A tradition that dates back 4,000 years since the Ancient Babylonians, New Year’s resolutions continue to be goals that people look forward to completing every year starting from January.
‘New Year new me!’ and ‘this is my year!’ people say, unknowing how the 12 months ahead will fold out, but still excited to make resolutions as the clock strikes midnight.
According to Forbes, the top three most common resolutions in the UK for 2024 were as follows: 40 per cent of Brits said they want to “exercise more”, followed by 35 per cent aiming for “weight loss”, and 33 per cent aiming to “improve their dietary habits”.
But do people tend to stick to these resolutions? Or do many find it difficult to maintain these promises they made for themselves?
These statistics highlight the population’s common desire to improve the physical aspects of their life. But some goals such as weight loss, that are meant to be completed in a year, limit a person’s time-frame and create unrealistic expectations for the following years.
Setting achievable resolutions that you know can be accomplished throughout the year will motivate you to try new things, create better habits, and most importantly, motivate you to continue to build upon these habits throughout the months rather than giving you reasons to not follow through on them.
So what are good ways to keep resolutions going? As someone who, for years, used to create unrealistic resolutions and then disappoint myself constantly when I couldn’t reach them in time (or at all), I would advise you to not run into them right away.
These changes in your life are meant to come gradually or you won’t be able to make a habit out of them. Trying each goal, even just once a week or a month, and prioritising the most important ones will help you create a routine. This will motivate you to eventually do it more often, especially if it’s something that is out of your comfort zone, or you wouldn’t normally do.
For example, if your resolution is to cook meals at home more often, but you have a very busy schedule and you usually eat lunch at university or your workplace, your starting point could be to focus on improving your post-work meals and cooking one meal a week to take with you to work the next day.
By starting with this, you can then change that to two, three, or even four meals a week towards the end of the year, rewarding yourself with a more positive schedule for your cooking rather than burning out at the end of January due to forcing yourself to stress cook every day.
Another way to make resolutions more fun is to make sure you’re positively adding to your daily life, rather than simply taking away. You’d be surprised how much words can affect your response towards something!
For example, you could replace ‘eat less junk food’ with ‘eat more healthy foods’, or instead of ‘lose weight’, you could specify it to things like: ‘get stronger in the gym, run for a longer distance or in less time, go to the gym for 15 minutes longer than usual…’– you get the gist.
With the changed perspective of adding things into your life, you are more inclined to happily form new habits rather than feeling regret about the many restrictions you would otherwise have made.
And to finally round this all off, I would recommend including mental health and self-love practicing habits in your list this year too. Healthy mind + healthy body = healthy life.
Your mental health is just as important as your physical health, if not more, and it is so important to also prioritise this aspect of your life.
With a positive mindset, with a focus on your well-being, and with a direct focus on how you feel year-round, your resolutions this year will be fun things to look forward to, and back in hindsight to, at the end of the 2024 year.
And remember– if you do not complete your resolutions this year, or if you think you still have things to work on, that is completely okay! Setbacks are still proof that you are trying and that is what matters.
Resolutions are there for you to better yourself and set fun goals that you’ll enjoy throughout the year– they are not meant to make you feel guilty about not reaching said goals or feel as if you have failed if you don’t.
So let’s get to working on our goals together this year: one positive, achievable, and happy resolution at a time.
Feature Image Credit: Pexels
Aspiring Journalist
Fourth-year Journalism Student and Sports Editor of BRIG Newspaper at Stirling University
