Contrary to the thousands of articles that will no doubt show up on your social media feeds for the next four weeks or so, we thought we’d delight you with a quick list of new year resolutions that you most probably will break. Yeah, think twice about what you’re going to promise yourself tonight
1. Lose Weight
The King of all post-Christmas, post-binging, post-drinking and post-family reunion resolutions. As weight loss miracle cures flood the virtual shelves and personal trainers lay out their weapons for the zombie apocalypse awaiting them in January, you are thinking “YES, I can do this. I must do this”. Let’s be honest, after a couple of weeks of self-inflicted starvation you’ll be reverting back to pop tarts and the occasional burger. It’s ok.
2. Exercise More
Closely related to the King of Resolutions is the Queen of Resolutions. What’s your suffering of choice? Gym? Yoga? Running? Pilates? All of them, maybe one a day? As millions of people gear up to go back to the gym, its membership ongoing since they were 25 and their attendance score approaching the 1.3 times/year mark, think. Will you actually find the time to go? You can, but will you do it? Maaaybe.
3. Quit drinking/smoking
You should really do this you know. I have personally quit smoking every year for the past 10 years, and every year i successfully quit for a whole 46 hours before the fumes of New Year’s Eve dissipate and i start craving a cigarette. However I’m a realist, and I know that just the idea of not drink at all is utterly ridiculous. So I don’t even try. You too might want to reconsider quitting entirely and aim for a more reasonable reduction in smokes and/or (milli)liters of wine.
4. Save Money
Once again the end-of-year balance sheet is crying bitter tears, bitterer then ever in fact, after the murderous use of all available credit cards over the Christmas period. Logging onto your Internet banking seems like a titanic endeavor that leaves you breathless and confused, and you wonder when you’ll wake up. You won’t. Of course there’s only one possible answer: I’ll save more in 2019. You’re already downloading some budgeting app, promising yourself to only use cash, forbidding any purchase of any item of clothing that isn’t underwear for the next 12 months. See you at the sales.
5. Eat Healthy
This goes hand in hand with 1 and 2, but it’s not necessarily connected to weight loss. The unstoppable tsunami of veganism, good food, raw veg and miracle seeds makes us all feel like there’s something morally wrong with the way we eat, so change we must. Resolution 5 will see us transformed into committed Whole Foods groupies, cooking every meal, including lunch, from 0 km raw ingredients. Until Jan 21st. We’re going to McDonald’s then.
6. Stop Procrastinating
I had the luck of meeting some amazing people around the world, but few had the insight of my friend Gio’s grandfather, a well-known doctor. His motto was “Don’t do today what you can do tomorrow, and if really you must do it, have someone else do it for you”. I always thought this was a most impressive piece of advice and happily live by it every day. I’ll just let this one sink in while you reconsider your anti-procrastination resolution.
7. Get Organized
The new, tidy you will be born on January 1st, 2019. Right? Gone will be the piles of clothes on the bedroom chair (and floor, and bed, etc…), gone the half empty cups of coffee on the kitchen counter, gone the snack debris and 2-year-old pile of receipts to file on your desk at work! What a joy it will be to become one of those perfect individuals who surround themselves in Ikean cleanliness and comfort every day of their life. It’s a shame that both you and I know this can only last 24 hours. Rejoice though, it seems that messy people are actually smarter than tidy ones, according to some study someone did somewhere. Not all hope is lost.
Very Nice