CREDIT: CALEIGH REID
Many New Year’s resolutions, ranging from losing weight, quitting smoking, and more, fail and struggle to even make it past January.

With the start of the year being the most popular time for people to try and reinvent themselves or change parts of their routines, New Year’s resolutions are always one of the most talked about topics around this time.

Healthy eating, working out, being more social, quitting smoking, all are just a few of the most popular New Year’s resolutions that people attempt to turn into a habit.

While most people pick up these resolutions in hopes of improving their lives or to start their new year on the right foot, many of these resolutions fail and most struggle to even make it past January.


The biggest thing is that if people actually cared about or had any driving force of actually completing and fully integrating these New Year’s resolutions into their lives, they would have already tried them.

I fully understand that people feel inspired at this time of year. There’s a certain hope that comes with a new year turning around and the realm of possibilities of having a full year ahead.

As pessimistic as it sounds though, these highs never last and at some point the year just becomes another year. The excitement of the holidays and the beginning of the new year always ends up fading, those New Year’s resolutions usually fading with them.

If people really wanted those resolutions to succeed, they should already begin thinking about them in December.

With a lot of these resolutions, there’s some prep work involved and really needed to even have a chance at succeeding. If you start on Jan. 1, with nothing ready or prepared, you are immediately setting yourself up for burnout.

That’s just for the “easy” resolutions.

If your resolutions are focused around losing weight, cutting a bad habit, you also have to account for the temptations and the more difficult times that are bound to come up.

Resolutions are not usually known for being easy, so going in without any prep work or baseline ideas on how to properly see it through just makes the whole ordeal pointless.

Now, none of this is meant to dissuade anyone from attempting New Year’s resolutions. I’ve attempted a few over the years, struggled, and succeeded with them along the way.

My main point through all of this is that you should know what you’re doing and willing to do going in, having an understanding of your own capabilities and patterns before possibly just wasting a bunch of your own time.

There is something humble and noble about working to change a part of yourself, which is exactly why you should be taking the time to really commit and respect the process.

At the end of the day, if you want to enact a resolution in your life, just do it. If you’re waiting for the year to turn over to really change something about yourself, then you weren’t passionate enough about it to just do it right from the get-go. As a side note because it needs to be said at least once, if your resolution involves going to the gym, be ready to be actively hated by all the people who are regulars. If you don’t commit and end up stopping by the end of the first month, you are part of why everyone who uses the gym hates new year’s.

Be passionate about your resolution, be excited for it too, but don’t waste your time if you aren’t really willing to commit.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.