“What better night to start over than New Year’s Eve, right?” Hillary asks her neurotic friend, Monica, as they wait for party guests Monica is sure won’t arrive in 1999 pop culture gem 200 Cigarettes. She’s echoing the sentiment of millions every December 31st. But Hillary’s hopes fade into the party that Monica drinks enough at to black out – and since that’s actually the route so many New Year’s Eves take, are you just wasting your breath planning a whole new life for yourself? Should you just focus on the party, and worry about your life goals at a time where you can be reasonable and potentially successful?
January 1st is always associated with this “new year, new you” mantra, and plenty of us rise to the occasion with to-do lists. But are these resolutions even effective? After looking at dozens of “Top 10 Most Common New Year’s Resolutions” lists in varying forms, our belief that we could predict the most often-made plans was confirmed – because who doesn’t want to get healthy/be rich/fall in love? And so, here is our very un-scientifically assembled list of the five most common resolutions, along with what tends to actually happen.
- Get fit and lose weight (Outcome: You hit the gym every day in January. But then, work deadlines, friend gatherings, family obligations, the frightening cost of spin classes and that juice cleanse gets old pretty fast – you’re hungry, cranky, bored, and need to chew something.)
- Get debt-free (Outcome: Unless you live with your parents, this one is a good laugh. It’s easy to save for approximately three weeks, then enter: bills, rent, that thing on your car that just broke, the vacation you had planned with your friend, and that bag that you will positively perish without.)
- Quit smoking (Outcome: Do you know why you keep smoking? Because it’s addictive. Revelatory, really. Quitting this habit is a must and a great goal to have, but it’s hard. You can do it, but it’s going to be an up-and-down battle that you can’t expect to check off like a neat little resolution.)
- Find a new career direction (Outcome: Another noble pursuit that’s more of a long-term, multi-step plan than a resolution. This will involve soul-searching, networking, job-hunting, possibly even more schooling.)
- Find love (Outcome: If only finding love was as simple as deciding to do so. Hillary sure wishes it was. Sure, you can decide you’re going to be more open or less picky, or start online dating, but finding love is something that sort of happens when it happens.)
So, maybe it’s not surprising that only about 8% of people keep their resolutions. That’s of over 45% of people who make them in the first place. Is there any actual harm in making resolutions and failing to keep them, though? Possibly. Setting a bunch of goals for yourself and repeatedly failing to reach them can start to do damage to your self-esteem. If you’re setting goals that might not be totally realistic, or are too general, it’s like you’re going out of your way to give yourself new venues to fail in.
There are ways to make resolutions work for you and actually improve your life. You just have to set tangible goals instead of abstract wishes, you have to be realistic, and you have to create a plan that allows for wins and screw-ups along the way. Don’t resolve to find a new career, instead promise to sign up for a class in the industry you’re thinking of. Don’t resolve to see more of loved ones, decide to plan a monthly dinner with friends. Don’t resolve to go to the gym every day, just walk a bit more and eat more green stuff.
Resolutions themselves aren’t detrimental as long as we go about them the right way. Don’t set yourself up to fail with super-human plans and you won’t have the opportunity to beat yourself up. Setting goals the right way can be extremely motivational. In fact, why make it about New Year’s at all? Why not your birthday, since that’s a new year for you? Why not any random day of the year you choose; why wait to make a positive change? Resolutions won’t hurt, but there’s also no reason not to focus on self-improvement the rest of the year and enjoy one night of throwing caution to the wind, knowing full well it’s going to be one hell of a hangover the next day.
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Text Courtney Iseman