As we all prepare to ring in 2019 the endless lists of resolutions will begin to appear across our social media feeds. From weight loss to mental health to relationships and everywhere in between, lifestyle bloggers and family members alike will offer us suggestions on what we should resolve to do by the end of 2019. This year, I'm ditching the resolutions, and you should too.
Here's why:
To clarify, I think setting personal goals is important. Goals encourage and measure progress, and progress is key to success. I have an issue with the fascination with new year's resolutions, not with personal goals.
You don't need to call something a resolution in order for it to count as a personal goal. So why do we all insist on labeling, and then announcing to the world, our goals as resolutions specific to one year? To me, when we label something as a new year's resolution we add undue pressure on ourselves to accomplish them.
If you're anything like me, though, your resolutions won't last longer than the end of January. Every year I make a list of what I want to accomplish, my "resolutions" for the new year, and every year I feel like I failed by the first month of the year.
This seems to be a pretty common trend.
So many people make lengthy lists of resolutions only to stop following through with them before the end of the year comes. Maybe some of that can be chalked up to laziness, but I think there is also another factor at play in giving up on resolutions.
People have a tendency to change. Over the course of a year, life can twist and turn and bend and mold someone into a person very different from who they were at the start of the year. Naturally, personal goals can change over the course of a year, too.
The ideas and challenges you start the year with might be drastically different than the ones with which you end the year. Why, then, do we all make goals at the beginning of the year that is supposed to last until the end? Is it really all that surprising that so many of us change, or give up on entirely, our resolutions?
This year, I'm focusing on developing short-term goals that are both attainable and measurable. I am ditching the year-long, traditional resolutions in favor of a personal agenda that can leave me feeling successful rather than failing.
New Year's resolutions are not helpful to me, and I don't think they are particularly helpful for anyone else, either.
When the world rings in 2019 in a few weeks, millions of people will share their resolutions with anyone who will listen. This year, ditch the resolutions in favor of goals that sustain you not for a year but for a month or two, and then repeat the process throughout the year.
That is what I'll be doing, anyway. I think more of us should start doing it, too.
