New Year’s resolutions. From the hard-core “earn better grades” and “work out more” to the slightly less serious “stop cracking my knuckles” and “make sure my nails are always painted,” we’ve heard them all. If making resolutions was a game, we’d all be champs; but more often than not, we find ourselves guilty of not having stuck to our plans.

Towards the end of each year comes the time for people to look back on the past twelve months and, more importantly, look forward to the next twelve to come. It’s the time for people to reflect on themselves and evaluate what they need to change in their lives. It’s the time to come up with resolutions and, after about a week, it’s time to break them.

A few days ago, as I went in to train for my – quite ironic – new job at Fitness Studio, my boss said to me, “Make sure you pay attention to how to fill out a contract. It’s not that hard, but this time of the year we get a lot more people signing up for a gym membership than we normally do.”  While I made my best attempt to concentrate on what he was saying, I couldn’t help but internally scoff at peoples’ attempts at New Year’s resolutions.

Not to belittle the idea of breaking bad habits or forming good ones, by all means those are great things to do and kudos to those who actually try, but why do resolutions have to go hand-in-hand with a new year? All it takes to form (or break) a habit is twenty-one consecutive days and some willpower, not a new year. Any day could be the day to stand up and say, “Today, I start my journey to lose fifteen pounds.” New Year’s resolutions are just a fad and just “for the heck of it.” If people are actually serious about changing themselves, they might have better luck doing it on their own during any time of the year, not on January 1^st with the rest of America.

While it takes a great deal of strength and courage to recognize that you should change something about your life, you don’t have to wait for a new year to start to make that promise to yourself. Sure, it’s an attempt; but that attempt could happen 364 other days of the year, too