Is the New Year’s resolution just a phase?
Year after year we put forth a goal to achieve something, but it always seems to die down after a
month and the cycle starts all over again.
Maybe it’s “let’s hit the gym.” It could be “let’s cut out meat.” Perhaps it’s “let’s count calories.”
These are some of the familiar phrases we utter every New Year’s Eve. We start off January
going hard, full of energy and excitement because we have a goal we are working toward, but
just like every other year that has passed us by, this excitement and energy dies down.
Joanelly Fermin, a junior at Buffalo State, said she has been a victim of this phase.
“Before the start of the year, I would make a goal to hit the gym everyday with the
phrase ‘summertime fine’ in mind,” she said. “Yeah, I would stick to the goal at first, but my
energy and drive dies down and excuses (overwhelm) me.”
Fermin is not the only one who goes through this. As a person who always hits the gym, I seem
to take note of the percentage of the people who accumulate in the gym at the start of the year,
and as the days go by, the once-familiar faces are not so familiar at the end of the month. The
calorie counting stops – those who swore to stick to veggies are back to their carnivorous ways.
I’ve taken the time to talk to a personal trainer at my school’s gym. He said that he is used to
people coming to him at the start of the year with their goals and he watches as they slowly start
to decrease in number as the year progresses. He said that instead of making this a “New Year’s
resolution,” one should look at it as a lifestyle change. Instead of frantically counting calories
and hitting the gym as if your life depended on it, make it convenient for yourself, and the results
will pop up like magic.
So instead of creating this unachievable goal (for most), enter the New Year the same
way you left it – with no set dates and no unnecessary stress – and break the cycle of the
infamous, empty New Year’s resolution.
Kuburat Ibikunle can be reached by email at ibikunle.record@live.com.