Why I Don't Make New Year Resolutions

A bit late to make a blog entry on new year resolutions, eh? Well, I am sure most of you guys (my readers) must have made some new year resolution or the other, kept working on it till January 5 at the most, then either gave up on the resolution or laziness got in the way or you forgot that the resolution or you simply forgot that the resolution even existed in the first place. This is usually the common place story with all new year resolutions. Few of them are kept or followed through. And by the end of January it is as if they never even existed in the first place.

The whole concept of new year resolutions have always evaded me. If we want to make certain changes in our lives, like “I will control my emotions better” or “I will go on a diet and lose weight” or “I will brush my hair daily” (This one I need to do!) why do we have to wait for the new year to do it? Why can’t we ever say “I am going to do it from tomorrow” or “I am going to do it next week”. Or even better,  I will do it from today. Why even wait that long if you want to make some kind of change. Just like the age old saying goes, “Why put off to tomorrow what can be done today because tomorrow never comes”. Okay I mashed up two old age sayings there.

Yes I do realize the positive aspects of new year resolutions. They give you a goal, an aim, a purpose. Something to look forward to. We all do need something in life. Something we want to fulfil, something we want to achieve, something we want to see happen. If life involves just being day in and day out without any purpose, it becomes, not only dull and monotonous, but it can also be sad and cause depression for people. New year resolutions can combat those feelings as they give you a goal. Also, new year resolutions can be a source of motivation. It forces you to do things that you have been putting off since a long time.

Still, I will be a new year resolution hater. Why put myself up for failure? Nobody ever fulfils their resolutions anyways and why would I be any exception? No point putting yourself up for failure. Statistics do show that like eighty percent of new near resolutions turn out to be failures and are never kept through.

Science even tells about why new year resolutions are bad for us. They require so much excessive willpower that they just make your brain explode. Well, I was reading up on the details about the science behind at, and even though I find science to be very fascinating, it is usually beyond me and goes over my head. But apparently what happens is that the new year resolutions just happen to be so vague because they say stuff like “I will quit smoking” or “I won’t lose my temper in public” but never anything about how exactly to go about it. And it is the combination of that vagueness and the pressure of wanting to achieve the resolution that creates so much pressure that your brain wants to explode (not literally, of course). But why risk a literal brain explosion? Stranger things have happened. And what if I happen to be a medical miracle who becomes the first ever case who experiences a literal brain explosion? Why risk it! Hence no new year resolutions.

Apart from this, there is another reason why I have never been a fan of new year resolutions. They always focus on what is wrong in our lives and how we want to change them. That just sounds so freaking ungrateful. Yes I know, we all have our problems in life and each one of us is fighting our own unique battles; even I am fighting my battle. But don’t you think that new years is a time to be grateful and reflect on what we have? Like shouldn’t the concept of the Christmas Spirit spill over to new years also? Like just a few days ago we were saying thanks to God or the universe or whatever for what we have got and now we are saying that every single think is wrong with our lives and needs correcting?

And this is the reason why I never ever have made any new year resolutions in the past and will never make them in the future either. What is the point? None! So why bother and waste my time with something so useless as a lame old new year resolution.