New Year’s resolutions: Why we need them in 2021
With 2020 over with, we need to face 2021 with strength and positivity. Creating resolutions and goals for the new year may bring us this energy. I usually tend to avoid New Year’s resolutions, but I believe this is something we may need now. This past year brought us fear and hardships as we have never seen and we have to pull ourselves out of this slump into a new year of possibilities. Coming up with personal goals that we wish to achieve may help us.
However, we need to make sure these goals can be accomplished and are not toxic. Creating unreachable or damaging goals may give us the opposite of what we wish to feel and negatively affect our year.
Instead, reflect back upon the year you had and see what you wish to change. Start out small, such as “I want to study more this school year,” and continuously build on your goals until you have accomplished them and so much more.
When 2021 comes to an end, you will be able to look back on all the goals you have achieved and begin planning for 2022. With the mindset of growing from creating goals, you can be unstoppable.
Why I’m against New Year’s resolutions
I used to be a huge advocate for making New Year’s resolutions because I truly
believed that the beginning of a new year signified the time for self-growth and change in a person.
On Jan. 1, I would feel so motivated and excited to get to work on whatever goal I had set for myself, only to lose that motivation once February hit. I believed that the new year was a great time to begin working on goals since a new year meant a clean slate. However, all of the efforts that I put into my New Year’s resolutions soon turned into failure and reverting to old habits.
According to Forbes, 90% of New Year’s resolutions fail and I know exactly why. Setting a New Year’s resolution is tricky because you’re giving yourself a time frame to start a goal. Time frames are dangerous when instituting goals because you feel more pressured when working towards the goal and being pressured usually ends up in the loss of willpower to reach a goal.
Another thing is that New Year’s resolutions are based on procrastination. When you implement the idea of starting your goal on Jan. 1, that basically implies that you will only begin to make changes once that date arrives rather than starting to make the changes right now. We treat the new year as if it marks a date that guarantees that we’ll meet whatever goal we set for ourselves and that is simply not accurate. Why procrastinate your goals and wait until Jan. 1 when you can start to make changes right now?
Honestly, the point is if you’re serious about a goal, don’t wait until New Year’s day to come around. Start it right now. Make your goals realistic and start coming up with a game plan to attack the goal. Anyone can achieve any goal they set for themselves as long as there’s a strategy behind it. Make it more specific to where you will have mini-goals that will result in your larger one.
