As we face each new year, it’s impossible to avoid the widespread tradition of new year’s resolutions. This practice entails leaving behind the ugly aspects of the previous year through creating personal goals for oneself. Often, people conceive these goals with the intention of improving their health, work/school life, social life or just their lifestyle in general.
It’s extremely common to hear people announcing their resolutions to their friends and family, claiming they’ll become their best self during the new year. Masses of people make confident assertions about the drastic changes that will happen in their life simply because we reached a new day on the calendar.
The optimism associated with a new year oftentimes inspires people to make much-needed changes in their lives. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with striving for self-improvement, the very nature of new year’s resolutions deems it an ineffective method of goal-setting. Every aspect about this tradition is downright ridiculous.
First, why do people even make resolutions in the first place? The first answer that comes to mind is people are motivated by a sense of renewal in the new year, while I definitely agree with this to an extent, it’s become utterly clear to me there’s a different answer: social normalcy.
According to a survey oll by Forbes Health, 62% of adults feel pressured to create a new year’s resolution. At the beginning of every year, it’s almost expected of you to have created a resolution or two. This leads to the all-to-common phenomenon of creating superficial goals that lack real motivation or purpose, thus becoming extremely vulnerable to failure.
A new year rolls by, and suddenly everyone becomes obsessed with the idea of exponentially improving upon themself. This can sound great in retrospect, but it inevitably ends in unrealistic goal-setting. It’s bold to assume one can achieve a formidable goal without smaller ones leading up to a larger one. Many people preach this philosophy about setting smaller goals time and time again due to the fact that substantial goals are only achieved through gradual progress.
And those arbitrary goals don’t stick. Creating a New Year’s resolution is undoubtedly an incredibly ineffective tradition with an infamous legacy of failure. According to a study by Ohio State University, only 9% of Americans actually complete their resolution. It’s no surprise the majority of us end up dropping our resolutions well before the month of January even comes to an end.
The phony tradition of New Years goal-setting and the assumption you are obligated to make a resolution in the first place makes it incredibly difficult to set goals that contribute to genuine progress.
There’s no doubt the resolution/goal-setting craze holds exclusive to the month of January. Due to the fact that making resolutions has become a once-in-a-year tradition, people place high-expectations for themselves for the purpose of taking part in a yearly festivity. Again, this inevitably leads to failure.
So why should we feel the need to wait for an arbitrary day on the calendar to begin our endeavors toward self-improvement? Setting short-term, more realistic goals throughout the year would ultimately lead to a better outcome for anyone who chooses to take part in resolution-making. Striving to achieve your goals shouldn’t be limited to a single month, then dropped shortly later. Ensuring you’re making steady, continuous progress is the far better option.
At the end of the day, everyone’s life and their day-to-day issues are incredibly different, but one thing is for sure, if we truly want to become better people, we need to look beyond the appeal of superficial traditions.
The views in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the HiLite staff. Reach Aida Karim at akarim@hilite.org.
Salima Sher • Jan 30, 2025 at 8:02 pm
This graphic is so relatable! It really enhances the story