I honestly can’t remember the last time I made a resolution as the clock struck midnight, nor can I remember the last time I set a genuine goal for myself that didn’t backfire and make me feel like a disappointment. So, it’s almost funny to see people tripping over themselves promising to work out more (just like they promised last year) and to be nicer to people and to eat healthier. These are going to be the same people who crash come February, just like they did last year.

The reason resolution fanatics crash is always because they build themselves up too high. This logic isn’t even specifically for New Year resolutions, it applies to every single person that waits until Monday to start their workout streak or every student that promises themselves that this semester is going to be different. This year, the lure of a resolution that hits a new year and a new month on a Monday is seemingly too much for people to handle; the attraction of a resolution made on such a significant day is just too strong to resist. Thus, people have already built themselves up to believe that there’s no way they can fail at a goal set at such a special time.

But the truth is that it doesn’t really matter what time you set the resolution because if you were capable of keeping to it, you would have started working out the Thursday that you thought to yourself: hey it’s probably time I start working out. The high of such a pretty date, the high of such a perfect opportunity to restart will only keep you going for a few weeks. After that, it will do nothing but leave you feeling shitty.

Goals aren’t powered by the right dates or by the fact that you’ve finally signed yourself up for a gym. Goals are powered by ambitions and the desire to work hard for something – it’s those things that keep you working out or staying off social media after the initial high has faded. Goals that come from a fitness magazine article or some clickbait about how technology is ruining your life aren’t going to stay goals for long. They will, inevitably, end up in the same pile of discarded, half-attempted start-ups that ran out of fuel two months later.