‘In the new year, I am going to eat healthier’ has often been said as I shamelessly pick away at random bowls of Christmas Chex Mix and leftover turkey as December comes to a close.

This is one of the many variations of my annual endeavor to attain perceived perfection. I reckon the average reader of this article can predict that my attempt to be the picture of health was short-lived.

According to a study done by the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 64% of people who set New Year’s resolutions give up within the first month. So, I am not alone in the yearly ambitious-yet-doomed dream of starting anew.

Does this indicate that maybe New Year’s resolutions should be a thing of the past?

With the rapid change of what is normal, I think now is the perfect time to make my case for doing away with forcing ourselves to think we have to change at the beginning of each new year. I always support working towards goals, but the extremely low success rate mixed with the outrageous expected outcomes makes the point of New Year’s resolutions tenuous.

Most of us are eager to improve and become the best version of ourselves. For many, self-improvement looks like eating healthier, reading more or maybe learning a new language. These are perfectly reasonable ambitions, so why are they abandoned so fast?

In my experience, we save the biggest of our attainable expectations for the new year and put too much pressure on ourselves with too few objectives. For example, a goal to read more can be achieved in many different ways. This can quickly transition from reading every day to dreading the sight of your newly stocked bookshelf because you have neglected to read a page in weeks.

With New Year’s resolutions, it seems to be more likely that we fill our homes with equipment to reach our goals with the hope that suddenly we will have what it takes to be the person we wanted. However, real change does not come this way.

There needs to be an overarching goal paired with a timeline and smaller goals. If the intended outcome is to read more, there must be quantitative steps outlined with reasonable expectations. If you set a daily or weekly amount to read, set aside time to get it done and make room for increases, you are well on your way to developing a new habit.

The question now is: Why not change New Year’s resolutions instead of getting rid of them entirely? I suppose we could, but there are two reasons I believe it would be fruitless.

First, there is a common saying, ‘New year, new me.’ We’ve all heard this when the new year rolls around, but how often do we consider what message is truly being conveyed? When I hear it, I think the person saying it spent a good amount of the previous year being unhappy with who they are, but since they are going to drink more water, they will be instantly transformed. Another issue I have with this saying is that it is not conducive to incremental, productive change. It seems to imply that unless you are working on each of your perceived shortcomings, you are failing to take advantage of the wonderful opportunity that comes from the earth completing another trip around the sun.

Second, using the timing of the new year can hinder our success if we rely on it so heavily. A familiar example many of us see throughout the year comes when people say, ‘Oh, I’ll start my diet on Monday.’ While I am a big proponent of starting immediately, regardless of time, I think relying on a weekly target is much less of a problem than a yearly one. When the timeline is weekly, you can keep the goal in mind and start over regularly. When it is yearly, the dream of learning a new language is going back on the list of things we hoped to accomplish but never seem to consistently work towards.

Ultimately, you shouldn’t let the right time dictate when you start. If you want something to change, start now and start where you are. The new year has passed yet again, so if you have given up on your resolution, no need to fret – you can always start again on Monday.