Mindful habits for the coming year

Resolutions are overrated and perhaps destined to fail because of just how overly ambitious they are. This year, me and a few of my friends—comprising a medical doctor, a psychologist who has been practicing for five years, and an engineer who quit her job last year and runs her own business now—decided to list down some things we’d like to do in 2025.

We have always made shared resolutions but this year we decided to deviate from the usual routine and call them mindful habits. We’re also going to take it slow and not give up on a habit even if we fail a few times. I’ve asked for permission to share our list of habits or changes we’d like to make this year to inspire you all to maybe pick one or two to incorporate in your life or make a list of your own. Here are our top five things that we are going to follow in 2025 for a more disciplined and healthy lifestyle.

Meditate daily, even if for just 10 minutes

A couple of years ago, I took up yoga and meditation. I joined an online class and started doing an hour of it every day. The changes in me weren’t immediate but over time, people started commenting that I was calmer and happier. I had actually felt the changes in me before others noticed. I wouldn’t get upset over small things and was able to let things go without creating a fuss. Then after six months, the classes got over and I didn’t rejoin. I thought I could carry on without guidance. But then I started becoming erratic with my practice. This year, we’re planning to restart mediation and do 10 minutes to begin with. We will build up from there. Our aim is to make a habit to meditate for at least 30 minutes daily in the next six months.

Spend time outdoors

Exposure to morning sunlight is important to set the tone of the day. It’s also a good thing to do to get your daily dose of Vitamin D which is crucial for bone, muscle, and nerve health. All of us spend most of our time indoors, at work or at home, so we have decided to spend at least 10 to 15 minutes out in the sun as soon as we wake up. It could be while drinking a cup of tea or reading the papers. But this one is non-negotiable and it shouldn’t be that hard since all we have to do is open the door, step out into our balcony or garden area, and just bask in the sun. Alternatively, we have also decided to try to go out for short walks, mid-work, or spend some time in nature after we reach home.

Eat meat on the weekends

All of us agreed that we’d like to eat less meat this year. Many studies have shown that meat, especially processed meat, isn’t the healthiest thing for your body. We contemplated becoming a vegetarian for a year before deciding it would be too much too soon. So to take it slow and ease ourselves into it, we’ve decided to eat meat on the weekend and stick to a plant-based diet on the weekdays. This seems more doable than going vegetarian. This way we get to satisfy our non-veg cravings and we also have to experiment with our food, since we have to start eating all kinds of vegetables  and grains to compensate for the meat.

Sugar control 

Not eating sugar isn’t possible for us but for those who think they can do it, it’s one of the best gifts they can give themselves. Sugar is responsible for inflammation in the body which leads to many health issues, especially in the long run. Cutting down on sugar can help you lose weight, keep your blood pressure in check, and also prevent a lot of chronic diseases. We’ve all tried to stop eating sugar in the past and we’ve all failed miserably. So in 2025, our goal is to cut down on sugar and be mindful of what we are eating. We’re going to eat chocolates, but not every day. We’re going to have a slice of cake but we’ll stick to having it once a week at the most. The idea is to have as little sugar as possible while ensuring we don’t abstain from it altogether. This way, we believe, we will be able to give up sugar completely in the future.

Keeping our word

Oftentimes, we say we will do something and forget about it or we make promises knowing that we might not be able to keep it. We say yes when we want to say no. This sometimes has us doing things we wouldn’t have been involved in if we hadn’t said yes without thinking or if we had had the presence of mind to think things through. One of the things I’d personally like to change in 2025 is being able to keep my word. My friends agreed that if we all made promises we could keep, we’d feel better about ourselves and our reputations, at work and on a personal front, would also be so much better.