It’s safe to assume that at least half of the people who made New Year’s resolutions this year have probably broken them by now.
New Year’s resolutions hardly ever work out for several reasons. But the reason most people don’t think about is the amount of time put into making the decision that will hypothetically affect your life for the next year.
It’s hard to keep a promise to yourself for a year based on an idea that you created in the span of about seven days, after all the hype of Christmas died down. You not only need an idea of what you want to do in the next year, but some sort of game plan of how you’re going to do it, which can be hard to make in a week.
Another huge problem with New Year’s resolutions occurs when people make goals that are too big to accomplish.
Imagine you want to lose weight by the end of 2013. If this is your first time going on a diet, then it would be easier to try to lose 10 pounds as opposed to 30.
If you do lose 10 pounds and decide that you want to keep going, then maybe you can build up to losing 30 pounds. In the reverse situation, if you only manage to lose two pounds by the end of January, then it’s easier to feel as if this goal is impossible.
The most common issue with New Year’s resolutions is the level of seriousness associated with them. Whether people forget about their resolution or they give up after the first time they mess up, it can be difficult to keep yourself accountable.
This is especially true of really vague resolutions. I want to spend less money. I want to lose weight. I want to cut down how much junk food I eat. Unless you have records of all of this information it can be difficult to really keep to the resolution.
I see New Year’s Resolutions becoming less and less popular as I get older. I don’t know whether it’s because people have given up on the idea or because they don’t want to announce it to the world in case they give up by day three.
My biggest problem when I was young was not truly making a commitment to my resolution. Of course, then my resolution went something along the lines of “stop asking mom to buy me candy in the checkout line,” but if I can forget about something that simple, chances are I’m not going to stick to one that’s a bit more mature.
The point of all of this is to illustrate how difficult it can be to actually keep to a resolution, if in fact people still make them. If you are someone who has made one and has still kept to it, then you deserve a pat on the back.
If however you are someone who finds it quite difficult to stick to a New Year’s resolution, here’s some advice for you. Try to create a list of goals, along with an estimated date that you would like to complete them by.
My first recommendation is graduating from college within the next 10 years. I guarantee you’ll have a lot of people on your side with that one.
