New Year’s Goals that Work

New Year’s resolutions are a way for people to better themselves. Many Americans decide to try to drop a few pounds before the year is over, or pick up the guitar they bought two years before and learn it. Although a lot of resolutions seem like good goals, I’ve never personally believed in New Year’s resolutions.

Hoping to be proven wrong about New Year’s resolutions, I decided to ask some students what they thought about resolutions. Like myself, it seemed as though many students were not sold on the idea.

Brett Carper, freshman of Gillette, Wyo., made the resolution this year to be more polite to people. However, he also said that he does not think New Year’s resolutions work because a year is such a long time.

“I forget about them,” said Reba Jackson, junior of Hay Springs. “Last year I made the resolution to not have caffeine, but broke it in March because I forgot.”

Nakia Booker, senior of Hot Springs, Ark., said she doesn’t think New Year’s resolutions work because people do not stick to their resolutions. Instead, she believes it is better to set personal goals.

“I set goals,” she said. “I don’t set something I think is unrealistic.”

The list of most common New Year’s resolutions includes quitting smoking and losing weight. Although these are great goals, trying to take such a huge step, such as throwing out the cigarettes, takes time. It takes small steps to achieve a huge goal.

Goals are very important for students. Even little goals like finishing a paper early or getting a part-time job are important. I have set a goal for the next month: that I will take thirty minutes out of each day to read for my own pleasure. It’s a manageable goal. However, it seems evident that to set a huge goal only once a year isn’t necessarily productive.

Write down your goals. Writing goals down can help you remember them, and will help you become more motivated to achieve them.

Most importantly, don’t lose self-motivation. If you do plan to keep your goals, don’t give up on them after two days.

For the semester, my advice is to set realistic goals, set them often, write them down, and don’t give up on them. If you are really serious about picking up your guitar and becoming a rock star, giving up caffeine, losing ten pounds, or cutting back on Facebook time, you won’t accomplish this goal by making one huge, unrealistic resolution at the beginning of the year that may be forgotten or given up on. You can only accomplish it by setting small goals to reach for throughout the year.