Are you one of those people who make New Year’s resolutions? Do you relapse into the same old habits after a couple days, weeks, or months? Do New Year’s resolutions ever work? Fewer and fewer people every year opt to make New Year’s resolutions because they think it’s stupid and a waste of time. Is it really?

With the start of a new year, many people decide there are things they would like to do differently from the previous year. A new year poses a new opportunity, a fresh start. A chance to make it right. It can either be the start of something beautiful, the start of a disaster, or a combination of the two. Resolutions are often short-lived.

We often forget resolutions in a couple days, weeks, or months. We make these resolutions and think we will achieve them by basically doing what we normally do. The reason resolutions fail is because we fail to plan how we will achieve these desired results. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. We also refuse to change our habits and often do not realize that these habits are what hinder us from progressing.

Change is always uncomfortable and as individuals we do not like change. What we need to realize is that without change there can be no progress. Whatever your New Year’s resolution is, you can obtain it. Instead of saying you want better grades, why not work for better grades? If you normally studied for an hour a day, why not increase it to two?

Small steps aid in reaching the bigger picture. Do not be afraid to take smaller steps — at the end of the day, they will add up. A strategy you can employ is to break your resolution into sub-resolutions. If the goal is to move from a C student to an A student, work towards becoming a B student. At first you may fail, but do not give up. Work your way up. Failure is a sign that you’re doing something right. A person who tries again after failing is not a failure, but the person who accepts failure and is comfortable failing is a failure.

Resolutions are not stupid things to make. What is stupid is that we set unrealistic resolutions and expect to attain them by merely doing anything to ensure our success. Think of it like the parable of the two builders in the New Testiment, where one builds a house on sand and the other builds a house on rock. In regards to setting resolutions, which are you? Are you the man who built his house on the sand or are you the man who built his house on the rock? With everything you are doing, some sort of planning is involved. Plan how you will achieve your New Year’s resolution; make sure it is attainable. Set realistic goals and remember to have fun while going about obtaining your goal.