As the final days of January 2020 tick down, we are left with the opportunity to reflect on the first month of the new decade. For most of us, that inevitably means looking back on the promise we made to ourselves as the clock tolled midnight on January 1st; that’s right- I’m talking about New Year’s resolutions.
If you made a resolution for this new year and have kept it thus far, great job! If you made a resolution for this new year and didn’t make it all the way through January, I am here to say YOU are not alone!
According to the United States News and World Report in 2019, 80% of New Year’s resolutions were abandoned by February. There are only about 9% of people who report having set a New Year’s resolution on January 1st and kept it through the entire year.
After seeing these numbers, it seems pretty clear to me that something is not working.
Honestly, the only New Year’s resolution I have ever kept happened years ago when I decided to stop drinking soda pop for the year.
Since then, I have made and abandoned plenty of New Year’s resolutions, and to kick off this new decade, I decided I didn’t want to make a “resolution” at all, because in short, they always make me feel bad about myself. TRUE
With this staggeringly large number of people who “abandon” their resolutions so early into the year, psychologists across the country have dug into the question of, why?
Psychology Today reports that there are four main reasons why New Year’s resolutions fail:
- Your goals aren’t clear
- You feel overwhelmed
- You feel discouraged
- You’re not ready to change
After reviewing this list, I have felt discouraged, overwhelmed, frustrated, and even like a failure due to past New Year’s resolutions. While it helps to know that I am not alone in having felt this, I believe it is time to change the “magic midnight mentality” surrounding these resolutions.
The American Counseling Association says that New Year’s resolutions can be a bad idea, often resulting in feeling like you’ve failed because few people seldom achieve their New Year’s resolution.
Additionally, the ACA says that New Year’s resolutions begin by picking out the things one doesn’t like about themselves, then allow you to make promises to yourself, and then feel even lower self-esteem if you don’t, and many don’t, achieve the end goal.
With all these concerns, and here’s the headline: New Year’s resolutions tend to make us feel bad about ourselves, and we shouldn’t do anything that makes us feel less than amazing!
Because so many feel this way by the end of January, February so on and etc., the ACA recommends that instead of focusing on the end product of a resolution, look at the reason you set that goal for yourself in the first place. Once you have done that and decided that you set the goal to begin to make a positive change in your life, take baby steps!
It is all about the journey and not the destination; it’s about the climb.
Mitchell Rosen, a therapist from California, spoke about new year’s resolutions in an interview with The Press Enterprise. His main point was that we will change when we are actually ready to change; “If the only time we commit to change is when it’s New Year’s or we say, ‘I promise,’ these are artificial occasions we can use to pretend the change we are hoping for has become important enough.”
Psychologists everywhere recommend that instead of setting a large and daunting “New Year’s resolution,” that instead we just set goals for ourselves.
By setting goals for ourselves rather than one end all be all we keep throughout the year, we can still effect positive change in our lives, but do it in a way that once we fall down (because we will because we’re human), we just get right back up. Goals can happen three times a day, once a day, once a week, whatever!
The best thing about your goals is that they are yours and you can change them and modify them without having a feeling of discouragement looming above your head.
And if everything else I’ve written here today doesn’t convince you here is some advice from my mom, easily the most intelligent woman I have ever known:
I told you in this article that I didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions this year, and I didn’t. I did, however, set a goal for myself. My goal is to be more kind to myself and more forgiving for when I inevitably make mistakes, because we all do.
So, ladies, be kind to yourselves in 2020. Remember that if you don’t finish your New Year’s resolution, ditch it and set a daily goal instead, and always remember that you are going enough, you are a wonderful person, and you are important to me and Her Campus members everywhere.