As 2020 begins, the majority of people come up with a few, big or small, changes that they want to implement into their lives. People can make big or small resolutions, if they make a resolution at all. The resolution can be as small as trying something new or saving money or as big as quitting smoking or becoming healthier. 

If people make a resolution, they tend to only stick to their resolutions for the first few weeks of the year. Because it was a popular trend for people to give up their resolutions about three weeks into the new year, Strava has created a National Quitter’s Day. The creators of this national day conducted research to see if the majority of people who make resolutions actually stick to them or not. They found that January 19 is the most common day for resolutions to be broken. For the most part, people will stick to their resolutions very well for the first part of January, but once they go back to work or school from a holiday break, it is often hard to keep that new resolution as a part of their everyday life.

I decided to ask a few of the people around me if they had made a resolution for 2020 and if so, what the resolution is. The first person I asked was a fellow journalism student, Claire Van Aken. Her resolution for 2020 is to be more proactive and more on top of herself and her life. I also asked a few other classmates. Maycee Hurt said her resolution is to not procrastinate as much. Julianne Wilson said that she did not come up with a resolution for this new year. Jackson Graham claims that his New Year’s resolutions are to save money for the future because he isn’t the best at it and work hard for the last semester of high school so he will be well-prepared for his college career.

For me, I am not a firm believer in New Year’s Resolutions. I think that if you want to make a change in your life, big or small, you will make that change any time, and you won’t wait for the new year to do so. Often, I feel that making a New Year’s Resolution is almost setting yourself up for failure. If you haven’t made the change that you want to in the new year in the previous year or years, it will be too difficult to all of a sudden add a completely new component to your life out of nowhere. It is comparable to a young child who is unable to swim jumping into the deep end with no floaties; it won’t work out. I think it is great for those who stick to and accomplish their resolutions, but I personally don’t believe in them.