It’s currently the beginning of January and a New Year has finally begun. What expectations of this year do you have? Or even, what are you going to do now that a new leaf has been turned?
It has been made very apparent to me that New Year’s resolutions are quickly dismissed by many people, and consequently when the above questions are asked, they result in returning to the automatic responses we have all heard before.
Personally, New Year’s, to me, is a rare occurrence to officially declare an adamant promise for the upcoming future and all generations should ‘embrace’ the day. But, it is known that a large majority of humans consistently fail to succeed in their promised change, simply due to lack of will power. ‘I don’t have any resolutions this year’ Jo, age 44, announced on the 1st January 2017, symbolising the increase of people’s resistance to grasping new challenges in the upcoming year. As humans, we use these challenges as motivation to improve our lives/ourselves, so why do we fail to succeed? The answer is simple. We either set ourselves almost impossible challenges or we are too lazy to uphold them. Resolutions shouldn’t be made to set unachievable goals, yet they should be enforcing realistic little targets we can consistently succeed in.
According to researcher John Norcross, approximately 50% of the population makes New Year’s resolutions each New Year, and unsurprisingly the top resolutions are weight loss, fitness and quitting smoking. Despite these encouraging challenges, many professionals believe people are setting themselves up to fail, and consequently when people make positive affirmations that they don’t really believe and doubt, they not only don’t work, but they also affect and can damage their self-esteem. These are not the implications New Year’s should have on people.
Let’s eliminate the failures we have when the New Year comes around and remember to be mindful of our limitations.
Issie Atack- Langley Park Girls School
