31 Perfect Military Spouse New Year’s Resolutions

Military life can feel like a lot of pressure sometimes. There are countless ups and downs to navigate, requiring you to adapt year after year. I’ll be honest with you right now: I’m not usually big on New Year’s resolutions. I’m in the camp, where I believe if you truly want to do something, you will make a goal and strive to meet it regardless if you are ringing in the New Year or not.

But…

This year, I am feeling a change of heart. This year, I want to encourage you to live your best military life yet. To embrace the ups with joy and happiness, and conquer the downs with grace and humility. To start loving military life even when it’s not so grand. To discover military life’s treasures hidden behind the landscape.

I want to encourage you to make a Military Spouse New Year’s Resolution that will enable you to feel good about military life. So if you are looking to set a few goals and make all things military life oh-so much better, consider one of these Military Spouse New Year’s Resolutions to get you started.

1. Encourage and support a new military wife. Consider sharing some practical tips in a genuine and heartfelt way with a new military wife. Sometimes a few tips go a long way to help a new military wife feel welcome into the community.

2. Be honest with others when you are struggling. Deployment, reintegration, PCSing got you down? Give yourself permission to share your struggles with close friends and family. This isn’t meant to be dramatic. This is meant to help you cope in a healthy way.

3. Take your care packages up a notch. Consider sending a care package around an awesome theme or using these unique military care package ideas.

4. Discover creative ways to thrive during the holidays.  Military families are often far from family during special occasions, but there are several awesome ways military families thrive during the holidays.

5. End the military life drama once and for all. Make a conscious effort to embrace a drama free military life.

6. Make a genuine effort to keep faraway friendships strong. Here are a few things worth trying to keep long distance friendships strong after moving.

7. Discover and utilize all the military resources available at your fingertips. There are tons of amazing military family resources out there for you!

8. Create a monthly budget that works well on a military income. Military life is stressful enough without financial issues in the way. Consider cleaning up you finances, creating a budget and sticking to it. Making a budget that works for military families is 100 percent possible.

9. Prepare for the possibility of moving overseas. Sometimes the military surprises you, and before you know it, you are moving overseas. Use this moving overseas checklist to get you started.

10. Develop a strategy to successfully parent through a deployment. Parenting alone gets lonely in military life, but there are several great strategies to help you work through it.

11. Recognize that you are anything but dependent. Military spouses are often labeled as dependent, but here are my top 5 reasons military spouses are anything but dependent to help you feel encouraged.

12. Create realistic expectations for when your spouse returns from deployment. Homecoming isn’t always rainbow and sunshine, but there are ways to plan and prepare for the return of your spouse and make reintegration oh-so much better.

13. Foster and nurture a patriotic spirit in your own kids or a child you know. There are so many fun ways to teach kids the true meaning of Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and the Fourth of July. Kids are looking to us for guidance and support, and often times, they are eager to learn about America and veterans when it’s presented in a fun way.

14. Regularly check to make sure your legal documents are in order. Keep the legal stuff up to date and stay on top of it to keep the military stress at bay when crisis hits.

15. Commit to taking regular date nights when your spouse is home to help grow your marriage. The military marriage isn’t always an easy relationship to navigate. Nurture your marriage a little extra this year.

16. Strategize ways to have a more positive outlook during deployment. Deployment is hard. We all miss this one thing most during deployment. And every now and again, a pity party is totally warranted, but for the most part we all need to stay positive to prevent military life from eating us alive. Seek and do a little something each day to make yourself feel recharged during deployment.

17. Encourage friends and family to visit. Living far from family is challenging. A lot of times you have to ask for visitors, and that’s okay. Keep asking and eventually they will come enjoy a visit. Don’t forget to check out the HomeTeam app to keep in touch easier.

18. Seek out little adventures in your local area. There is always something to enjoy and appreciate no matter where you live. Seek out the unknown and special local places at your duty station.

19. Make your new duty station your home and call it that. Sometimes it’s hard to see a duty station as a home, but treating your house like a home will help you feel happier during your military life years.

20. Find ways to improve marriage communication. Awesome communication is a major key to every successful military marriage. Make a goal to set aside time to really have a long and genuine uninterpreted conversation at least once a week.

21. Treat yourself to regular girls’ nights out. Building friendships is so important to your emotional health as a military spouse. Make it a priority to grow and maintain both new and old friendships.

22. Find and display inspirational military spouse quotes. This is a great resolution to help keep a positive mindset throughout the New Year.

23. Discover a hobby that you love. Military life has a way of taking over sometimes. Find a way to build in the time to enjoy this new hobby. Investing in yourself is so important.

24. Actually do that PCS checklist this year. It saves a ton of stress and prevents forgetting all the important tasks during a very chaotic time. See this PCS checklist to get you started!

25. Help your kids better cope with deployment. Encourage kids to talk about how they feel when mom or dad is home or away for work, and strategize realistic ways to address those feelings. See this list of military family resources for a complete list of creative resources that help kids during deployment.

26. Avoid comparing your military life challenges. We all heard it before…”My deployment is harder than yours.” Avoid the rat race and strive to be more genuine and supportive of other spouses. We are all in this together.

27. Build up and encourage military spouses around you. Often enough when we give support, others start to support us in return. Someone’s got to go first. Go ahead. Be the first. Offer as much support to other spouses as you can. See these military wife quotes for inspiration!

28. Start channeling your inner military spouse ninja. In case you didn’t know, military spouses are actually a lot like ninjas. See my Top 10 Reasons Military Spouses Are Like Ninjas. 

29. Whatever military life throws at you, always find the silver lining. It’s tough out there, but hey, you’ve got this right. There’s always something good to be found in everything. Choose that.

30. Commit to living your best military spouse year yet. C’mon, let’s do this!

31. Commit to living your best military life yet. It’s gonna be Awwwweesooommme!

Want more on military life?

• Telltale Signs You’re Friends with an Awesome Military Spouse
• 43 Awesome Tips Every New Military Wife Needs to Know
• The Real Reason Being a Military Wife is So Hard
• Are Military Spouses Unknowingly Violating OPSEC? 

See more from this Military Wife Blog and visit my homepage!

What’s your best military spouse New Year’s Resolution?