25 changes for 2025

[ToriTheStoryteller]

I started a thread at the start of 2024 called "one small change each week". 2024 thread
Loved updating it and chatting to people who were also trying to make changes but maybe felt a bit overwhelmed by the usual mindset of "right, I'm losing 2 stone, cutting sugar, getting a new job and taking up 3 sports" only to feel like a failure before January is out!

It went well - the old me would have said it was a disaster as I probably kept approx 8-10 habits, but the new me thinks that's brilliant, to have 8 habits that I wasn't keeping to a year ago.

So, onto 2025. Just to encourage a bit more oomph into my brain, I'm planning on 25 for 25: 25 small changes that will improve my life next year.

Wanna join? 🙂

1. Do a weights session 2x per week.

I've had to change gyms and I don't like the new one as much, but seeing a few older relations over Christmas, all with physical issues, is the push I need to want to get stronger.

That’s an amibitous list! Maybe choose one at a time to focus on. I have a long list too but from experience I tend to ‘go hard, fail and go home’. This will be the year I try something different.

I love this! I'm also a big Michael Moseley fan and there are some great ideas in his podcast. My first one is regular bedtime and wake up as my sleep is a bit all over the place. Going to aim for 10:00pm - 6:00Am sleeping.

I'm also doing dry Jan so that will help my sleep

I love this. Some great ideas here. I wasn't on the last thread but I managed to add a couple of new habits last year, one being to cleanse my face properly every evening (I do it c.6.30pm while DH does bath time so I don't get too tired and forget) and the other being a home workout every Saturday morning. My first new habit for 2025 will be to stop snacking after dinner. Once the dishwasher is loaded, the kitchen is closed until morning!

Great idea OP. @ToriTheStoryteller do you mind my asking what the ones you stuck to last year were? (And yes completely agreed, incorporating 8 healthy new habits is fantastic! I've made myself a list (I'm up to 24 so far, need one more) but I don't expect to succeed in them all becoming habit but if I can make 8 of them a new habit then that wi be brilliant.

I lurked and loved the 2024 thread. For my first change, I’d like to go back to my gluten and dairy free diet. The GP was correct; life was better for me. Less painful, less tired. Will have a think about the other 24!

Happy New Year all 💐

I'm ADHD AF, so I'll have a few on post it's on the wall so that I remember them and enough variety for changing them up a bit too. I don't do resolutions for that reason, can't stick to things 😅 my list is more a way to reach where I'd like to be at the end of the year rather than a full on "I'm doing this all immediately" because I will crash and burn (voice of bitter experience!).

I've stumbled across this thread and have been thinking of things I want to do this year this afternoon while sorting the calendar and organising my phone and having a clear up of that before my new one arrives.

I would like to focus on me a little more this year. I've forgotten me, and have lost some of the things I enjoy.

So, a few things I want to start to re do:
Reading - actual books, don't want to keep having my phone or something 'electronic' in my hands.

Drink more water - I do this for a few days and then drop it again. (Drinking more in general would be a start, I am very rubbish at any fluids!)

Take some time out daily for me. That may be to sit in a quiet, dark room and do nothing. Or paint my nails. Or read. Or whatever. But just some time when I am not juggling/multitasking or doing something for someone else.

What a great thread idea, I have made some simple changes myself last year and it would be nice to join you all and get inspiration for more. I only managed a few but once they became habits I have done well with them. I’m not going to start anything new, instead continue with the new habits I am trying to make consistent.

I am rubbish at taking supplements but want to take evening primrose and a multi vit so have left them out by the kettle. Reading the thread reminded me to take them!

and then to declutter/clean one drawer/cupboard/shelf etc a week. Last year I started putting the dishwasher on each evening even if it wasn’t full and it has made breakfast time much easier and I now do a load of laundry at least every two days. Housework habits have really made life smoother.

So has everyone started today? It’s a bit midweek but equally it’s the 1st, so I’ve kicked off mine.
I have loads of more challenging ones which I would ideally also be doing from now on but I’m just going to track one proper new habit and if I do reasonably well on other stuff like healthy eating/proper exercise, it can be a bonus. I’ve gone hard in the past and it never works

1. Pelvic floor exercises daily. I’m crap at doing these and really need to sort it out before it becomes an issue. So several at every kettle boil and waiting at traffic lights. Plus a few at shower time and before bed.

Hi, I love this plan for 2025, I too need to drink more water, my fluid is mainly decaf tea and 2 cups of coffee a day, I also need eat more fruit.

last year I completed my goal of gaining my blackbelt in karate, this year I plan to start loom knitting again I aim to knit a blanket and replace a zip on my favourite zip up warm jacket

Hello! I started this fab challenge last year but I aimed far too high and failed miserably! I want everything yesterday and as a result I established zero good habits in 2024. This years approach is to start small and build up. I have set up a habit tracker on excel (yes I really am that exciting) and will track everything over the year. I plan to come back here every Sunday and reassess what's working or not. For now I'm focussing on:

1. Brush my teeth for 2 minutes every morning & night - I do brush my teeth twice a day but sometimes it is only for like 30 seconds so I am going to make a conscious effort to do it properly
2. Take my meds every morning and night - I do this most days but this really needs to be a non negotiable
3. Drink 1 bottle of water a day - bottle is 800ml. I'd like to get to 2 litres a day but starting off small. The issue isn't really drinking the water it's filling the bottle so it's ready to go.
4. Spend 5 minutes each night going through photos from the last 24 hours - delete / post on Instagram / save to folder to be print / research screenshots / send onto people
5. One job every day - There is a fantastic thread on here Daily Project Round 6 | Mumsnet that encourages you to focus on just one job a day. I would love to make this a habit of doing at least one thing every day to get organised / decluttered.

I got ready for bed properly last night, which included getting everything ready for first day back in work this morning x
Lunch bag, work bag are ready to go and my outfit is hanging on the outside of the wardrobe (incl underwear).
Feel like an organised superstar this this morning!!!!

I’m starting to do my pelvic floors every day.
The only time I actually remember to do them is in bed at night, and I used to do them regularly, but a physio said I need to do them standing up not lying down, so I got out of the habit of doing any at all. But surely lying down ones are better than none at all.

Anything is better than nothing!!!

I only managed half of the piled up dishes yesterday before giving up the will, but...half of them are done x I did something, so that's a win x

@Lemonyfuckit These are the ones I have pretty much stuck to:

• No phone use after 8pm. Not always kept to but more often than not.
• 15 min walk as early as possible to give my brain the wake-up message. I'm probably doing this 2 or 3 days each week, and doing a workout or swimming another 2 mornings.
• 10 minute self-care morning and night (moisturise, flossing teeth, vitamins, HRT etc). Pretty good and it's probably the first time in my life that cream and vitamin bottles have actually been emptied and not left half-used for years.
• Fruit with lunch. Not bad, I'm having less bread-based lunch anyway so there's usually fruit or salad/veg involved most days.
• Stop overtime. Perfected this one, as my company has been a shitshow all year so I stopped caring.
• Contact a friend or relation once a week. I thought this would be hard but it's enhanced my life so much. I have a better social life now than I did in my 20's and I don't feel dread at the prospect of calling people anymore!
• Herbal tea at bedtime. Started this but ended up just dropping any evening drink, which has definitely helped my sleep. I was waking between 3-4am beforehand, now I'm sleeping until 5am most days.
• Meal planning. Bit hit and miss, but I'm getting better at it because of school/job changes meaning that it HAD to get better if we didn't want to exist on beans on toast every night.
• Eating at the table. This has been good as it's led to a nicer eating experience: we choose food from dishes on the table, DS adds salad/extra veg most nights, and if I want seconds, I'll usually only add salad rather than the main calorific bulk.
• Water house plants. Very easy and has made me very happy to have them all surviving the year and looking green, healthy and taller!

I’m joining in 👍
My 2 for January are …
Wardrobe declutter and sort out my clothes
Look after my nails

And a bonus one , get off the iPad and do some crochet

@ToriTheStoryteller i have loads of house plants , they are a Saturday morning pleasurable job
one of my friends asked me do they take a lot of looking after ? And looked a bit shocked when I said no , but that I do wipe their leaves , feed them and water them ( talk to them )
they are actually my pets !

@PopGoesBang you've written in a way that captures how I felt at the start of 2024. I was so frazzled and there was no time for me to be a priority.
I can't say I'm less frazzled right now, because so many things happened last year that I couldn't have forseen, so that's why I'm doing this again, to build on my resilience, to be stronger and healthier so I can deal with the shit when it does hit!

@Undisclosedlocation that's what works for me. I can't do a big challenge or be faced with a huge list, I'll just feel like I've failed. I'm also really conscious that it's too easy to add a load of habits that take up even more of my time and leave me more frazzled, so I am always trying to make sure that habits can be stacked on top of others easily. I think that's why the self-care one was the easiest - I had to stand around in the bathroom for 5 mins waiting for my HRT gel to dry so doing teeth, moisturising and taking vitamins was no burden on my time.

@SemmaLina it's the first time in my life that I've really bothered with them and I'm so surprised at how it lifts my spirits to see some living, thriving plants in every room. I have lots of ferns, peace lilies and spider plants as these are supposed to be good for absorbing indoor pollutants so hopefully they are doing us good too!

@ToriTheStoryteller similar plants here ( I divided my peace lilies , so have many of them ! ) I must admit to spraying the leaves with leaf shine every now and then
I grew 2 baby African violets from leaves , I remember Grandma doing that so gave it a go ….. Very pleased with myself

@ToriTheStoryteller Frazzled is a perfect description.
We have a lot going on with MIL and my DH is handling it amazingly and there are going to be some tough times ahead, but I can't pour from an empty cup, so without being selfish, I need to un-frazzle in some way before over frazzling and be able to support the best I can.

Just for other plant lovers. We went to b&q this morning and there were a lot of 'plants to be recused' for good prices. And of course you can't say no to rescue plants! My DH doesn't even bother saying anything now, he just went and got a trolly!

I'm another one with spider plants, ferns and peace lillies! But I'm not good with the peace lillies - not sure what I'm doing but they don't look good.

The spider plants on the other hand keep multiplying!

Picture of my walk this morning!

This sounds fun. How does 25 work over the course of a year. 1 every other week? Or 2 at the beginning of each month?

24 fits more nicely into 12 months, but time marches on. My problem with new years resolutions is January is cold dark and miserable, Feb or march is a better time, so I like lent.

Dunno really - just liked the sound of it being 25 in 25! I guess I'll aim for one every two weeks with an odd one thrown in...😂