The clock strikes midnight. Boisterous screams echo from within the city as fireworks explode in the dark sky, lighting it up with joyous promises for the upcoming twelve months. It's finally the new year, and amid the celebrations, you among many others take part in upholding the ancient tradition of vowing to better yourselves with each coming year.
You hastily grab a piece of paper and begin to scrawl out your plans. Let's see... Well, first of all, you need to be more positive! Maybe you need to spend more time with your family instead mindlessly browsing Facebook. You've gotta lose weight, of course, and, lucky you, there's a great new fad diet that promises immediate weight loss so long as you eat nothing but kale. Ooh, and why not learn pig Latin?!
It's now January 15th, and that very piece of paper sits in a dark drawer along with your diet plans and "Earn-lay Iig-pay Aatin-lay Aast-fay" book.
What happened? Didn't you just vow to change your ways and become a better person?
Unfortunately, statistics show that very few people actually succeed with their New Year's resolutions; in fact, Forbes declared that only 8% of people actually fulfill their resolutions. As easy as it is to be among the 93%, join me in making 2017 your year as we take a look at three ways to achieve your goals for the year.
1: Make specific goals
As easy as it is to say "lose weight", it leaves quite a bit of grey-area; are you looking to lose twenty pounds or an ounce? You can tell yourself that you're going to learn Spanish, but are you going to learn enough to have a conversation, or enough to write an academic journal? When making your resolutions for the upcoming year, it's important to specifically define what you want to do. Bonus points for including a plan.
2: Take baby-steps
It can be satisfying to decide to meditate for an hour every day, cut out gluten, learn computer programming, and to write a bestselling novel, but is it realistic? When making your resolutions, take into consideration how much time you'll have to put into your decisions, and whether or not you'd be willing to do them for three hundred sixty-five days in a row. Instead, maybe it'd be better to meditate once a week for thirty minutes, be conscious of gluten consumption, take a community college course on the basics of computer programming, and to try your hand at writing a novella. There's nothing wrong with ambition, but it's always best to make realistic choices that you'll be happy with. After all, a lot of things sound nice after your third glass of champagne at the local New Year's Eve party, but will surely sound much worse once you've sobered up.
3: Don't give up
Yeah, I know it's the most cliche piece of advice to ever be given (next to "just be yourself!"), but there's a reason it is given so frequently. When it comes to succeeding at a personal challenge, persistence is key. After all, your resolution isn't your job; no one is forcing you to do it but yourself. When you start slacking on your goals, think about how your boss would feel if you were slacking at work. Sure, you get paid for working, but, believe it or not, you're resolutions are going to pay off too, simply not in a monetary fashion (unless your resolution is to make money, I suppose...) Simply put, brave your way through the hard times; suffer now so that you can revel in your success later on. Your resolution is an investment for the future.
When it comes down to it, the ways to succeed at your New Year's resolutions are simple; it merely takes a rational, realistic mind and a bit of persistence. Now that you know what you need to do, start brainstorming how you can make 2017 you better than 2016 you. Perhaps that all-kale diet is a bit unrealistic, but surely learning pig Latin is still on your ucketlist-bay. Ood-gay uck-lay with your ew-nay ear's-yay esolutions-ray!
