Here's why you should ditch New Year's Resolutions

Many people start 2025 by setting personal goals for the year, but are New Year's Resolutions worthwhile? That depends on your level of determination and discipline.

Some of the top 10 New Year's resolutions people make include losing weight and/or exercising more, quitting smoking/ drinking, saving money, eating healthy foods and volunteering at the SPCA or shelter.

Those seem like reasonable goals, but scores of people won't even make it past month one successfully. According to a report published on Virta Health in 2018, less than 10% of Americans achieved their New Year's resolutions in 2017.

Most (72.6%) started off strong and stuck to their resolutions during the first week of January. However, only 44.8% made it to June.

Why not ditch New Year's resolutions altogether in 2025? Setting goals is great for personal development, but it can also leave you feeling like a failure by the end of the year if you have not achieved even one.

Here are three reasons why you should not set New Year's Resolutions.

ALSO READ: Mandy Meyer: Consistency key in fat loss

Bad for your mental health

The added pressure of reaching your goals could negatively affect your mental health. You might feel stressed if you fall off the wagon or don't reach certain monthly targets, especially as December draws closer. The anxiety and stress could leave you feeling like a loser or failure.

ALSO READ: Danny Guselli gets personal about Mental Health

No Middle Ground

Many people often feel the need to set big New Year's resolutions to feel a sense of accomplishment. It's a 'go big or go home' mentality, often leading to failure. If the goal is not big enough then is it worth striving for? If your weight loss goal is to lose 10kg in a year then anything less would seem like you have fallen short of your goals.

Easy to throw in the towel

Failure after failure is likely will put you off your resolution altogether. On the flip side, many people try their best in January, slowly lose interest and then wait until the last few months of the year to take their resolutions seriously. The final push only leads to more failure.

Do this instead...

Instead of setting 101 New Year's resolutions, why not set a theme for the year? It can be one word, such as " gratitude, "courage," "creativity," "innovation," or "positivity".

You can also use a quote as your theme for 2025. If you would like to work on your procrastination, a quote like, "Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today" or Pablo Picasso's "Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone" can help motivate you.

If you insist on setting resolutions for the year, why not focus on one main goal? This way, you can give it all your attention without trying to change too many things in your life simultaneously.

Another reason why resolutions fail is that people set unrealistic goals. Instead, they should set SMART goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic/relevant, and time-bound.

For example, instead of saying, 'Get fit in 2025', you need something like 'Lose 1kg every month until December' or 'Run a 10km race in under 60 minutes by November'.

Your goal is not only specific but also measurable and achievable, giving you a better chance at success.