57 New Year’s Resolutions that Have Nothing to do With Diet or Exercise

Here on EvidenceMag, you read a lot about fat loss and exercise. The most popular articles are mostly about [clean eating](https://impruvism.com/clean-eating/), [flexible dieting](https://impruvism.com/flexible-dieting-basics/) [calories](https://impruvism.com/why-calories-count), and so forth.

Since this is the first article of 2014, when most people are setting weight loss goals, it makes sense that we’d talk about fat loss.

Better idea: Let’s talk about something else.

The fact is that getting lean is far less important than we make it out to be compared to other things.

Instead of setting physique or performance related goals, set a few New Year’s resolutions that have nothing to do with losing weight or becoming a better athlete.

Pick one or two goals that excite you, and write down three things you can do today to start making progress.

This list is also a sneak peek at some of the topics you’ll see in Evidence Magazine, which comes out on February 3.

1. Have a conversation with a new person every day.
2. Learn to cook at least a week’s menu of meals.
3. Learn to dance.
4. Don’t answer, or look at, your cellphone when talking to another person.
5. Ask your family members or significant others “How was your day?” every single day.
6. Learn to be a good listener.
7. Purposely get rejected every day.
8. Learn to speak slower, use fewer words, and enunciate.
9. Get rid of all of the clothes you’re not using.
10. Sell all of the crap that you never use worth more than $20.
11. Give the rest of your stuff away, recycle it, throw it away, or use it for target practice…
12. Learn to shoot a gun.
13. Go on at least one big trip, longer than one week.
14. Visit a foreign country.
15. Learn to argue by asking questions.
16. Stay up most of the night having fun at least once in the next month. (“Fun” is whatever you choose.)
17. Don’t look at the bathroom scale for a month.
18. Learn to make small talk.
19. Use proper grammar when texting. No 1 lks it wen u typ lk ths.
20. Call people on the phone instead of texting.
21. Cook for yourself at least once a day.
22. Keep a daily journal.
23. Take time at the beginning and end of the day to reflect on your goals.
24. Use Meetup.com to find new people to hang out with.
25. Don’t talk or text in the car.
26. Move out on your own.
27. Unsubscribe to all of the blogs and websites that publish inaccurate, confusing, or useless content.
28. Keep a commonplace book.
29. Clean your house in 20 minutes per day with a daily cleaning schedule.
30. Read a book every month, every week, or every day.
31. Be on time for every appointment.
32. Start your day by planning your schedule.
33. Start a to-do list that you can finish every day.
34. Open the door for everyone you can.
35. Look everyone in the eye when you say hello.
36. Ask people for their names.
37. Address people by their first name if you know it.
38. Let yourself sleep in at least one day per week
39. Buy enough nice clothes so that you can show up to meetings without looking like a hippy who wears their mom’s t-shirts from 30 years ago (not that I would know…)
40. Visit a new place every day.
41. Stop checking Facebook for at least a week.
42. Go to bed at the same time every night.
43. Create a daily routine and stick to it.
44. Break your normal routine and do different activities at different times.
45. Answer all of your emails within a week.
46. Delete all of your emails. “Email armageddon,” as I call it.
47. Go on a 30 day paleo diet challenge. Just kidding. I needed to make sure you were paying attention.
48. Pay off your credit card debt.
49. Give someone a sincere, honest, specific compliment every day.
50. Learn to speak a new language.
51. Learn to play an instrument.
52. Learn to talk without saying “um,” “like,” “so,” or relying on adverbs such as “very,” “slowly,” and “quite.”
53. Take one day per week completely off from any kind of work.
54. Delete all of the old notes, bookmarks, files, and other stuff on your computer that you’ll never use.
55. Visit and explore a new city.
56. Take a course on Udemy, Thinkful, or from a mentor group.
57. Mandatory: Schedule at least 30 minutes per day to work on your biggest goals.

You’re more than an athlete or a body.

Health and fitness are important, but they aren’t everything.

There are many other ways you can improve your quality of life that don’t involve lifting heavy weights or getting lean. In fact, by taking a small break from focusing on your physique and performance, you’ll probably be happier and healthier in the long-run. That’s the goal, right?

You’ll notice that some of these ideas are contradictory, like setting a routine and then purposely breaking it. That’s because each of these might be appropriate for different people, at different times. Pick the changes that you think will help you become a happier person.

What are you going to do with your 30 minutes?

Let’s talk in the comments.

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