It's that time of the year again! The holiday season is in full swing as New Year's Eve and New Years Day are approaching. With New Years comes the decades-old tradition of making New Year's Resolutions.

If you are not familiar with the tradition, New Year's Resolutions are when a person resolves to change an undesired trait or behavior to achieve a personal goal or to somehow improve their lives.

Yet, this well-meaning tradition has turned into people coming up with excuses for everyone to attempt to change their lives in major ways at the same exact time of the year as if they couldn't do it any other day of the year.

I may think New Year's Resolutions are a little bit silly, but I do make some every year like everybody else does. There is a contagious, hopeful spirit that comes along with these resolutions and I cannot help but be a part of it.

With the beginning of a new year, people are extra motivated to better themselves. Most resolutions are something like eating better, drinking more water, getting better days, working harder for a career or going to the gym.

People take New Year's as the time to figure their lives out and decide on what they need to improve. However, everyone usually gives up within the first month or even less within the new year.

That "new year, new me" desire to change for the better fades once we simply realize that it is difficult to get out of our old ways. Sadly, most people are not willing to put in the effort to change them.

Being better is hard when we've been average, and surviving just fine doing our own things every year. However, I believe that if people were to make resolutions, on any day of the year and not just New Years, they would be more motivated and willing to change themselves.

It seems as if most people do not genuinely believe they need to change immediately around New Years, but they play into the social construct and participate in the idea of making a resolution.

They have probably drifted through 2018 with the same habits and lifestyle they've always had. Really, they only want to change so they can have a resolution just like everybody else does.

Resolutions are simply excuses. People tell themselves it's fine to exist on nothing but junk food because our resolution is to start working out in 2019! We'll just wait until then to make any positive lifestyle changes.

We let go of our resolutions because we claim they are not a big deal. I think that when we wake up on an ordinary day and decide for ourselves that it's time to change, that's when change actually happens.

People's motivation needs to come from a real, personal desire to change, not from some resolution they make to themselves out of peer pressure as the ball drops.

The tradition of making a resolution is fun, uplifting and it's a part of the New Year's festivities. I just want everyone to remember that you don't have to wait for the countdown to the new year to decide to make a change for yourself.