2025 New Year's Resolution

“Simplicity brings more happiness than complexity.”

The theme for 2025 is slowing down. In last year's post I mentioned that as I am nearing 40 years of life, chasing multiple goals just isn't what I'm interested in doing. To combat that, I focused on things I enjoyed and had some success in each of the three goals I set. However, this year I'm only going to have a single resolution and unlike some previous years, this single resolution will not have multiple goals within it. So in 2025, I will . . . Read Simplify Magazine.

Simplify Magazine is from the mind of Joshua Baker, the man behind Becoming Minimalist. I've read a couple of his books and continue to watch many of his YouTube videos, all of which are about...becoming minimalist. From the website, Simplify Magazine "is a quarterly, digital publication that pulls together experts in various fields to address some of the most pressing needs of the modern family." Essentially each issue is a collection of essays and articles of all sorts of topics that center around simplifying life. I read the first issue many years ago and see the emails come in each quarter, alerting me that a new issue has been published, but couldn't bring myself to go read them for some reason. That stops now.

I've written many times on this blog about minimalism and simplifying my life. While my interest in adopting minimalist practices in my life has ebbed and waned over the years, I'm starting to feel like it's time to focus and really put in the effort. The first step is to read all 31 issues of Simplify Magazine that are currently out and the 4 that will come out in 2025. I like this goal because it is measurable and will make me utilize the subscription I've had since the first issue was published in 2017. Unlike most subscriptions, this one was (and still is!) a one time $20 cost for every issue that would ever be published. Who knew that it would still be being published quarterly after 7 years? 

I'll need to read approximately 3 issues each month to stay on target to read all 35 by year's end. I've had mixed results with reading goals in the past, but I was always juggling them with other resolutions that could steal my focus. Speaking of stealing my focus, I have some other ideas in mind that I'd like to accomplish around simplifying, but I'm just going to try to do those without distracting from this main goal. I'm very much looking forward to taking in the information from each issue and applying it when/where applicable. 

Do you have a resolution for the new year? Please comment below, I'd love to hear them!


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