As we enter the last month of the year, December seems to be the light at the end of the tunnel — the final destination of our arduous journey, and our reward for getting through another year. With the joy of the holidays, breaks from school or work, and an overall atmosphere of love and gratitude, you feel like you're taking a breath of fresh air before the calendar resets. This creates feelings of inspiration and motivation and allows us to reflect and consider how we can better ourselves during the upcoming year. Our society has created the idea of "New Year's resolutions" to convince people they will finally become a better version of themselves and accomplish their long-desired goals.

However, more commonly, the new year sees people setting unreasonable and unrealistic resolutions. And when these desires aren't fulfilled, people's minds and hearts are full of despair and depression instead of health and happiness. This is exactly why I don't set New Year's resolutions for myself. Changing your lifestyle isn't as easy as writing goals down on a piece of paper, and then expecting them to happen — it's a process that you have to actively pursue and work at. Instead, I practice goal setting throughout the year and find out what works best for me when it comes to achieving and, more importantly, maintaining my ambitions.

A personal mantra of mine is that it's always the right time to make a change in your life - you don't have to wait until the first day of the month or a new year, or even the next day. If there's something you genuinely want to amend about your lifestyle, then you'll be more than willing to fix it right then and there. And if you're waiting until January 1st to make a change in your life, chances are, you probably aren't willing to actually try. In addition to this kind of reluctance, there is another problem that lies within continuing and prolonging these lifestyle modifications. People tend to escalate and build up their expectations in anticipation for the new year, making their goals too unrealistic, unreasonable, and thus, unachievable.

When you learn how to properly set goals for yourself and stick to your personal agenda, you can maintain the changes you've made. But I'm not here to tell you how you should set your goals - different things work for different people. I will, however, offer you some advice. Instead of making a New Year's resolution this year, buy a book or read some blogs about goal setting. Heck, you can even go on Pinterest and search "goal setting." Just learn about the different strategies and steps it takes to successfully achieve your goals. Don't create a big New Year's resolution for yourself without having a plan or any practice with setting realistic and maintainable goals.

Of course, having ambitions and things you want to accomplish is not bad at all. And I'm not saying making New Year's resolutions is bad either. But choosing to set goals that are unreasonable and unattainable, as well as not having a personal plan to follow, is not the way to accomplish, well, anything at all. Because I understand how to make realistic goals for myself, I make successful alterations in my life that actually produce consistent results. Yes, the changes may take longer to implement than a "drop everything and change immediately," "New Year's resolution," kind of mindset. But these changes will be long-lasting and affect your life in such a positive manner. So instead of making a big resolution for the new year, try to learn about goal setting instead, and understand that if you are ready to adjust your lifestyle, you should be able to do so whenever.