If I may ask…how’s your New Year’s resolution coming along so far? Have you successfully gone to the gym for the past seven or so days? Have you consecutively eaten healthily? Have you broken that bad habit you’ve been beating yourself up about? Have you finally put focus on that certain something you’ve been neglecting?

If the answer is no, don’t fret. According to Business Insider, 80% of New Year’s resolutions fail by February. So, it looks like you and millions of others must just push off achieving those personal goals until the year 2020, because you can’t just start a “New Year’s resolution” if it isn’t New Year’s Day…can you?

Wrong.

It’s not that people don’t know this. Plenty of individuals choose to make lifestyle changes sporadically over the calendar year; however, these choices tend to be more self-selected. Because of this personal push to achieve these goals, they tend to be more successful achieving them too.

No magazine, commercial, business, etc. is responsible for pushing these people to pursue a better lifestyle. Rather, these “mid-year resolutions” are made possible by these people’s own personal drives—a motivation factor potentially stronger than factors surrounding New Year’s Day.

The media loves selling the idea of a “new year, new you” to customers and readers. Whether it be magazines urging you to “put yourself first this year” by purchasing their new makeup line, or a self-help blog telling you the key to a successful fitness journey is a fresh start – such as the start of a new year – the pressure can feel suffocating.

When New Year’s season comes around, anyone and everyone is asking each other about their resolutions. So many people bank on the first of January being the best day to achieve goals they have been holding off on all year. But…does all the pressure around the day make it harder and potentially less likely they’ll keep up on the resolution for months to come?

The answer is — duh! When has the average human ever enjoyed being told what to do? Most of the time… never. That is a big reason why well over half of New Year’s resolutions fail before we even hit the halfway mark in the year. They are often driven off of a pure want to satisfy other’s expectations of us to fulfil a goal.

Those expectations, along with the social pressures of wanting to make and achieve said resolutions because we truly believe everyone else is off achieving theirs without us, are the reasons why New Year’s goals hardly ever stick. In order to create a new lifestyle, we must build off a foundation consisting of our own individual desire/drive to make a change.

As we make our way through the 2019, I urge everyone reading to not keep your head down if you have already failed your “New Year’s resolution” or if you fail it in the upcoming days, weeks, or months. With every day is a new opportunity to set and achieve personal goals. With every day comes a fresh start. With every day comes the potential to make something productive out of it.

The strongest resolutions are maintained not through our will to please others, but our will to please ourselves. Good luck to you all in this wonderful year of 2019 and may you all achieve your personal and professional goals.

Link to Business Insider Fact

Hero source