Written By Avani Bhandari (Grade 8)
I trust that approximately 70% of the people in the world make new year’s resolutions. I know I do. The most common resolutions are: losing weight, doing more exercise, quitting smoking and saving money. However, you will be taken by surprise to know that research has shown that fewer than 10% of people manage to keep their resolutions for more than a few months.
You must wonder why you aren’t able to keep up with your resolution every year. Of course, if you are able to keep up with them, you’re a dedicated and committed person and believe me, I admire you. But if not, here are few reasons that might be why:
Your resolution is very unrealistic
This is one of the main reasons for most people. If your resolution is something you cannot imagine yourself doing i.e. if you can’t literally picture it in your mind, you are likely to not achieve it. While it is not bad to ‘dream big’, if you want to make a resolution which you will follow diligently, start with small steps. For instance, if your resolution is to exercise every day for 2 hours, but you have classes and school for approximately 7 hours of the day, you should change the resolution to exercise for 30 minutes daily.
You have too many resolutions
Sometimes, we make not more than one, but more than 2-3 resolutions for us to follow. If you have a lot of bad habits, you don’t need to get rid of them overnight. This will lead to you not getting rid of any of them. It’s not only about mending bad habits. Even if you want to add good habits to your life, go step by step. No need to make many changes at once. For example, if you wanna reduce your weight, you don’t need to make resolutions like exercise every day, eat only healthy food, etc. You can maybe do one of them first and try it out. Later, add things, little by little.
There’s no fun element in any of your resolutions
Life is full of challenges, so we must enjoy ourselves while battling them! Don’t keep all your resolutions all work and no play. If your resolution is boring and tiring, you are likely to be unmotivated to follow it. For example, if your resolution is to study one 1hour daily, then maybe modify it and say while studying, take a 10-minute break every 30 minutes and do something you enjoy, or grab a drink or a snack, and then get back to studying.
Your resolution induces a big change in your life
A resolution that requires you to change a lot of things in your lifestyle should not be adopted. You must always start with small changes. A big change or a series of big changes will affect not only you but also your near and dear ones. is will make it tough to execute.
There can be many more reasons depending on your environment, friends, etc, but I feel like these four are very important ones that really contribute to why people fail to follow their resolutions.
To conclude, I’d like to suggest that when framing your resolutions, you must make sure that it’s SMART i.e. specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely.
Featured Image Courtesy – Mental Floss
