New Year's Resolutions: a common part of turning the page to the new year. Several people will claim that the new year will turn them into a new person, and even more people will set goals to achieve at the end of the year. Pop culture goes to town on the craze that is new year's resolutions, poking fun at people who fail to meet their goals because they give up two weeks into the new year.
Looking back on it, I changed more during the last few months of 2016 than I did throughout the first eight or nine months of it. I did make New Year's resolutions last year and managed to achieve some of my goals, but, when I saw the resolutions that I didn't meet, I couldn't help but feel disappointed in myself. It took me a while to realize that those resolutions were set by a different version of me in a different situation, and, by the end of the year, some of those resolutions just weren't realistic based off of the new circumstances that I faced. In addition to that, some of them aren't made to be achieved in the course of a year, but two or three, or maybe even longer.
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I will not be setting any New Year's Resolutions this year, and it's not because I'm afraid of the feeling of disappointment that I'll get when I don't meet my goal, but because big goals just don't work for me. Instead, I will be setting short-term goals, in hopes of achieving long-term goals. Sure, it would be nice to say that I want to lose weight or get straight A's, but I can't just say that I'm going to do something and expect to achieve it. I have to break it down into monthly, weekly and daily goals in order to achieve the ultimate goal. For some people, the idea of the end result drives them through and they can hold themselves accountable, but some people (like myself) need checkpoints to motivate them. I have big dreams and big goals, but I have to break them up in order to achieve them, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
As cheesy as it sounds, you shouldn't wait until a change in the calendar year to start taking care of yourself. Every day, you have several opportunities to change things in your life that make you unhappy. Are you finally going to actually study for that class that keeps tripping you up? Are you actually going to go running like you've been telling yourself you would for the past three months? Are you going to read that help book that has been sitting on your bookshelf since you bought it a few weeks ago? Are you going to pack a healthy lunch, instead of spending extra money on a lunch that will make you feel gross afterward? These aren't just questions you should ask yourself on the first day of a new year, but every day that you have the privilege of waking up and living for yet another day. A day is a day, and if it happens to be your birthday or a start of a new year, then that's fine, but you shouldn't wait until those days come, because what if you don't get to see them? If you're motivated at this very moment to change something, then do it. Why would you wait for a change when it can happen right now?
