January 1st. All over the world, people circle their calendars marking this date. This isn’t a day like any other, as this is the day they choose to truly reshape their life. One among this horde of sudden self-improvement junkies is Jeffrey. Jeffrey rushes downstairs in the morning, with a full list of New Year’s resolutions to achieve and a newfound purpose in life. For a day, Jeffrey gets a taste of his new life of greatness, hitting resolution after resolution like the truly changed man he has become overnight. Day 1 of 365 is a resounding success.

Then comes January 2nd.

All over the world, people hear their new 5 AM alarms go off, a cruel reminder of the ‘waking-up-early’ goal they set the day before. One among this horde of unmotivated snoozers is Jeffrey. He could continue his grind and get out of bed, or he could take the easy way out and hit snooze. After all, it’s only day 2 of 365, and there’s weight to be lost, muscle to be built and diets to be hopping on. What does our hero Jeffrey do?

He goes back to sleep, of course. After all, hitting the snooze button is more important than hitting the gym. The summer bod can wait till 2024, right?

This cycle is exactly the problem that plagues the tradition of making New Year’s resolutions. Far too many people wake up on January 1st with ambitions and goals to fulfill, but just as many people quit on them much too early in the year. This fixed mindset of setting rigid, year-long goals is holding many back from making true progress and has become a mundane, ineffective annual routine rather than a true attempt at self-improvement. The concept of setting New Year’s resolutions has clearly turned into a pointless exercise, and those looking to work on themselves should explore other means of goal-setting to truly fulfill their aims.

This issue with New Year’s resolutions was also prominent among the students of Lambert. Many were critical of the lack of impact that these annually-set goals actually had and felt that they were not helpful in achieving either smaller, short-term aims or long-term dreams that one had.

“Goal setting is just to get you motivated for the first few days of New Year’s,” Lambert junior Skanda Bharadwaj said. “When you progress forward in the new year, you will set new goals…your priorities have changed, your mentality has definitely changed, so New Year’s resolutions will not be that effective.”

Setting goals for the year can clearly be constraining, as they fail to account for inevitable changes in one’s life. New opportunities may arise, new goals can take precedence as time flies by, some things may become more important than others — these natural swings in life are completely unaccounted for. As a result, one feels the inability to abandon their original ambitions in favor of potential new ones that could be more beneficial in the long run.

This ties into the concept of long-term goals, which are also hampered by the setting of New Year’s resolutions. Making these sort of long-term projects is a great way to continuously pursue a major goal or achieve something over a more extended timeframe and following through with these aims is made more difficult when restricted by said resolutions.

“New Year’s resolutions aren’t really good to set in the short term…you should always have some underlying goals that you should always have in your itinerary,” Lambert junior Rohan Rajpurohit explained. “Only limiting them [goals] to the end of the year takes away the purpose of actually setting goals that are long term.”

By condensing one’s goals into the timeframe of a year, especially if they are long-term, the whole point of these sorts of goals becomes defeated. Putting such a limiting constraint on a dream or achievement that is meant to take time and repeated effort represents the very issue with New Year’s resolutions. Long-term goals are ones that require consistent work and dedication, and while many make New Year’s resolutions in an attempt to put in this effort over time, their same goals end up being dropped just a short way in. It is this drastic failure of goal-setting that almost serves as a mockery to true, rewarding goals that come in the long-run, and further exemplifies why New Year’s resolutions are an ineffective method of self-improvement.

While there are those who manage to set reasonable New Year’s goals and follow through with them, the vast majority of us fail to live up to the standards we set for ourselves come New Year. It is a more effective and attainable option to set short-term goals throughout the year as our needs and ambitions change with time and keep some overarching long-term goals as staples in our self-improvement journey. Whatever method of goal-setting that one ends up choosing, it is quite apparent that the archaic tradition of making New Year’s resolutions just isn’t cutting it. The most important part is to remember that goals can be set and worked towards at any point in time, not just the arrival of a new year. 

“They’re great if you work on [goals], but I don’t think you should wait till the New Year to start on them,” Lambert freshman Anant Verma echoed.

Goal-setting should be a process that helps keep one accountable and directed in their path to self-improvement. Making sure that these goals  are set in a manner that helps one progress effectively will surely serve to be a more productive option than relying on the time-tested (and failed) tradition of New Year’s resolutions.