Every January, millions of people around the world create New Year’s resolutions, and by the first week back from break, those same resolutions are resting in the pages of the planner they swore they’d use but completely forgot about. Let’s be real, New Year’s resolutions are just set up to fail.
Many people create new year resolutions to simply attain a “fresh start,” and while the idea sounds nice, most of these resolutions end before they can even start. In fact, Forbes claims 80% of New Year’s resolutions fail by mid-February. A key reason? Many of these goals are simply unrealistic.
Take, for example, someone who sets a goal to “go to the gym 5 days a week” without having gone to the gym previously. They’re just setting themselves up for failure because their goal is too ambitious for their current habits.
As much as everyone wants to change their flaws overnight, and so do I, it’s simply just undoable. These goals are far beyond what is realistically achievable for their schedule.
Besides being unrealistic, many people form resolutions for the “aesthetic.” Goals are often chosen not with genuine commitment to change, but just to look like they did. Suddenly, everyone is on a high-protein diet, running twenty miles a day and journaling every morning and evening, only to please Instagram feeds.
If resolutions are motivated by pressure and not real growth, it’s no wonder they’re superficial and last only 30 out of the 365 days.
Even in the slight chance that goals can be meaningful and realistic, people approach them with a perfectionist mindset. People set resolutions with the confidence to be flawless at them from day one. Missing just one gym day or cheating your low-carb, low-fat, high-protein diet for a cupcake makes a person mess up their streak, causing them to give up entirely. This all-or-nothing mindset turns one day into goals collapsing entirely.
The truth is, we are all human and prone to making mistakes, which is why lasting change rarely happens quickly. To see a measurable distance, you have to shift your mindset, a task harder than humans realize, which is why they don’t do it often.
Ultimately, new year resolutions are a major waste of time. They’re ambitious for the wrong reasons and set up with impossible standards. If we want to actually improve, it’s better to ditch the empty promises and commit to realistic, meaningful goals that fit our lives.
