What word comes to mind when you think about making New Years resolutions? For me, as well as many of my peers, it is one word, eight letters, three syllables: disaster.
Now there are some people that swear by these trivial lifestyle changes made on the first day of each trip around the sun, and there are some that choose not to take part in the fad, but if there's one thing we can all agree on it is this: new years resolutions never last. Show me a living, breathing person who sets decent resolutions and keeps them a full year, and I will be skeptical. Because realistically, who is really able to change their behaviors over night? Sure, you might keep your promise to work out every day for the first two weeks of January, but the "new year, new me" high will slowly wear off and you'll be back to square one in no time.
My best advice: take it slow. Want to get in shape? Start by doing 10 push ups a day. Increase that number by 1 a day. Done. Want to start reading more books? Find one that interests you, and try a chapter a night. The world around us has conditioned us to expect to get things fast and we often fail because we don't see immediate results. Yet in reality, the world doesn't quite work that way. When you pick a goal, just do something about it everyday. And everyday do it a tiny bit more. Rome was not built in a day, and neither were you.
Saying that you're going to change your life because the clock is being rewound and you're getting a fresh start on January 1st is a load of crap. To quit bad habits, identify the root of the problem. Reflect on what makes you relapse and avoid it at all costs. To form good habits, take action every single freakin' day, even when you don't feel like it. Developing mental toughness and perseverance is the way to get things done.
New Years can be every single day, if you want it to be. There is absolutely no point in limiting yourself to a single day of the year to start doing things you wish you would have started six months ago. Challenge yourself each day to step out of your comfort zone. Make the changes that need to be made, but not because it's a new year. Make them because every day is another day you're living and breathing, and you deserve to be someone you're proud of.
