New Year’s Resolutions SUCK and Are A Waste of Time

Happy New Year! I hope you had a safe and fun New Year’s Eve. As I am writing this, it is January 1, 2021. Right now, the internet is filling up with content on resolutions, hope for the new year, or things that were great about 2020. Today, let’s talk about why making resolutions is actually an awful idea.

To me, New Year’s resolutions are empty promises and January 1st is just another date on a calendar. The only thing that is significant about January 1st is that you may have to switch to a new calendar, or turn a page if you use a paper one. For digital planners, you don’t even need to do that. So, why do we care?

Mental Health

Most of the time, I really dislike celebrating the New Year. Anyone that has dealt with any sort of anxiety or depression issues can probably relate to this. Instead of feeling inspired, I can only think of all of the things I did not do which often spirals into me becoming even more depressed. Social media does not help this, especially Facebook. Facebook seems to be where everyone shows off the great things going on in their life, or using it to complain about everything bad with their life, or the world. Even now, I only use Facebook for my blog’s page or for other work.

If you do get a burst of inspiration in the beginning of the year, chances are, that will fade after a few weeks. Once the reality of working out every day, waking up early, or limiting sugar intake sets in, your desire to change vanishes. Then in the following December, you mentally feel like a failure and make the same empty promises to yourself for next year. And the cycle continues.

Habits in a New Year

We are creatures of habit. And habits are not easy to stop. Think about someone who bites their nails. How many methods and products are out there to help people break that habit? If someone has been struggling to stop biting their nails for 3 years, do they suddenly wake up on January 1st without the habit anymore? No, they don’t. All the first of the year is is a clean and easy way to mark your own progress. Going cold turkey with anything isn’t easy, and makes you less likely to succeed. New Year’s resolutions only promote doing so.

Let’s say I tell you I’m going to run a mile every day as my resolution. I am physically able to do it. I may hate myself every day for making myself do it, but I could. But I won’t, because I don’t want to. If I actually wanted to run a mile every day, I could do that in April, or July, or October. January 1st means nothing. Lying to myself on January 1st isn’t going to magically change my personality. It may change my mindset, but only temporary.

Making Excuses

When you’re told ‘no excuses, just do it,’ what are you really being told? Excuses aren’t always a bad thing, we have just been conditioned to believe that they are. Sometimes, what people consider to be an “excuse” is just a fact. If you want to claim it’s an excuse, answer this: is it really cop-out or is it a reasonable explanation?

For example, I broke my right arm in high school. I ended up having surgery and plates were put into my arm to fix it. I had a few days in between breaking my arm and the surgery, and during that time, my right hand was essentially useless. There was a lot of things I couldn’t physically do, not because I was being stubborn, but because my arm was not able to function the way it should. My arm and hand weren’t connected the way they needed to be for me to do even basic things. There was a physical struggle there.

That’s not an “excuse,” that is an explanation. There is a difference, and it’s an important one.

And for the record, sometimes giving in to the feeling of “not feeling like it” isn’t always a bad thing. Yes, it may be lazy. But everyone needs some lazy days for their own mental health. Is it not better to admit to someone and yourself that you’re just not going to do something? Why do we tell ourselves that we need to ‘be better’ and do things that we know deep down, are not going to happen?

Making Resolutions vs. Making Goals

If you do feel the need to make resolutions, plan ahead. Before you make a commitment to anything, set realistic steps for yourself. Break your resolution or goal down as much as possible. If you want to get in shape, you can have target weight loss numbers for each month, or you could pick three different workouts to do each week.

Personally, I also think that resolutions and goals are not the same thing in this context. I think of a resolution to be an action that I want to take to change my overall life. A goal is a way to improve on what I already am doing.

So, a resolution I could make for myself could be joining a gym and going 3x a week. A goal I could set for myself is to spend twenty minutes every other day doing stretches on the floor. I already stretch once or twice a week, but I can commit more time to it. But joining a gym is a lot more of a commitment. And going from 0 workouts to 3 workouts each week is a lot, which will lead to me abandoning that resolution. Both of those would help my physical health, but one is realistic for me in the immediate future. If I want to be ambitious, I could work out once a week and gradually increase my workout time and frequency. But the ‘cold turkey’ mentality is awful for your physical health and mental health.

What are your thoughts on resolutions? Did you make any resolutions or goals for 2021? Let me know in the comments below!

I know deliveries are still very backed up and a lot of people haven’t received packages with holiday gifts inside. Check out my post where I share my own experiences with virtual gift swaps!