With the New Year upon us, many people have decided upon their resolutions.
Instead of simply taking 2017 as a clean slate, though, we should also look at it as a chance to reflect on the previous year.
Many people claim with the new year comes a new version of themselves. They’re ready to start anew and build up to be a different person.
It’s kind of hard to do that without taking into consideration what was done the year before.
Making resolutions is not as easy as it seems, and this is proven by how many people break their resolutions or completely forget about them.
Too often we start with high hopes for the year only to find we didn’t have as much conviction as we thought.
The first step in creating a good resolution is to realize what is too big of a goal and what is a reasonable goal you can actually achieve.
Telling yourself that you are going to become the thinnest you have ever been might not be reasonable because you aren’t explaining to yourself what that even means.
It might not be healthy depending on what that number on the scale would show.
Another thing to consider is why you are making these goals in the first place. What happened within the last year that made you come up with this resolution?
This is where reflecting on the past year comes into play.
In order to make a resolution that you can succeed with and gain from, you have to come to terms with what led to that.
Don’t pick something just because it’s going to sound like a good resolution. If you have no strong feelings toward your goal, you won’t feel motivated to continue with it.
You have no one to impress but yourself.
On the other hand, if picking a simple goal that many others will choose is what will work for you, try it out with a group of friends who want to see similar improvement this year.
If you need someone else to be accountable for you, then seeing your friends succeed in their part of the resolution may be enough motivation to keep up your end as well.
Don’t pick a resolution that’s too difficult.
It’s good to have a detailed plan about what you want to accomplish, but sometimes too many details can deter you or stress you out.
Resolutions and goals should be rewarding, not stress-inducing.
If you need to wait until you’ve seen how the first month of 2017 goes, do that. See how you can balance everything you want to do without overwhelming yourself.
Creating a resolution should be an exercise in discovering more about yourself. If you find that resolutions aren’t really your thing, then you still learned something.
Maybe your resolution for the year can be to figure out what next year’s resolution should be.
At the end of the day, don’t let a silly concept stress you out when it should only be a reward system. Don’t strain too much.
You should feel good about accomplishing goals, not stressed out in the pursuit of it. mmgarbac@umail.iu.edu
