First off, the social convention dictates we wish you all a very happy New Year, so…
Happy New Year!
Like ours, we hope your time off was filled with excessive eating of food you don’t eat at any other time of the year like mince pies, oddly-flavoured crisps and Brussels sprouts and drinks you don’t drink at any other time of the year like eggnog, Baileys and port.
We also watched Ben Hur, It’s A Wonderful Life, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Oliver! and Elf.
Standard.
Anyway, it’s all over for another year and it’s back to school time. Are you ready for 2019?
Kicking Off The Year With A Bang (or a Hangover…)
As is also the social convention, many of us make new year’s resolutions. The things we will attempt to do in order to better ourselves, physically, personally or professionally.
Have you vowed to stop smoking, go to the gym, eat better, work harder or call your mother a little more often?
It seems logical doesn’t it? To kick off the new year as you mean to go on? But why? We make promises to ourselves every year around this time but hand on heart, when was the last time you saw a new year’s resolution through to the end of the year?
All the money in our pockets versus all the money in your pockets say the answer is ‘not once’.
We say here and now that new year’s resolutions are pointless. There. It’s been said and there’s no backsies.
Picking a single day to make major life changes seems a little arbitrary. You knew in March that smoking is bad for you so why didn’t you stop then? You knew in August that too much fried stuff is adding a little unwanted timber to a once lithe figure, so why didn’t you cut it out of your diet then? You knew in October that you hadn’t called your mother for six weeks so why aren’t you calling her more regularly?
Jumping on the bandwagon just because your Facebook feed is full of people vowing to change isn’t a good enough reason.
Plus, after a skinful on New Year’s Eve, most people think they can fly so the day after the night before is hardly the best time to decide to change your life.
Here Are The Reasons Why New Year’s Resolutions Are Pointless
Should vs. Want
Your first mistake is thinking about what you should be doing versus what you actually want to do. What if you don’t want to go to the gym? What if you don’t want to give up smoking? What if you like fried food?
If your motivation is based around what others are going to think about you, you’re on a hiding to nothing. Whatever decision you make, ensure it’s right for you and not your Facebook friends.
Realistic Targets vs. Unrealistic Targets
Deciding to stop smoking is commendable for sure but are you going to go to bed in the early hours of New Year’s Day a 10-a-day smoker and wake up as a non-smoker? Unlikely. Deciding you need to lose a stone is a fine goal, but don’t hit the gym every day while breathing flavoured air through rice cakes if last week you were gorging on Stilton & Rhubarb flavoured crisps and eating more than your fair share of pigs in blankets.
Set targets that are realistic to achieve, not targets that are so hard an Olympic athlete would struggle to hit.
Real Life vs Your Fantasy World
New Year’s resolutions are a complete and utter waste of time because real life gets in the way. It’s virtually impossible to hold yourself up to a higher standard, to reinvent yourself or to stay in total control of your life because – and we’re sorry to break it to you – real life doesn’t work like that.
Don’t kid yourself that if you miss legs day at the gym because you have to make a presentation to the marketing department that you’ll pick it up the next day. Sometimes, the grilled chicken and quinoa salad you’ve promised yourself for dinner will be replaced with leftover fish fingers and beans from your kids’ plate because you’re in a rush to get them to gymnastics or guides or football training. And so it goes on…
There’s Actually Some Good News. Here It Comes….
No-one wakes up on New Year’s Day and says ‘I want to take a half-arsed stab at being healthy’ or ‘five a day is better than 10, right?’
People DO want to lose weight. People DO want to quit smoking. People DO want to call their mothers more often but you don’t need a year change to guilt yourself into taking action.
You just need the self-motivation and the desire to change.
So, welcome to 2019 and our advice to you is… do what you like. You will do anyway.
Koncise Solutions
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