My beef with New Year’s resolutions…

I’m hearing from most of the people I know and seeing it plastered all over social media. “My resolution this New Year is xyz“. Sure, having the desire to make a positive change in your life is a great thing, but answer me this one question… why on earth do people need to wait to new year’s to make a change to their lives for the better?

I have been thinking about some of the resolutions that my friends have made (that I know about) in recent years. With the exception of just a couple, every single resolution has disappeared like a puff of smoke into the sky. The question is, why?

I think that people become so fixated upon their resolution/s that they really start to feel under too much pressure to succeed at what they are doing. The two classic resolutions seem to be stopping smoking and losing weight. People start out all positive and determined, but by the end of day one, the smokers and chewing their fingertips to the bone and the dieters are sweating and hallucinating about jumbo sized bars of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk. 

  
Then the smokers go cold turkey and turn from lovely people into complete asshats.

  
They start to feel the need and it’s a case of “Just one bit of chocolate” or “Just one more cigarette” and then back on the wagon. However, they can’t stop at “just one” and before you know it they are right back to square one and feeling guilty.

In my humble opinion, people are setting themselves up for a fall with new year’s resolutions because of one main reason. They don’t really want to do it. They are simply doing it because they feel obliged to. You “have” to make a New Year’s resolution don’t you? No. No you don’t.

You should make a change in your life because you want to, not because society tells you you have to. Screw that. Make changes that make you happy and do it when it makes you happy and feels right, not because society tells you it’s the time to do it!

Happy Hogmanay!