Let’s Keep Your Resolutions This Year

Let’s Keep Your Resolutions This Year!

Okay, so now that you have made your New Year’s Resolutions, perhaps you haven’t been able to stick to them 100%. It’s important to get back in the game and continue to stick to your resolutions as we come up to one of the first speedbumps. You might have been determined to lose 25 pounds by exercising three times a week and giving up chocolate. By week three, you got frustrated that you forgot to exercise a third time, so you indulged in strawberry ice cream in an effort to cure your depression because, to your frustration, you had chucked all remnants of the real remedy. So not only did you fail in your New Year’s Resolutions but you also lost money because you had to replenish more chocolate.

So I’m here to reiterate and encourage you to stick to those resolutions even if you fell of the bandwagon for a second. Do not eliminate the things that actually make you happy – ”keep them, but use them in moderation. Set small, achievable goals. Note the changes: I will not gain 25 pounds (so you need only be concerned when you have gained about 20 pounds), I will exercise three times a month (rather than wearing yourself out each week!), and I will only eat chocolate four times a week (and replace one of them with dark chocolate because it’s healthier). Essentially, you will be achieving the same results (or close enough) as you had hoped for in the original resolutions – ”and you will be less stressed out because you will be so much happier meeting them.

The average person forgets about his or her New Year’s Resolutions by February. Okay, so I did just make that up, but, really, who talks about resolutions in February anyway? People are too busy preparing for the next holiday, Valentine’s Day – ”either that or I-Hate-People-In-Relationships Day. Either way, you are likely to be indulging in unhealthy food/drinks on the 14th of February. Knowing that the lifetime of keeping a resolution expires quickly and requires even more willpower to fend off those upcoming, tempting holiday parties, you have to add one more resolution: one that you have already made.

I know, I know, that’s technically going against the rules. But it doesn’t have to be. This last resolution has to be less specific than your other three (by the way, you don’t want to set more than three resolutions). This safety resolution is there so, if you never get around to it, it’s okay because you’ve already done it. For instance, one of my resolutions is to publish something in a well-known newspaper or magazine. Several years ago, during a very boring day at work, I sent in a haiku to Usatoday.com and it was published online. (Hey, I never said that it had to be an article or be published in print.)

So stick to your resolutions, but don’t turn them into the Ten Commandments. And, for that matter, you really don’t have to bring any other outside force into this, because, in the end, it is you who has to keep them and it is for your happiness. Let the others laugh if you don’t have something extraordinary like “exercising five times a week” or “giving up chocolate” because you know that they’ll probably give it up by the end of the month anyway.

Emily Peng is a new addition to the New York City school system. Read more about Emily at her MyAsiance page my.asiancemagazine.com/emmyp7