4 Reasons Why We Suck at New Year’s Resolutions

For most holidays, it’s good that we only have them once a year.  Everyone would grow to hate Christmas if it came every 3 months, we’d all want to murder our families by second Thanksgiving, and if we find ourselves hunting for eggs more than once a year, we should probably just bail on the human race.

New Years is different.  We see New Years as this magical, exceptional date where personal improvement is pushed to the forefront of our lives because we like the way 1/1 looks on the top of our to-do list. The problem with this is that we treat this big push for self improvement as if it excuses us from having to pursue it the rest of the year.

Think about that.  Improving who you are is one of the most important things a person can do, and we give it a token attempt once a fucking year.  When you account for being too old or young to make resolutions, we probably do this no more than 60 times in our lives, and that’s the high end.  Many of us never make resolutions at all.

It’s more common for us to eat a spider in our sleep than it is for us to try to improve ourselves.  Many have seen Star Wars more times than they’ve tried to improve themselves.  There are dudes who masturbate more times in a fortnight than they try to improve themselves in their entire lifetime, and it’s partly because New Years Resolutions tell us we only have to give it a shot once a year.

Despite this, New Year’s Resolutions aren’t completely stupid.  They really aren’t.  Attempting to improve yourself–even with the unnecessary advent of an arbitrary, silly, meaningless date–is always a good thing to pursue.  I mean it!   It is.  In theory, you’re not wrong to do this.  In theory, you’re not an idiot.

But there’s a reason why most resolutions fail.  There’s a reason why everybody joins the gym on January 2nd, and why most of us have retreated to our cocoons of HGTV and Hagen Daz by February.  There’s a reason why only 8% of us succeed in pursuing our resolutions.

In fact, there are several reasons.

So let’s take a look at what these reasons are, and then, let’s take a look at how we can revamp New Years Resolutions.  Let’s try to make our resolutions something other than just lies we tell ourselves before we end up all alone kissing our cat while the ball drops.

1) We Don’t Start Resolutions Often Enough

We let ourselves give up on our New Year’s Resolutions, because when it’s March and we’re starting to lose momentum, there is no “March 14th, Get Your 2nd Wind Resolution.”  So we lose our progress, and we do nothing for most of the year until next year’s token attempt.

New Years Resolutions aren’t the enemy though.  The enemy is that there is only one arbitrary date for this.  So we need more arbitrary improvement dates.  We need more times that are designated for setting life changes in motion.  My idea is that we make resolutions on holidays that we’re otherwise not currently using.  Each one can have its own theme.

The goal here is to fix more of our flaws, because fixing one flaw for incredibly flawed creatures like ourselves won’t do dick.  It’ll be like “Oh cool.  Charles Manson is much nicer to waiters now.  Guess he’s fixed as a person.  Awesome.”

The problem with attempting this is that it’s really God damn hard to multi-task self-improvement.  It’s hard to learn Spanish, go to the gym, cook a healthy-ish dinner, and be more social all while holding down a demanding 9 to 6 job.  That’s why most of us never try it.  It’s like plate spinning.   When we do try it, one plate inevitably breaks and we go “Oh well that was stupid.  Why did I try to do that?” and then we let them all fall at once, cause fuck it.

Few of us try it, and almost none of us ever actually get good at plate spinning.  Most of us just sit on the ground staring at blank, unused plates like idiots.

Keeping all of these resolutions going requires a lot of practice.  You’re going to have a lot of broken plates.  I would know.  My feet are gushing blood from all of the broken plates I step on ever day.  You’re going to look like and feel like a bloody-footed failure (I guess we’re both not wearing shoes in this scenario) because you’re not perfect right away, which brings me to the next reason why we fail.

Think of that.  That’s real.  Functioning adult humans who don’t routinely choke on their own spit make “falling in love” a goal–as if that’s something you decide to do.  That’s like planning to be happy.  It’s like scheduling winning the lottery.  And that’s how absurd every goal that you can’t control is.

Exterior goals aren’t only stupid, but in some cases, they can be harmful.  If you try to fall in love and you convince yourself you love someone, you’re likely to end up in an awful, boring relationship involving a man cave and passionless missionary.

An unfulfilled weight goal is a great one-way trip to an eating disorder, unfulfilled work goals are a great way to throw your life off balance, and unfulfilled friendship goals are a great way to make you hate yourself.

Unfulfilled exterior goals can fuck up your life.  Unfulfilled interior goals merely cause you to work harder.

So fuck the exterior goals.  Instead, take pride in your productivity, even if that productivity is doing nothing for you.  Even if it feels like you’re stuck sprinting on a treadmill, that’s still better than sitting on your ass.  You’re still being a better version of yourself, and that’s a way bigger accomplishment than any amount of money, or any lack of a waistline can ever be.

Which brings me to the last reason why we fail at New Year’s Resolutions.

4) We Let Ourselves Stop Trying

That last part is important because it leads us to some good news: If you have the right attitude, it’s literally impossible to fail at your resolution.

If you have the attitude that what you accomplish matters way less than what you try, you won’t ever give up because you’ll always prioritize trying.

“Fuck.  I just sniffed her hairbrush and her pillow this time!  What a relapse!  Oh well.  Just got to keep trying not to.”

This isn’t only a nice thing to believe, but it also happens to be true.  Accomplishments are nothing without trying.There’s a reason lottery winners historically end up broke and miserable.  They never had to try hard enough to stop sucking, so they sucked their way back to the poor house.  Trying is everything.

Trying makes you stronger.  It makes you a better version of yourself.  You’re not a loser no matter how badly you fail–until you quit trying.

And then, you really are a total loser.  You deserve nothing out of life, you should puke when you see your reflection in the mirror, cry at the mention of your own name, your parents should disown you, etc. etc.

So in order to not be a loser, in order to not fail, simply never quit.  Keep pushing that boulder up the hill, and build the muscle that comes with it.  Resolve and be relentless.  And when you fail (and you will fail), make another resolution, and pursue that relentlessly.  Fail again and again, and try again, and again.

We really can do this.  We can change our habits and become less terrible resolution by resolution.  We just have to realize that new beginnings aren’t about buying a new calendar or regrouping after the holidays.  They’re about what we decide.  We can decide to start a new journey for self-improvement every day, and more importantly, we can decide to keep our current ones going.

Now let’s get those plates spinning.