I’ve never been one for New Year’s resolutions. Year after year, I’d be influenced by my mom or school teachers to put a foot in the right direction for the new year, but it was never something I was really interested in. Every time I’d set a goal for myself, it would come crumbling down in a matter of weeks, or even days. 

I’m 22 now, and every breath I get closer to being a full-fledged adult. I already live alone, pay my bills and have knee arthritis, but I still consider myself a young adult. This year my opinions have changed about making resolutions. I have been reflecting a lot on 2025 — it was a wild and rough year. While I would like to forget about some things that went down, I am instead looking at them differently.

Growing up I took the saying “new year, new me” to heart. I thought resolutions we made had to completely alter who I was as a person. 

Even after a crummy year I don’t want to be a completely different Megan, I want to be a better Megan. 

I won’t dive into everything that catastrophically went wrong last year, but I’ll tell you I’ve lived and I’ve learned. Why would I go through the whole process of trying to reconstruct a new me when I just did the best thing a human could do? I learned through living and made it out to see the other side. 

So this year instead of setting one humongous goal I’d never be able to reach, I’m setting micro goals.  

One thing I noted I needed to work on after my experiences last year was my productivity. Most nights I’d give myself too many breaks while doing cleaning tasks around my house or while doing homework. This led to me not returning to these tasks and leaving things half finished. In this new year I want to be better at putting in work first and having time to have a break after things are complete. To help me reach this goal I bought an expo marker! Fun fact, you can use your fridge like a white board. To help me track my tasks I make a little list on my fridge and check things off as I go. This not only helps me see how much I have to do before the end of the night, but it’s also fun to check things off and wipe it away when you’re all done. 

In this new year I also want to focus on my organizational skills. When I was in middle school or high school I always had a planner. It lived in my backpack collecting dust. Occasionally, I’d use it for a week but then go back to my other method of just telling myself to remember to do things and hope I actually get them done. At NMU I have Educat to remind me when my homework is due, but other aspects of my life don’t have a digital calendar.

To help me remember things in my day to day life, I want to create a monthly calendar to put on my fridge right by my to-do list, so I can keep track of my small and large tasks in one area. I’ve never been big on calendars that have photos every month, they’re too big and can take up a lot of space. I’ve taken it upon myself to draw out my own on a piece of craft paper each month. Now sometimes I’m lazy, so this may come to an end soon, but for now it’s been fun to craft the paper that goes for January. 

My last goal I set for myself was to budget more. I’ve never been a super big spender, but last year I moved into a new apartment that was quite a bit more expensive than my last. I’m still living within my means, but I want to make sure I have more money saved up for when unplannable events happen. Like last year my car battery took a dump. That was an expense I wasn’t expecting, but it felt refreshing to know I had the money to get it replaced right away. On my drawn calendar I’ve been tracking my spendings from this month so far. This will hold me accountable and if I don’t like the big number reflected in my bank account I have an easy way to see where I could do less spending to save up more.

What I’ve learned about setting goals for this year is that I don’t have to redefine who I am as a person to have a New Year’s resolution. This new year isn’t a fresh new start, but just another chapter in the book that is my life. I’ve been speculative about resolutions in the past, but this year I’m hopeful and excited to stick to the ones I’ve set for myself. When you hit rock bottom, the only way to go is up! If you haven’t set goals for yourself yet there’s still time, just because it’s not the first day of the new year doesn’t mean you can’t work to see progress, it’s just more convenient for a “fresh start.”