Realistic New Year’s Resolutions You Should Make for 2025
By Audrey Lingan
Can you believe it’s 2025? I mean, 13 years ago people thought the world was gonna end. Well, we’re here – three weeks into the new year – and those resolutions you made at the beginning of the year are as good as gone. You probably told yourself you were gonna be more organized or start loving yourself. What a load of horse shit. You were a shell of a person a month ago and you still are now, the only difference is this year is divisible by five. Since your New Year’s resolutions were clearly too ambitious, here are our realistic recommendations.
- Eat a singular veggie once a week. How many times have you made the New Year’s resolution that you’re gonna eat healthier? Suddenly, January 1st rolls around and all your body wants is green juice and chickpeas. Sure, you’ll stick to it for a week—but the Blendz line is long and you only have 30 minutes to hawk down lunch (you filthy animal). Açaí a problem here. After a few days, just like your toxic ex, Rand Cookie is gonna hit you with a “u up?” and it’s all over. It’s 2025. You don’t have to be a Hadid sister, but for the love of God can you commit to eating a vegetable once a week? That sad wilted piece of lettuce on your Randwich doesn’t count. Get some perspective and nosh on some bell peppers every once in a while. Your bowels will thank you later.
- Only let your situationships last at most a month. Finding yourself in a situationship is as easy as finding a squirrel on campus, and at least one of those events involves nuts. And why shouldn’t you? You’re in your prime. When else are you gonna be young, hot, and in a cesspool of co-eds. But…to save yourself a couple of breakdowns and from posting The Tortured Poets Department quotes on your Instagram story, we humbly suggest keeping your situationships to a month. We’re not saying drop the bastard, but for your sanity set your expectations for the relationship earlier rather than later. You should be treating your situationships like milk: enjoying it for two weeks until the expiration date, maybe keeping it around for another week if you like flirting with the devil, but anything after that you’re begging for a shitty situation.
- Have just one breakdown during midterms. We get it. Your schedule is an open wound on your college career and every midterm is a lemon squeeze thrusting you deeper into hellfire. Believe me, nothing is more cathartic than dramatically crying in the shower to Lorde after midterms. Respond to stressful situations like with the frequency a professor responds to your emails: sparingly and to the point. I don’t care if you need to white-knuckle the communal bathroom sink, stare into the mirror, and utter to yourself “you got this” ten-plus times: you’re brilliant and you will make it through the semester.
- Stop telling people you’re tired. At this point, telling someone you’re tired on a college campus is about as profound as saying you have skin on your face. Look around, genius! Everyone’s in the same boat. Just like their phones, every college student is cruising at 36% power. Encountering an undergrad with healthy sleeping habits is like seeing a unicorn or meeting someone from South Dakota. I’m not saying I want to throw my head against an anvil anytime someone starts talking about how they got “no sleep last night”, but Amazon does keep recommending me blacksmithing gear. So, in 2025, let’s get better conversation starters like politics or religion. I’m not saying you need to get more sleep, but let’s put talking about it to rest.
- See “that one friend” at least once. We all have those friends that we could go weeks without communicating with, but as soon as you see them you pick right up where you left off. Those friends are chill, easy, fulfilling: those friends are what I like to call your cactus friends. While it’s great having a low-maintenance bud, maybe try to see them a bit more—at least for a pulse check. Cactus friends still gotta get watered and they’re a nice break from the roses and daises (interpret that metaphor however you may please).
- Shake up your study spots. 2025 is the year to try new things. Maybe you’re not ready to try Sabrina Carpenter’s new Juno position (hell yeah! topical reference), but you can at least spice up your life by changing your study spot—looking at you, Stevenson Sweats. It’ll be fun! Maybe you’re a secret brooding cafe-studier, or can harness the Rand chitter-chatter to be the wind beneath your academic wings. Ideally, you should be changing your study spots as often as you do laundry, and if you can’t remember the last time you did either…we’ve got a bigger issue here. We know it’s an impossible task to ask you not to pull an all-nighter, but if you’re gonna wreck your sleep schedule can you at least change up the scenery?
- Buy a workout set. No, no, not to work out in! Learn to cope with the transient motivation to go to the gym and accept you’re part of the battalion of people that say you’ll “go to the gym tomorrow.” Workout sets give the illusion that you have your life together, much like reading glasses and coconut water. If you’re gonna rot and watch Gilmore Girls for the 10th time, might as well do it in cobalt blue stretchy leggings. I guess if you want to incorporate more activity in your routine, ask your Grubhub driver to drop off your TacoBell a dorm over. You get your steps in and get to show off that slay fit — that’s what I call living más!
- Curb your caffeine intake by 50 mg a day. Look, there is no greater feeling than when the people at Suzie’s know your order—I’m assuming it’s an equivalent feeling to receiving a letter from Hogwarts— but maybe they don’t need to see you three times a day? On a normal day, you’re probably inhaling enough caffeine to get a baby elephant to run a four-minute mile. Don’t get me wrong, we love the can-do attitude a-latte, but maybe, possibly, potentially…you could curb it a little? You don’t need to go full cold turkey, but maybe pump the brakes a bit when you’re reaching for your second Celsius of the day.
- Keep your friend group together during housing registration. Isn’t it funny how housing registration seems to always come around when your friend group’s status has about the same stability as a late-stage Jenga tower? Suddenly, telling your friend you want to live in a single is the equivalent of stabbing them in the chest and sleeping with their mom. Jenga! This year is gonna be different! You’re all adults and adults can choose their room without having the fucking world fall apart. I don’t care if you need to force your friends into an emergency kumbaya session and burn their lungs with sage and essential oils—THIS SEASON WILL NOT BREAK YOU.
