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New Year’s Resolutions

According to the official Cambridge dictionary a New Year’s resolution is a promise that you make to yourself to start doing something good or stop doing something bad on the first day of the year (Cambridge Dictionary, 2021). The most chosen New Year’s resolution is to start eating healthier, next to this also getting more exercise is a popular one. But why are New Year’s resolutions so popular and why are people failing them a lot of the time?

Why do people make New Year’s Resolutions?

With making New Year’s Resolutions people set goals for themselves. It gives them a roadmap for the upcoming year, something to stick to. The resolutions are a means to catalog our personal dissatisfaction and a method to erase errors of the past year.

Why do people not stick to their resolutions?

Only 12% of the people that thought they would stick to their resolutions actually do.

A resolution most likely goes wrong because:

• It is based on what someone else (or society) is telling you to change. But you do not feel the urge to change it yourself, this makes it hard to adhere to this resolution. 

• It is too vague, this makes that after a month you are not completely sure what you wanted to achieve. Or, it results in only losing 2 kilos of weight instead of 10 because you stated that you “just wanted to lose weight”. 

• You don’t have a realistic plan for achieving your resolution. 

Tips and Tricks for your resolutions.

So… how do you make sure that you do not fail your resolutions this year? Be SMART!

S - Make them specific (“I want to lose 20 pounds” instead of “I want to lose weight”).

M - Make them measurable (Make a before picture so you can track your progress).

A - Make them achievable (Start with saving 20 euros in the month instead of 100 euros).

R - Make them realistic (“I will exercise twice a week” instead of “every morning”)

T - Make them timely (Set an exact date on which you want to have achieved your goal)

→ An example: On the first of June 2022 I will have saved 300€ for my summer vacation. 

After reading this you have enough information to set your own (reachable) resolutions. We as RedacCie want to wish you good luck in the upcoming year by sticking to your resolutions!

Happy New Year!