As I jump into the New Year I have many resolutions that I would like to fulfill. I think it is important for people to set resolutions in order to live a fulfilling and healthy life style. It also helps you learn to set and obtain goals. Sticking with a goal helps a lot in people’s daily lives. It pushes them to not give up which is a great personal quality to have.

One in particular being getting more sleep. At this point in the year you could say that I am pretty sleep deprived. Many things have to do with this, one of them being sports. Sometimes practices run late or are just at a later time in general.

This also connects with my homework load. Usually I have a lot of homework to do after practice, and if practice runs late I am usually up for a while. I also have a hard time not procrastinating and usually wait to read those 300 page books until the last minute. I say I have time, but end up staying up the whole night before, trying to finish it and get no sleep at all. In order to improve my sleeping schedule I plan to work on getting things done earlier rather than later so that  I am not staying up all night stressing to get them done.

I also think being more organized will help me manage my time better, like keeping track of my assignments in a planner or calendar.

Another resolution I have is dropping my swim times. I want to improve on my breaststroke time in particular because it is my best stroke and I would like to get the lowest time I can by the end of the season. Putting in work during practices instead of slacking off, especially during hard ones, helps me a lot. Running and doing dry land also help me improve a lot with endurance, so I don’t get tired as easily. To reach my goal I plan to keep pushing myself during practices and dry land. I want to work on my technique to help shed off as much time as possible. I have noticed that getting input from my coach, especially when working on my flip turns helps a lot. I plan to ask more questions when feeling unsure about my technique instead of ignoring it.  

My final resolution is to drink less coffee. Usually every morning I start my day with a cup of coffee. I realize this is not the healthiest habit and I would really like to break the routine of drinking coffee everyday. One reason being that coffee is not very healthy for you and some say that it can even affect your growth. I plan on achieving my goal by finding new drinks that are healthier and still give me the energy I need to get through the day.

For many people I know, New Year’s resolutions can be hard to keep permanently.  My advice would be not give up. Even if you slack one day, tomorrow is a new day to start fresh and work harder to keep up with it. Sources say that it only takes two weeks to form a habit, so push hard to make that two week mark and then keep going from there.