Many people tend to quit their resolutions after just one week
By the end of every December, hilarious memes and Instagram reels poking fun at the irrelevance of New Year’s resolutions begin to make their way to our social media pages. Jokes on overcrowded gyms are repeated every year and yet, they never fail to amuse. And as we all laughed, we also couldn’t help but wonder: do New Year’s resolutions work at all?
According to research studies, maybe not. A Business Insider article, which reported the findings of a study conducted by the University of Scranton, said that ‘23 per cent of people quit their resolutions after just one week’ and that ‘only 19 per cent of individuals are actually able to stick to their goals long term…’
People look at it as a time to start afresh, and reinvent themselves. Danielle Smith, leadership and life coach, also points out that people have been doing it for so long that it could also just be ‘an old tradition that people stick to’. Interestingly, she has also noticed that people have begun to shift away from materialistic goals and opt to have goals that are more personal in nature. “I had a client who wanted to be his authentic self,” she says. “Many people also talk about setting more boundaries in terms of who they spend their time with and spending quality time with themselves, their closest friends and families. So it’s more about slowing down and taking more time to focus on what’s really important to them.”
Experts have mixed feelings about setting New Year’s resolutions for themselves. Jennifer, for instance, doesn’t do it at all. “I think it sets you up for failure because often, these resolutions are extremely difficult to keep. When you set tasks like ‘I want to lose weight’, ‘I want to stop drinking’ and ‘I want to be more sociable’, there’s a huge pressure on you to achieve it.” Bettina Koster, mental fitness coach, says she doesn’t wait for the new year to set new targets for herself. Smith, meanwhile, dislikes the word ‘resolutions’ and prefers to use ‘goals’ instead. “Resolutions are really short-term. It’s more important to keep your plan sustainable and to make it into a habit,” she points out, adding that she sets new goals for herself every year and takes stock of her progress every week or month. “I believe in goals or ‘resolutions’, as long as you do it the right way.”
It’s now the second week of January and the euphoria of entering a new year has somewhat died down. But unfortunately, you signed up for a new, expensive gym membership before reality hit and you are now experiencing the first stabs of regret. You also know that you are only days away from full-blown panic because that’s what happened last year. And the year before that.
Experts, however, point out that people tend to forget the simplest rule of New Year’s resolutions: you don’t have to achieve your goal by the end of January. “People begin the new year with the best of intentions but often they slip up after two or three weeks and give up completely by February,” says Smith. Here are the biggest mistakes people make while setting goals for the new year and expert-approved tips to plan them better.
Going for vague instead of specific, realistic goals: Koster says, “Instead of saying ‘I want to get fit’, plan something more specific like, ‘I will go jogging for 30 minutes a day’, if jogging is your thing.” Also, keep them realistic — can you really lose 10kgs in two months?
Not breaking a goal into smaller, doable tasks: Plan your goals well by having a clear strategy in place. “Instead of having a bigger target like ‘I want to speak a language’ which can, sometimes, take years depending on the language, you could begin by practising for 10 to 15 minutes every day. It’s also important to check in weekly and see what has and hasn’t been achieved,” says Koster.
Not leaving room for flexibility: An all-or-nothing approach is not only unsustainable, it can also trap you in a toxic cycle of setting and breaking resolutions.
So if you have decided to give up chocolates, allow some room for occasional, harmless indulgences because they are unlikely to sabotage all the work that you’ve put in so far. “If you are at a birthday party where you’ve had some chocolate, you shouldn’t feel like you’ve completely ruined your New Year’s resolution because actually, allowing that flexibility a little bit is really important to achieve a goal,” explains Jennifer. “But instead, people say, ‘Oh no, now I’m going to have three pieces of cake because I’ve ruined everything’. It could be repeating patterns from your past too and this negative narrative in your mind can create even more mental health problems like self-harm, abuse, binge drinking or binge eating. It also affects your confidence. So I think it’s really important to not let the past dictate the future, and to see it as a fresh start.”
Self-compassion, adds Koster, is important. “Because, not every day is the same. Sometimes you’ll succeed and sometimes you won’t.”
United Arab Emirates Dirham Exchange Rate
