The way people think about new year's resolutions has dramatically changed in the past 5 years. I've found that when resolutions for the new year are brought up, people roll their eyes. People don't like the idea of resolutions anymore because there's a stigma that they won't actually happen or won't be followed through with. With that being said, we live in a time where people are constantly setting goals; those can be daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly. So resolutions have kind of turned into just setting goals for the year.

When you put a negative connotation behind something, you're putting it in your head from the start that you aren't going to succeed. If you set your mind to something and constantly tell yourself "I'm so close, I can do this, I'm going to keep up with this", it's going to have an amazing effect on how you keep up with a resolution. New Year's resolutions are supposed to be seen as a positive thing, but because so many people don't stick to them, it has developed a negative connotation.

Goal setting has become a huge part of my life and daily routine. I think it's very important to have goals for different sections of your life and times. My goal categories are health/fitness, work, personal, and friends/family; I usually will do monthly and yearly goals. Having goals every month makes me keep up with things that I need to be doing. Whether that's exercising, drinking enough water, having family dinners, etc. It's a tool for prioritizing your time and making sure that you're getting everything you need done while implementing a good lifestyle.

The most popular resolution that has a negative outlook behind it is everything for health and fitness; that one is the easiest to give up on. It's not a bad thing to go to the gym regularly or eat healthier as a resolution, I think it's one of the best ones out there. Some people need the idea of a new year to be able to kickstart a healthy lifestyle because you're literally starting at the beginning of the year. It's everyone's fault for turning resolutions (especially that one) into something unachievable because then those people who actually try just end up thinking, "Ugh, I will just do it next year, I can't do it now" when in reality they can if they set goals.

This is the first year where because of my constant goal setting, I kept up with everything I wanted to accomplish in 2018 (besides finishing my Invisalign treatment). When someone asks if I have new year resolutions, I just tell them that I'm an avid goal setter. I feel like we can bring back new years resolutions to be a positive thing if we just act positive towards them and motivate each other! It's all about changing the way that something is defined by how we act it out, and how we react to it. So, for this new year try goal setting instead of the resolutions and shut down the haters!