The longest month of the year is finally over: January seemed to stretch on for an eternity. We can now look back at the promise that we -drunkenly- made to ourselves, at midnight on the 31st of December, that this year would be “our year”.
New year’s resolutions are big business. Weight Watchers International saw a quadrupling of online orders in the first three weeks of January. Gym memberships spike, with the Gold Gym conglomerate reporting a 40% increase in memberships in following New Years day. Alas, it never lasts.
At 23:59 we told ourselves that we would never smoke again but by 12:04 we were desperately lingering over our last toke of a cigarette. We were confident that we could complete dry January but, end of exam celebrations proved our inability to resist a round- or three- of Jagerbombs. We drunk green juice once before deciding never to touch kale again. We stayed vegan for a solid week before the siren call of chicken nuggets got the better of us. The promise we made to ourselves about ‘getting the most out of our degree’ lasted approximately fifteen minutes into our first lecture of the term. Like Bridget Jones we quickly realised that our most important resolution should be to “keep New Years resolutions”. However, we are not alone. Research conducted by Statistic Brain, using 1,129 respondents, has shown that New Year’s resolutions are bound to fail. In fact, only 44.8% of people keeping their resolutions past six months. Another study in 2007 by Richard Wiseman from the University of Bristol involved 3,000 people and 88% of them did not stick to their resolutions. But, why is this the case? Why are we seemingly incapable of keeping the promises that we make to ourselves with such good intentions?
While it is a commonly accepted fact that new year’s resolutions are made to be broken, more often than not, they often remain unattempted. Realistically, we are never going to wake up at 5am every morning to do yoga and go for a run or completely quit drinking or go to bed at 10 o’clock every night. Life simply gets in the way. Social media plays a huge role in influencing our New Year’s resolutions often by making them overly ambitious and unrealistic. Scrolling through our instagram feeds we are bombarded with images of women with picture perfect bodies and picture perfect lives. We want all of this instantly and when we don’t see a six pack seven days into our new healthy regime, we give up. We are unwilling to be patient for what we want because we are exposed to so many people who have it right now. Thus, our resolutions don’t last. That gym membership goes to waste and that kale remains hidden in the back of the fridge until next January. Next year will definitely be “our year” though.