Heather Cloud
Staff Writer
Studies have shown that the number of people keeping their New Year’s resolutions drastically drops off in the month of February. The studies could not totally determine why this lack of will power occurs, but many believe that it has something to do with one of my roommates bringing home bagels. (Oh carbohydrates, you beautiful beasts!) But never fear, we are here to help you through this, the shortest month of the year, and put you right back on track, until the next time your resolutions waver, which generally occurs sometime in March.
Step one: Reward yourself
Give yourself rewards for the resolutions you do keep. Naturally, you’ll want to avoid breaking the resolution as your reward. Strike that. The best reward for keeping those resolutions is letting yourself break the resolution. You worked out every day for one month straight? Take the week off. That’s right. There is no better reward than old bad habits.
Step two: Lighten up
If you’re still finding it hard to take those resolutions into month number two, perhaps a lightening of the resolution is in your best interest. Make your resolutions a little less, well, resolute. The Diet Coke of resolutions if you will. That way, if you want a burger with a bun you can have it, as long as you pretend that you never said you’d eat burgers only without buns, but rather that you said you would no longer eat the small, soggy portion left in your hands when the burger falls out.
Step three: Narrow it down
If even the lightened resolutions are still holding you down, pick just the best and wussiest of the resolutions to keep. I’ll be making sure to record “Desperate Housewives” and “Arrested Development” for the entire rest of their seasons. My television has a “record every week” feature, so this resolution requires nothing from me at all and therefore is awesome. Pick something of the like, and you’ll be keeping your resolutions while you eat a potato.
Step four: Make a ‘base’
If you do feel compelled to keep all of your resolutions, but don’t want to actually stick to them, pick a “safe spot.” Much like in the game of tag, this base will keep you safe while you’re breaking your resolution. You can avoid your papers and play Nintendo for literally hours and hours with no negative repercussions, as long as you’re on your base. You could even pick your Nintendo for a base. I am a genius.
Step five: It’s a new year
And if none of this works, who’s to say when the New Year “really” is anyway? It’s you. There have been all sorts of calendars since the beginning of time, and odds are good that there is one in existence that calls for the new year to start sometime in February. Even if there’s not, you can pretend there is, or perhaps even change it to the “New Month’s resolution,” therefore allowing yourself to start over as much as you’d like. Or you can claim that your new year doesn’t start until the new “American Idol” is selected, or the Oscars are given out. Start basing time on television shows and ancient calendars; it makes for both a more interesting date book as well as better-kept resolutions.
Step Six: Maybe next time
If the “lightened-one-resolution, safe-base, ancient calendar based- on television-shows” route still fails you, well then it looks like this year just isn’t your year. It’s OK though, because that just means that you’ll be 11 months ahead of the game the next time the real New Year rolls around. Start working on it now, and it will be easier then. (Having procrastinated on every single thing I’ve ever done in my whole life, I don’t actually know if this is accurate or not, but I’ve heard people say it before, so I’ll assume its true.) Whatever happens, just remember the spirit in which your resolution was made and try to take that through this month. Just as long as you’re doing something better, you’ll be OK, even if you’re only making a better bagel. Good luck!
02-02-2005
