Features Editor- Eric Hofer

January is nearly over, and chances are, so is your New Year’s resolution. Though it can feel like a reflection on your own capability or inner strength, the truth is, most of these failed resolutions are the result of poor structure. Many resolutions are built around an idealized version of life, one where we can maintain constant energy, motivation, and time to see it through. Life rarely looks like that, and college life even less so. Between classes, jobs, social commitments, sicknesses, or plain burnout, it’s easy for these aspirations to collapse under their own weight.

That’s not to say New Year’s resolutions aren’t worth making, and you should just give up on them now. It can be useful to frame self-improvement around the New Year, as it’s a time to put the past behind us. However, if you want to maintain your sanity and your resolution at the same time, it can be worth refining it a bit to give yourself the best chance of success. 

So, what causes most resolutions to fall apart? There are plenty of reasons, but one of the biggest ones is that they’re just too vague. It’s easy to say you want to exercise more this coming year, but what does that really mean? While it’s good to start your resolution with a broad goal like this, it’s not one that’s likely to survive the year. What kind of exercises? How often? 

If you don’t exercise at all, it might be more realistic to rephrase that resolution to say that you want to take a walk five days out of the week. That way, you have a more defined goal, while not beating yourself up over not hitting the gym every day. 

Though vague goals are a big aspect, it’s not the only reason resolutions fail. While it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by motivation when brainstorming your resolutions, that motivation can’t last forever, especially not in the thick of midterms or after a long day. Resolutions that rely on constant motivation either fail when life gets harder or grind you down. 

For example, instead of setting your resolution to take a walk five days out of the week, try just stepping outside of leisure once a day. Not as part of your walk between classes or walking to your car, but as something entirely out of your way. Then, once you’re outside, you may decide that it’d be a great day for a walk, or you might decide that it’s time to head back inside. 

But what happens if you’re sick or swamped with work? Even if you have a constant stream of motivation, that doesn’t mean you’ll always have the time or energy to keep up with your resolution. When you miss a single day, it can be easy to feel like the resolution has already failed, making it tough to get back on track. But when making your resolution, you have to account for bad days and bad weeks, where things might not pan out the way you hoped. 

As with many things, the goal of a resolution isn’t perfection, but rather persistence. If you can pick it back up even after missing a week, it’ll help you more in the long run than doing it daily until you burn out. If there’s one thing to take away from this, it’s to be patient with yourself. By the end of the year, instead of asking yourself if you kept your resolution exactly as you intended, it might be more useful to check whether it’s still a part of your life at all. A resolution that survives in pieces is far more successful than one that burned bright for a month before disappearing.