”I think that, without a clear goal in mind, it’s difficult to make meaningful changes to your habits”, suggests student Isabel Andrewes, ”Starting these changes on a random day of the year can make it hard to stay motivated, but the clean blank slate of a new year and an aim for how much of the year you’re going to keep them up makes it a lot easier for me personally – as long as the resolutions are attainable of course.”
Isabel’s view is not an uncommon one – an estimated 54% of Brits took on resolutions for 2022. However, it has to be questioned why just 9% of people feel they achieve their aims in an average year and 80% give up before the six week mark. Feasibly, the reason for this is, as she alludes to, that a lot of resolutions are simply unrealistic. Suddenly going to the gym every day if you haven’t exercised in years, or giving up alcohol if you’re a heavy drinker, is perhaps asking for too much. People seem to see the new year as too much of a fresh start and completely forget their typical tendencies. With this in mind, is the huge (social media fuelled) conception of ‘new year, new me’ isn’t just counterproductive, but damaging to people, especially students and young people, and lays on too much pressure.
”As a student, you’re likely still adjusting to living alone, finding out what you enjoy and what habits work for you” says Maisie Hon-Jacobs, another student, ”It can often become a toxic game on social media and in real life at the beginning of every year with everyone reporting on and talking about their progress. If you aren’t in the right place to make changes, the impact of feeling everyone else advancing while you aren’t and the disappointment at yourself can become detrimental to mental health.”
Dr Avril Gabriel reports that January is psychologically the worst time to try and make lifestyle changes. Everybody is on a comedown from Christmas excitement and the weather is dark and cold. That’s hardly an environment one is likely to flourish in under any circumstances. It is a hard time and in hard times people are predisposed to lean on old habits for the comfort and familiarity; it’s likely to be easier sticking to goals at a different time of the year when peoples’ spirits are generally higher. This is even more so the case for students, most of whom have an exam period in January, which Maisie has just completed and describes as ‘exhausting’. The absolute last thing needed is for them to be putting extra pressure on themselves.
Even more damaging is the focus of New Year’s Resolutions on the negative. They quite literally are forcing people to focus on things which they don’t like about themselves or their lives, and a lot of them are based on weight loss or attempts to change body shape. This is far from ideal for everyone, but again particularly for students. With more and more news concerning the mental health epidemic among young people and in an age of social media where people are constantly comparing themselves to others online, breeding insecurity, this focus on what one should change about themselves instead of embracing what they like can compound feelings of self hatred. Couple this with the disappointment and anger at oneself when you fall off the wagon as Maisie says, and it’s easy to see why New Year’s Resolutions cause problems.
Leading on from this issue of falling off, people also have a habit of forgetting when they make the resolutions that progress is not linear. Psychologist Francine Broder observed, in the Philadelphia Inquirer, that because of the blank slate that a new year is perceived to be, many people expect perfection from their resolutions. There will always be bumps along the road when working at anything, especially when trying to make the drastic changes so often at the centre of one’s focus. It’s entirely normal and healthy to slip up sometimes, but a lot of people give up at the first hurdle and see their advancement as ruined when it’s not. This is, again, particularly applicable to students who tend to live fairly unplanned and chaotic lives. It’s hard to stick to your new running schedule if you’ve had an impromptu night out the evening before you’re due to go on one!
Of course, it’s always good to have aims to work towards, but it also needs to be remembered that contrary to the advertising, you’re the same person on 1 January as you were on 31 December. There is no point pressuring resolutions for the sake of change; in fact, focusing on what one likes, and being happy means most likely the changes will come naturally anyway! Students have a lot of stress already, and need no more, especially if it is coming from within.
