With the beginning of every new year, plenty of changes occur. After Jan. 1, the number of people at the gym dramatically increases (only to decrease in a fortnight), the University Bookstore nearly sells out of all its textbooks and the hours spent binge-watching Netflix begin to diminish. These drastic changes in behavior all happen due to the eagerness of starting a New Year’s resolution.
The new year gives us a chance to start with a clean slate. Trying to break old habits may be hard to do, but there are a few who rise up to the challenge to create a “new” image of themselves.
“I do have a New Year’s resolution, but I’m up in the air of whether it is good or not. I feel like I’ve got the typical ones. I want to lose weight, get in shape, do better in school and save money. They’re more of just a reinforcement of what I should be doing, but like most people, it usually falls of in mid-February,” fourth-year bioengineering student Bryan Levangie said. “Now that I’m back on campus, I also want to meet new people and get a little more active on campus, too.”
Levangie was not the only person to comment about better performance in school as a resolution — It was actually one of the more popular resolutions among students interviewed that returned back to campus for the spring 2016 semester.
“I want to be more successful in school. I’m planning to work more and be more involved on campus. I want to expand my horizons,” Charlie Biddle, a third-year mechanical engineering student, said. “I feel like this past year I just did the same things in a schedule, and I want to change things up this year.”
New Year’s resolutions serve as a great way to keep oneself motivated, but a some people choose to take a more realistic approach when making goals for the new year.
“I really haven’t done a New Year’s resolution successfully. It’s more of something I do because everyone else is doing it,” Levangie said. “People know they need to do [a New Year’s resolution], but when it comes down to actually doing it, temptations get in the way. For example, you can go without eating cake for a month, but after that month you really want some cake.”
While New Year’s resolutions are helpful to some, they are not for everybody. Some students forego resolutions.
“I don’t have a New Year’s resolution because I know I won’t stick to it,” Nichole Miller, a third-year psychology and studio art student, said. “There’s too much hype in making one.”
Miller further explained how, instead of setting one big New Year’s resolution, she wants to set smaller goals she can achieve daily, such as doing more activities with her sorority and “enjoying college.”
Although there will always be different challenges when it comes to New Year’s resolutions, one thing is certain: things will change. No year will ever be the same as its last, and it is up to the individual in how the new year pans out.
“Remember where you were a year ago and what your goals were then, and then compare them to what your goals are now,” Biddle said.
