An Ode to New Year’s Resolutions

With the New Year mere days away, it’s almost time to say farewell to this past year. It’s that time of year when we reflect on all that we’ve accomplished (or didn’t accomplish) these past twelve months.Whether this year was full of fortune…or falls.

If you’re anything like me, on January 1st, 2016 you made a plan of what you would accomplish this year. You charted out your goals for the coming days, weeks, and months. You might have even created a detailed schedule of when these goals would be accomplished. My New Year’s Resolution was to hit the gym three times a week and to eat healthier.

If you’re anything like me…you also probably saw your resolutions slowly dissolve, bit by bit. It might’ve started with skipping gym days every once in awhile or grabbing take out a few more times a week than you’d planned. Fast forward to mid-April and you realize that those goals you’d set for the New Year were now a distant memory.

Now as we prepare for the New Year, people are once again preparing their New Year’s resolutions. As a college student, I often hear my friends and peers setting goals like, “Next year I want to get all A’s” or “Next year I want to get an internship”. At home during the holidays, I hear family members making resolutions like, “Next year I want to start painting” or “Next year I’m going to go for that big promotion.” Next year, next year…but why not now?

Since when is there a cut off day for setting and reaching goals?

It’s this pattern that we’ve all habitually fallen into over the years.

First, we set these elaborate goals. Then, we find that if we haven’t accomplished them the way we’d imagined, we forget about them until the next year. Even then, for some odd reason, we believe that we can’t work toward new goals until specific periods.

For many, it’s the new year. For some, it is the start of a new season or a new month. I can’t begin to tell you the number of college students I’ve heard in mid-October say that they’ll “try again next semester,” in reference to their GPA and school work. As if there were a deadline to begin putting in the effort.

Yo might be waiting until the next year to pursue that big promotion or to apply for the position you’ve been eyeing. The rest of the world and the rest of your coworkers, however, are not.

The seasons are changing and time is moving forward…with or without you.

You don’t have to wait until next month or even next week to start working out or eating healthy. Trust me when I say, you don’t have to wait until the new year to apply for a job, and you don’t have to wait until a new semester to try for good grades. You don’t need a new day, week, month, or year to begin making positive strides in your life–you just need a new mindset. One in which you make the important realization that you (and not time) are in control of your life.

Now I’m not saying that time is a figment of our imaginations. I am saying that we do have control over what we choose to do with the time we’re given.

So make it count.

There’s nothing wrong with making a New Year’s resolutions. Just don’t feel afraid to make a “middle of the week, just because” resolution right along with it. And don’t forget to accomplish both in the process.