It never fails that once every year, on January 1, someone is bound to post “New Year, New Me!” on social media. For many of us, it’s more than one person, and often our timelines and feeds are saturated with these posts for the first week of January. Yeah, these posts can be a bit repetitive, and sometimes downright annoying—but why do we tend to be so hateful towards those who set New Year’s resolutions every year? If we’re not hateful, why are we discouraging or skeptical of these goals?
According to Statistic Brain Research Institute, the top 10 New Year’s Resolutions are as follows: 1. Lose Weight; 2. Get Organized; 3. Spend Less, Save More; 4. Enjoy Life to the Fullest; 5. Staying Fit and Healthy; 6. Learn Something Exciting; 7. Quit Smoking; 8. Help Others in Their Dreams; 9. Fall in Love; and 10. Spend More Time With Family.
Almost all of these resolutions seem to focus on one’s internal self. We all want to be better and do better, for whatever reason. So why are there always naysayers who discourage others from pursuing their New Year’s resolutions?
“You really want to lose that much weight in a year?”
“You really want to cut out gluten? Pfft! Good luck with that!”
“You’re not going to last more than a week!”
This list could go on forever.
Does anyone realize how damaging and discouraging these statements are? To constantly hear that one will not succeed more often than not encourages one to give up before they even start. We should be searching to encourage our fellow humans in achieving their goals, and especially their New Year’s resolutions.
Perhaps these people are so negative because of the fact that only 8 percent of all resolutions get fulfilled, also according to the Statistics Brain Research Institute. They see these resolution-makers as opportunists, and in today’s society, we aren’t quite fond of positive thinking. They seem to prefer more of a negative, ‘realist’ attitude toward the world. I don’t blame these people. We live in a world where innocent children are bombed, good and honest people lose everything they ever loved in freak accidents, and rainforests are cut down for the sake of capitalist gain. We live in a world where our parents condition us from the start to understand that “life isn’t fair” —and yes, that might be true, the world might be a hard and rotten place, but who’s to say it’s not realistic to set goals?
And who’s to say it’s not realistic to achieve those goals? Numerous articles across the internet proclaim that more successful people set goals and achieve them, too. In a study done by Gail Matthews at Dominican University, it was shown that those who simply write down their goals tend to be more successful, along with following through and making actions that contributed to their goals. Think about that. Simply writing down one’s goals makes them more likely to be successful.
We want to be better, more successful…we want to improve our life quality, and making New Year’s resolutions is one (of many) first steps towards that. I fail to see why that’s a bad thing.
So for you naysayers, my advice is to find a charitable place in your heart and just turn a blind eye to others and their resolutions. You might be happier, too.
