It is common knowledge that most New Year’s resolutions fail. Gyms, in particular, bank on the fact that the burst of energy and resolve you feel on Jan. 1 of each year is merely a passing phase. You buy the yearly pass, run on the treadmill once, attend two or three pure barre or yoga classes, and then just never make it back.
But it’s not your fault. You haven’t decided to change your life, you’ve just been told you should.
I’ve always maintained that the best time to make resolutions is not the new year, but whenever they occur to you. The worst part about failing at resolutions isn’t that you keep eating junk food and sitting on the couch all day, because you’ve been doing that all year anyway. It’s that you lose faith in your ability to change your life in the future. It feels as though you’d be better off with no resolutions than resolutions at which you’ve repeatedly failed. At least then you wouldn’t feel like a failure.
So here’s my crazy suggestion: Make some end-of-year resolutions instead, and make them structural rather than superficial. That way you only have to keep them up for a couple of weeks to actually succeed, and they will form the
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