Every year people make these resolutions to fix or help their life. Often we hear people say they will go to the gym more often (which you see in spikes with gym membership starting the first week in January), eating healthier or quitting bad habits like smoking or excessive drinking. It's always been a stupid concept in my mind. "On January 1st I will start doing things to make myself healthy!"... Why not start on December 23rd, or November 16th or June 2nd? Why does it need to be January 1st? I debated this with a few members of my family and realized the point I was trying to make was not that it was a bad decision to make resolutions, clearly it can be good. The point I was trying to get across was that if you know you are going to try to kick something in the new year, or start something, why not just go ahead and do it then? If I realize in late November that I really want to start cleaning my room more regularly, why shouldn't I just start immediately rather than waiting? I heard one friend say at a Christmas party, "I am going to start this new diet on Monday after New Years."...... What...... Why not just start now? (I understand that with Christmas and New Years parties there are going to be good unhealthy options so it would be harder to start then). I guess it just doesn't seem to make too much sense. If you are planning on doing something and have the capabilities to start doing it now, why would you wait and postpone seeing positive outcomes from what you are attempting to change?
Now I do see one benefit and one reason why people do it this way. Many people have things they want to change or alter, things they think would benefit their life in one way or another. You often see these people capable of carrying out this change but struggling to start. I have told myself for years that I want to eat healthier and work out more often, I am good at it when I get in the groove but I just don't know when I should start the routine. Having January 1st roll around, the first day on the calendar, it creates a perfect starting point for something. Additionally, people like to keep tabs on themselves and check their progression. January 1 is the start of all dating for the coming year and thus is the best way to track progress. You can see how you did for the first month vs second vs third, etc, you can see how you did for a quarter of a year, you can see how you did for a full year. While this is something you can technically do at any point, it is significantly easier and more convenient to do it on this date. This is all just a slight rant at setting goals that you could work on immediately but waiting for a while (essentially wasting time you could be working on this goal). That said, I think resolutions are a really good idea and setting goals is largely important. I myself have my own group of goals (goodbye fast food) and encourage everyone to at least set some minor or major goals for the year (or for any arbitrary amount of time).
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