It’s New Year’s Eve, and the ball drops. You exchange hugs and kisses with your friends and significant others and cheers to a new year of opportunity and success. And then you continue to party like any other night.
When you wake up the next morning, however, the reality of life sets in ‘- hangover and all ‘- and suddenly the dreadful idea of New Year’s resolutions comes to mind.’ Did you even think about having one?’ If so, are you really going to follow it?
A new year implies hope and a fresh start. So a newly established resolution seems like the perfect thing to jump-start the next 365 days that lie ahead of us. The hard part is not so much figuring out what to set as your resolution as much as it is sticking with the promise you set for yourself.
Probably the most common resolution ‘- getting in shape ‘- is the one that falls the quickest. So often people set this goal and succeed the first week or so and then as January progresses it becomes easier to make excuses to not go to the gym then to actually take the initiative and follow through with their goal.
In a brief article, ‘Resolutions That Work,’ Serge Prengel states that research has proven that past two weeks 71 percent of resolutions are maintained and after six months only 46 percent of resolutions are maintained.’
Here at Fairfield, more specifically at the RecPlex, getting in shape has been more than apparent with the amount of students coming in and out of the gym this past week.
Whatever the reason may be ‘- too much drinking and eating over break, wanting to fit into your bathing suit for spring break that is roughly five weeks away or simply wanting to feel better about yourself ‘- the gym has been insanely crowded.
Yes, I am one of the many people who among other smaller resolutions have set the goal of going to the gym four to five times this week. And every time I have gone to the gym, I have had to wait between 10 to 15 minutes to get on an elliptical machine or treadmill.
Will this trend continue or will students begin to lose motivation and replace going to the gym with other ‘important’ activities? Only time will tell.
Interestingly enough, getting in shape is the top New Year’s resolution for college students for the year 2009 according to Audrey L. Kennedy, for Associatedcontent.com.
Others include volunteering, spending more time with family, saving money, quitting smoking or finding a job. Saving money, especially with the state of our economy, seems to be an interesting resolution for college students to obtain, mostly due to the unnecessary, spur of the moment purchases that college students tend to make.
No matter what your intentions are for your resolutions, it is more important that you set a reasonable and obtainable goal than to set one that will not last more than a couple of weeks. Set boundaries and stick with them. This way, when the year comes to an end, instead of feeling guilty you will feel satisfied that you were able to achieve something for yourself!
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