With only a few days to go before we wave goodbye to 2016, I’m sure many of you will be making new year’s resolutions up to announce as we speak. Without trying to me Mr Johnny Rain – cloud, I’ve been there any see it through both personal and friend’s experience and I know there are some of the more vague or cliché resolutions out there that either have a rare chance or simply do not work out. Here are a few red flags to avoid (or at the very least refine and personalise to be realistic for yourself!) so you can come up with something to keep past the first couple of weeks!

I’m Never Drinking Again

Often proclaimed on New Year’s Day itself, unless you have been considering it for a while for reasons personal to yourself or your health, just going cold turkey on the booze isn’t good for your wellbeing (when you’re out with your friends again) and for the more medical issues it’s also pretty dangerous. I’ve tried spontaneous cold turkey before a few times and it usually ends in one of two ways, a.) You either get bored on the night and eventually cave to the pressure. b.) You don’t cave and usually end up either bored of the night and go home early or suddenly responsible for everybody else that’s drunk. Now this doesn’t happen to everyone of course and for those people, power to you and I hope you have many more great nights to come! But for those who have had many nights out during the semester and don’t usually see the end of it, see it suddenly sober shows you a whole new view on clubbing that the staff usually see and you usually tend to prefer one side to the other.

If you plan on cutting down then it’s best to do it steadily. One approach is to maybe take it easy after Christmas, then take it gently on New Year’s Eve before finally easing into Dry January (a primarily UK initiative, but there’s no doubt our US and Canadian readers may also know people that perform this month long challenge). If you’d rather have fun on New Year’s, then maybe have a gentle January and slowly curb the alcohol you consume at pre-drinks whilst maintaining saving money when you reach the town. If you want a little help adding up the units, try the Drinkaware App and tot it up as you go, that way you’ll have full knowledge as you go as to what’s going in your bod at the time.

I Will Join The Gym

Now this one has two sides to it so bear with me!

For those that have wanted to and planned to join long term for a while and are using the calender marker as a chance at a start date, then that’s a great resolution! I wish you the best and after a good taster session or from previous experience I’m sure you’ll have a great experience.

Now for those that make the revelation on the night or the morning after with the realisation of their Christmas dinner, think carefully about it first. According to Ana Swanson’s report in the The Independent at the back end of this year, New Year’s resolution gym memberships bring the search traffic through into a 40% surge, but as the weeks go by, those unused contracted memberships increase as people realise it’s not for them or that it was all a whim and they’re not prepared for that much effort to get rid of a little weight.

So if you’re going for a little fitness, do it but think about how you want to achieve it first lest you not want to be burned by a 6 or 12 month subscription you’re only going to use a couple of months of.

I’m Going on a Diet

Again, like the gym, this one takes commitment and like drinking should probably be done to a sensible plan. First of all, what do you hope to achieve out of your diet? There are many definitions of the word “healthy” bandied about, with diets that cut out different food groups, others that restrict calories and others that are used to complement workouts and particular exercises. Many of these serve their purpose well provided they are followed correctly and for the right reasons. Picking one based on a mere name or whim may produce undesired results and cause you to go off the idea, blowing your resolution before the year is out.

The sensible option if you’re serious about changing your culinary intake is to decide what for. Many popular approaches now follow the basic idea of trying to balance your diet such as that of Slimming World, that doesn’t forbid foods but allows you to enjoy things in moderation in a guided manner. For those that are committing to their pre-tasted or returned to gym membership could take advantage of the Paleo Diet on advice of their personal trainers. If you attend the David Lloyd chain of gyms (and if you do you’ve got one impressive savings account!) you’ll find their café menu is based around this diet.

If you’re still feeling a little larger or want to be more active after reading this then groovy – just make a plan of what you want out of it and why you want to do it and that’ll get you one step closer to deciding just what plan you wish to follow and always have motivation to stick with it once the initial novelty wears off.

To Make 2017 The Best Year Ever!

Okay, this one sounds a little cynical, but for all of those saying that they can’t wait for 2016 to be over due to all the famous deaths/The events of Brexit/The US Election/The terrorists attacks/The Eastern Conflicts and more and 2017 will be awesome – I hate to break it to you, but 2017 will continue some of these trends. Brexit isn’t over yet until Britain has actually left the EU and the fallout of it has settled (if ever). To those that were shocked or unhappy with the US Election result, we still have a few years until Trump’s administration is thrown back to public voting so we’ll have to wait and see what happens, The conflict may well end or it may not but sadly and unfortunately it won’t happen overnight.

My point is, each year sucks in it’s own way for us on a personal or global level and will continue to. There is no single Best Year out there and many are now starting to realise this. However, that doesn’t stop you from making your own year great in your special way. If you’ve always dreamed of making a new change, you can use this year to  start the ball rolling. If it’s your final year, study hard, play to your strengths and do only your best to set in motion what you’re destined for (or indeed may start to find out what you’re destined for).

Conclusion

New Year’s Resolutions are a great way to improve yourself but are often cited too vaguely or ambitiously and sometimes ironically as many people know they won’t actually last out the month, never mind the year. But tweaked a little bit to become more realistic for yourself you can come up with a new fun way to live your life and you never know you might actually achieve it!

Happy New Year everyone and I hope you have a great end to 2016.