It’s that time of year again- the gym is packed with people, health food stores are bustling with new customers, the library is crowded with people trying to work harder than previous terms, and social media is buzzing with self-help articles, vowing to help you make, “the new year the best year of your life”. While I find goal setting and self- improvement to be extremely important and rewarding, I have never understood why ripping off the last page of their calendar immediately inspires people to change their life.

The reason why I disagree is this: it is never too late to chase after what you want. Life is too short to put off your aspirations. Why wait until the new year to start to learn how to cook, when you can learn how to cook today? Success begins with ending our procrastination.

Opportunity is all around us. If we want to improve our lives, or need assistance in achieving our goals, there are resources everywhere. We are fortunate enough to live in a country where there are endless outlets to help us succeed. Whether it be skilled professors who are willing to help us when we are struggling, psychologists who teach people how to improve their mental health, and nutritionists who teach people how to be healthier and make better choices, there are people everywhere that spend their lives helping people improve their own. It is never a bad time to try to achieve your goals; anything is possible, if you just set your mind to it. If you realize that you want to or need to change an aspect in our lives, no person, holiday, or outside force should have to be the one to initiate this change; we should never have to wait for a push to improve ourselves- only you can change yourself. Nothing feels better than finally achieving what you have set your heart out to do on your own terms.. Only you can achieve your goals, and once you do, it can be the most rewarding things in the world.

There is so much hype about new year’s resolution, due to how much the media focuses on it. I began to notice over the years that I have found that a lot of people set grandiose goals for themselves, such as getting thinner, or traveling more, as opposed to more specific goals, that could gradually help them achieve these goals. I think that there is a lot of pressure within our society that a new year means a new life, a new person, and a fresh start. At the beginning of the new year, you will always see television ads marketing for several self-help services, such as gym memberships and structured diet plans. These ads go along with the theme that the new year is supposed to be a new life. But what a lot of new year’s resolution makers don’t realize is this: we do not need a change in year to change our life.