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Let’s be honest with ourselves: New Year’s resolutions are so last year, right? Every single year, we tell ourselves this’ll be the year we run more, read more, eat better. But we’re not perfect. Who even sticks to their resolutions past mid-January?

This year will be different! I’ll stick to MY resolutions! So to hold myself to it, I told The Daily Orange culture staff we would publish our resolutions. Hopefully, with our New Year’s resolutions out in public and permanently on the internet, we’ll be forced to do them. — Ben Butler, culture editor

Check out The D.O. culture staff’s New Year’s resolutions below.

Mia Jones, assistant culture editor
If you’re on the same side of TikTok as I am, New Year’s resolutions are all about new diet crazes, the 75 Hard challenge and upping your wardrobe for the new year.

The pressure to stick to New Year’s resolutions ramps up by January 1st, or even earlier. What if we took off some of that pressure to incorporate major changes and instead focused on working toward small, meaningful goals? Here’s what I say: Keep what’s good consistent and install big changes only if you feel like you really need to. To each their own, after all.

My resolutions for 2025 include the following:

Keep working hard and being nice to people. Always.
Don’t dim your light for anyone. Be unapologetically yourself.
Listen to your gut.
Have a gratitude attitude and make the most of difficult situations.

Oh, and I also think I’m going to pick up a journal more often this year. Maybe start working out? Read a book? Spend less time on my phone? I don’t know. Some things never change.

Spencer Howard, assistant culture editor
2025 seems like it’ll be a keystone year in my personal growth, containing both the midpoint of my college career and my transition into the age of “20 something.” Although the past year maintained its fair share of trials and tribulations, I can’t help but be extremely optimistic for the future.

A resolution I have involves my attitude towards my surroundings. I want to reject passivity, taking more initiative in every aspect of my life. Rather than “letting things happen,” I want to take a more active role in my classes, organizations and social settings, and more initiative in changing the parts I don’t like about them.

I also want to consume more valuable media in the coming year, trading social media doomscrolling for beneficial content. I have a laundry list of self-help podcasts, classic novels and famed memoirs I’ve wanted to consume over the years but never found time for. I believe a change in media consumption will make me a more well-rounded person and make my perspective much more valuable.

In addition, I want to fulfill a passion project in the next 12 months. I’ve always wanted to produce social media content centered around lifestyle and personality, which I intend to do in the coming months. Thus far, I’ve had some success on TikTok, which has been very motivating. I aim to further develop and curate an online image that resonates with both myself and an audience as the year progresses.

Irene Lekakis, assistant culture editor
Last year on New Year’s Eve, just as the clock struck 12, I was eating 12 grapes under the table reciting a resolution with each one — a Spanish tradition that my cousin desperately wanted to try. This year, my New Year’s celebrations looked a little different (watching the ball drop with my family) and so did my resolutions.

My first promise to myself for 2025 is to write everything down. After a trip to my grandmother’s house, she told me she wished she remembered more of her youth, both the good and the bad. This stuck with me and it’s a concept I want to bring into the new year. I don’t want to forget difficult days because they often provide the most valuable memories.

In 2025, I want to find my hobbies again. At college, schoolwork takes over my life. While that’s obviously important, I want to take more time to be aimlessly creative. It’s also become increasingly easy for me to fall into the trap of using social media to ignore real life. This year, I want to pour myself into things I love but don’t usually make time for.

Sydney Brockington, assistant copy editor
As the year begins, I love doing yearly resolutions. It keeps me hopeful about the year to come and optimistic to what the future holds. I’ll miss 2024, but I think 2025 has even more in store.

I have three main, achievable resolutions to keep me motivated for the rest of the year. My first resolution is to try out a fitness class at the Barnes Center at The Arch. Every semester I tell myself I’m going to sign up for a yoga or pilates class and it never happens. This year? That’s changing. I love working out already, and adding this will bring variety to my weekly workout routine.

My second resolution goes hand in hand with the first: take better care of myself. I’m vowing to take things easy this year and give myself more grace. I often put immense pressure on myself in all aspects of my life. I hope to change that and put myself first this year.

My last resolution is to make more connections with the people around me. I’ve noticed that I let classes pass me by in past semesters, without truly connecting with those around me. I hope to connect with new people in my classes and extracurricular activities and carry those friendships with me.

Savannah Stewart, assistant copy editor
An evening of over six inches of snowfall, my last night in my childhood home of 18 years and a small 20th birthday celebration over a palm-sized, grocery store cake led me to my New Year’s resolution. A family viewing of the 1991 film “Fried Green Tomatoes” sealed the moment.

Nestled in our couch’s indented spots, I regularly glanced at my teary-eyed mother and my father nodding off in his typical fashion. I was restless hoping they’d appreciate my selection but was quickly soothed by the voice of Ninny Threadgoode, the film’s narrator, as I’d been 100 times before. “All these people’ll live as long as you remember ‘em,” she said.

Ninny’s words were isolated by my living room’s silence. Like my mother, my eyes became cloudy with tears, but through Ninny’s words I found clarity in my subconscious. This inkling from New Year’s Day set the tone for subsequent change. 2025 is already awash with a bittersweet beginning, yet it’s strewn with necessity to carry on nearly two decades of memories, from southern style-recipes to late night laughter. All of these moments will remain alive by my commitment to sharing them.

Charlotte Price, assistant digital editor
My New Year’s resolution is to wear my natural hair more often — and to make less of a big deal about it. For the past few years I’ve straightened my hair weekly. The process takes me 45 minutes to an hour. I have a full head of thick, coarse curls that don’t go down without a fight. After two years of going to war with my hair every Sunday night, the damage is visible. My suppression of my hair isn’t due to a lack of role models. I look at iconic characters with blonde curls like Carrie Bradshaw, Andie Anderson and Penny Lane and see my hair. I love how it looks on them, but the same style makes me feel awkward and unnatural.

For these characters, I feel like curly hair represents a free-spirited and wild aspect of themselves. That might be why when I wear my hair curly, it feels like a statement. I feel like it’s part of my outfit, and only certain clothes match with it. It feels like my hair is wearing me. So, my resolution is to take my hair less seriously. It’s just hair, and it doesn’t need to say anything about me. I don’t need to love it, but it’s time to stop fighting it.

Eliana Rosen, assistant digital editor
In 2025, I’m running a half-marathon. I’ll admit, this resolution reads a bit like the sign of a premature, cliche quarter-life crisis from a lost college student looking for purpose. But I’m not lacing up my sneakers to run away from my problems.

I’m not aiming for a sub-2-hour race. I don’t care about setting a personal record. I won’t be tracking my heart rate or my mile time. I just want to run all 13.1 miles and finish with a medal around my neck.

When I started training, running a mile without stopping was a daunting task. Now, a 5k is a doable weekend activity. Running is as mental as it is physical and I’m running this half-marathon to prove to myself that I can.

I have lots of other goals for the year (probably too many if I’m honest). I want to read more and journal more and compliment strangers and be a better long-distance friend and budget my money and keep kosher and stop scrolling on my phone. But even if I don’t achieve any of those things, I know I’ll be able to look back five, 10, 15 years from now and say that 2025 was the year I got into running and ran my first half-marathon.

Now all that’s left to do is actually sign up for a race.

Ben Butler, culture editor
2024 was productive for me. I started writing for The D.O., read a few books (including David Foster Wallace’s titanic “Infinite Jest,” a personal favorite that nearly killed me), got into hiking. Great stuff overall. On the other hand, I had two workout plans that failed miserably, broke three tennis racquets in frustration trying a new sport (yes, because of “Challengers”) and ended up watching “The Sopranos” for the fourth time in my life (just when I think I’m out, it pulls me back in). Something’s gotta give.

Here goes — I want to launch a personal Substack by the end of the year, write something creative, like a short story, get back on the tennis wagon (and join a club or Facebook group for it) and hit 500 miles traveled on my Strava. My big big BIG goal? Summit Mt. Washington. As a New England native, it’s crazy that I’ve never even been. You see all those bumper stickers with “This car climbed Mt. Washington,” and I’d love to stick one of those on my back as a joke. I’d like to get back into playing saxophone and learn some guitar, too. One of my friends has started making beats. Maybe I’ll hop in the lab with him. I could follow in FEEM’s footsteps.

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Readers, take some inspiration from us. Shoot for the moon. If you set a hard goal and achieve it, think about how good you’ll feel. So don’t give up, even if that book you started is hard to get through, or that mountain you want to summit looks too tall, or your friend is getting on your nerves even though you want to keep a positive attitude. Stick to your goals. It won’t be easy going the whole time, but that’s the whole point of doing anything — the challenge.

Published on January 8, 2025 at 7:26 pm