As the New Year starts, plans for re-imagining oneself quickly go into action. For many, their resolutions will be dropped within the next month, others will keep with what they told themselves they would do and find themselves with an improved lifestyle. Either way, the New Year seems to be the time to make a “New Me”, and this flawed logic is what makes resolutions bound to fail.

The whole idea of a New Year resolution can be seen in y cultures, such as in Japan, where it is believed that what you do on the first day of the year will reflect the work you do for the remainder of it. However, many of the resolutions people tell themselves that they intend to do are made days and even weeks in advance of January 1st, a sign of procrastination and not enough motivation.

It’s similar to how people plan to change their diet and start exercising frequently at the beginning of the week, instead of at the moment they are reminded of their goal. The beginning of anything is convenient to pinpoint and far enough away that it can be avoided for quite some time, which makes New Year’s the optimal time to claim you will start to do anything, and eventually fail to keep up with it.

True motivation is needed to get anything done in a timely and effective manner. If your only motivation to start is the goal you want instantly, and not a burning passion or even a strong will to do something, then what’s stopping you from doing nothing? January 1st is just like any other day of the year when you strip away the celebratory factor, and if someone really wants to change something about them for a long time, they should try and make themselves start as soon as possible.

This isn’t some way of bashing on people who do make New Year’s resolutions; in fact I commend people who are able to make themselves start and work on their goals. It’s hard to start anything, but it’s even harder to continue, and it’s sad to see how much money people waste on reinventing themselves, only to stop in a few days.