Ladue High School's student news site

Ladue Publications

Ladue High School's student news site

Ladue Publications

Ladue High School's student news site

Ladue Publications

Why New Year’s Resolutions are Nonsense

Why+New+Years+Resolutions+are+Nonsense

I hate New Year’s resolutions. Simply put, they suck. Every year, dozens — no millions — of Americans make up a “resolution” in order to “better themselves.” However, despite the numerous attempts to create a “new you,” they never work. Why? Well, the answer is simple. The hard truth is, if you make a resolution that is 100% unattainable given your current lifestyle, then you will never reach your goals. What happens is, Americans make up goals and resolutions for themselves that are way too big to achieve. People end up making goals like “read 100 books in a year,” “lose 50 pounds,” and “save $10 every day.” While these are all great goals, if you haven’t already made any changes in your life to reach such goals, you aren’t going to succeed in completing them. In order to meet your goal you need to set up concrete steps to reach them. For example, in order to read 100 books a year, you should set up how many pages you have to read each day. If you want to lose 50 pounds, you should examine your current lifestyle and make a change in your diet or exercise regime. And if you want to save up $10 every day, you need to know what you spend your money on, and reduce your spending on a particular activity or thing. Without the steps to reach your goals, they won’t happen. And as it turns out, about 150% (not sourced, do not quote me) of people who make a new years resolution don’t figure out the steps they need to do to reach their goal. 

Second, when someone makes a resolution, they often treat their goal as a sprint, not a marathon. They basically either go cold turkey on all their bad habits and throw themselves into chaos, making the goal unattainable to achieve throughout the entire year, or they just don’t make any changes.  In either case, the result is the same. Either you burn out from making too many changes too fast and never reach your goal or you just give up from the start. Long story short, it is important to make steps and small goals each and every day that are actually attainable. No more cutting out entire food groups to lose weight, reading a book every day, or stopping spending money on groceries. These steps are way way way too sudden and often won’t fit in your lifestyle. It is hard to make such drastic changes when you know you wouldn’t be able to keep up with them in the long-term. The solution is to make goals that you know you can keep up with throughout the entire year. Goals and steps you won’t get tired of and certainly won’t burn out from. Goals are a marathon, so take it day by day and make steps that are easy to achieve each day. So, next time you make a goal, please make sure you make the steps easily reachable. No more nonsense goals that don’t make sense for your lifestyle. 

Lastly, the final reason why they suck, is that people wait to start achieving their goals. Why wait for the new year? Why wait till the next year to start working towards your resolution? Start now! There is no reason why people can’t begin their goals the day they start thinking about it. Rather than waiting, begin now and just do it. No more waiting till one day of the year to start.

 Happy goaling!

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About the Contributor
Marissa Mathieson, Panorama Editor in Chief
Marissa Mathieson is a senior and an Editor-in-Chief this year. She loves nature, rock climbing, speech and debate, reading, and hugs. You will most likely find her at your local coffee shop drinking cold brew.

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