggests taking a timeout by doing yoga or listening to music and notes the importance of eating healthy, balanced meals.
Of course, if none of those strategies work, you can also spend some time popping virtual bubble wrap as a way of calming yourself down. When you learn how to handle your stress you’ll be more productive, healthier, and better able to interact with others.
Value Your Time
People have been saying “if only there were more hours in the day” for centuries. Despite that fact, there are still only 24 hours in a day and you determine how to fill them. This year, start valuing your time by learning how to manage it and making sure you’re devoting your time to things that are important.
Think it’s impossible to create some order in your crazy schedule? Try a few of these tips:
- Make a to-do list every day so you know what’s on your plate. Use a piece of paper, the notepad on your phone, or even a fancy online tool such as Remember the Milk.
- Assess your time to see where you’re spending the most time and then prioritize your activities to make sure you’re spending time on what matters.
- Learn how to say no so that you can avoid taking on too much and focus on what’s most important.
As you learn to value your time, you’ll find that your stress levels will also decrease and that you enjoy what you do much more.
Care for Others
When you’re feeling down or stressed, one of the best things you can do is go care for someone else. Not only do you get to help someone out, but you also take the focus off of yourself and your problems. Caring for others involves more than just helping people out though. It also involves developing empathy, or the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and begin to understand their perspective. You can do this by…
- Volunteering for a local charity
- Learning how to be an active listener
- Practicing the Six Habits of Highly Empathic People
When you develop empathy and learn to care for others, you will find yourself better able to deal with others, thereby potentially reducing stress. You’ll also discover some valuable ways to spend your time, making your busy days a little more meaningful.
Take Care of Yourself
People who think about themselves all the time are often thought of as self-centered and shallow. While you can focus on yourself too much, you can also focus on yourself too little. As you learn to care for others, you also need to learn to take care of yourself. If you don’t take care of yourself you can become stressed out and experience other negative emotions. You can also experience health problems, both as a result of those negative emotions and as a result of not treating your body the way you should.
Thankfully, we have a few simple ways to take care of yourself:
- Eat balanced meals and exercise regularly
- Get plenty of sleep every night
- Learn how to relax
When you start to take care of yourself, the other parts of your life start to fall into balance too.
Educate Yourself
Knowledge is the solution to many problems. It can help you build empathy as you learn more about others. It can help you manage your time as you learn ways to complete tasks in a timelier manner. It can also reduce your stress by helping you build new skills to help you advance in your career, do better in school, or allow you to take on activities that you enjoy.
Educating yourself doesn’t have to involve enrolling in an expensive course. A few easy ways to educate yourself include:
- Learning to ask effective questions
- Taking free online courses from top universities
- Being willing to fail and learning from failure
The more you learn, the more confident you’ll feel about yourself and your abilities and our Top 100 Free Education Sites is a great place to start.
How are you going to better yourself this new year? Share your resolutions in the comments or provide some other tips to help others manage their stress, value their time, care for others, take care of themselves, and educate themselves this year.
