By Katelyn Fry
January 3, 2018

I’m not usually one to make New Year’s resolutions, but thankfully my teenage niece, Mikayla, wouldn't let that slide this year.

While catching up over the holidays, we learned that our lives are more similar than we realized. We’re both experiencing what it means to be more independent, have self-confidence and a more positive mindset.

I recently moved and started a new job, and I opened up to Mikayla about how exciting yet scary it is for me at times. Mikayla, a junior in high school, told me that after struggling with depression the year before, she is slowly getting to a better place than she ever imagined.

Mikayla inspired us to think of ways to keep each other on our positive paths in 2018. We decided that instead of New Year’s “resolutions,” we would make New Year’s “promises" to each other and to ourselves. We agreed to help each other be the best version of ourselves.

We decided on three relatively simple ways to keep our promises.

We learned recently that supportive texts can be helpful. For example, Mikayla and her texts are the reason I tried to quit smoking. Unfortunately, I’ve slipped up on occasion, and so Mikayla came up with the plan that whenever I have the urge to smoke, I text her instead, and she’ll remind me why I’m quitting in the first place. In turn, if Mikayla begins to feel insecure and go into a dark place, she’ll text or call me right away instead of letting her feelings bottle up like she has in the past.

We also agreed that we need to be more honest in 2018, especailly with ourselves. We each got a journal and made the promise to write in it every day. While we don’t need to share what we write, we do plan on keeping tabs on each other to make sure each day gets a journal entry and that we make the time to keep up the habit.

Our next promise is one we attempted this past Thanksgiving – the Anti-Negativity Thanksgiving Day Challenge. The challenge requires that we don’t say anything negative for an entire day. There’s always a way to respond positively. As my wise-beyond-her-years niece put it, using one of her favorite Wayne Dyer quotes, “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

This promise turned out to not only be mentally healthy, but funny and entertaining – and one that again makes me grateful for the ability to text each other. On my way to work in Manhattan from my new home, I took the wrong train and was annoyed with myself. I texted my teen niece about it, and she immediately made me laugh by telling me how hilarious it is that I still haven’t gotten the hang of it.

It may only be the first week of the new year, but I think my niece and I are off to a great start. Bring it on, 2018!


Photo: DimaKZ