I have, in the past, been very cynical about the great stock people put in the coming of the new year. Why should things suddenly change because another day has passed? I put the cynicism aside and was more recently indifferent. This past New Years, I embraced the hope and determination of the holiday completely. The day itself does not have some magical property — there are many cultures that have long celebrated the New Year on a different day determined by the lunar calendar or the coming of spring. It is the intent poured into the day that makes it significant. The coming of the New Year is significant because people choose to designate it as the start of something new, an opportunity for change after shedding the weight of the year before.

Not to say that the burdens and challenges of the year before are not magically gone. Nobody really believes that but there are no new problems yet. We can look back on our older problems with clearer eyes and rise up to meet them with our new knowledge. Whether that be a problem like helping the homeless of America or trying to eat healthier. The New Year is worth celebrating. Resolutions are worth making. There is, however, an unhelpful way of going about them.

Making resolutions should not be done in a general fashion or under the assumption that it will come about quickly or merely because you said so. If you want to eat healthier, you have to set out concrete tasks for yourself like making grocery lists based off recipis decided on ahead of time in order to prevent falling back on less healthy staples or keeping a particular section of each day clear for exercise.

Without those specific tasks your goal, as good as it may be, will be aimless and hard to attain. Even with those particular goals, it is important to remember that you are cultivating something new in yourself, reaching beyond what you have done before. Even if you are only doing this in a small way, it takes time. Do not leave a good goal behind because of a few stumbles or even a huge failure. If it’s something that means a lot to you, then do not give it up.

Resolutions, just like the New Year, bear weight and significance because we give it to them. We do not have this power over everything but we have this power over ourselves and how we see things. That is not to say we can take any bad situation and make it rosy and that your life would be better if you’d just “try a little harder”. I mean to say that the significance of a thing is not any less legitimate if it is determined by a group.