‘New Year, New You’

Change is in the air

You can’t deny its persistence; the New Year seems to come around faster each year and with each New Year comes a new resolution that’s just waiting to be attained or broken. Whether it be the same as last year, or a completely new weird and wacky one, it’s good to have a goal to start the New Year with, be it realistic or not.

It’s always nice to believe that you can lose that Christmas weight that’s been hanging around for the past three years, just as it’s also nice to believe that if you’re a smoker, you can kick the 20-a-day habit that you’ve had since the age of fifteen. Attempting to change the work habits of a lifetime of leaving things to the last minute will probably result in failure; it worked in getting you to Warwick so why not stick with the formula?  Also if it has been a lifetime work habit, then you’ve undoubtedly said you would change it before, so don’t be too hard on yourself; after all we can’t all be organised geniuses, as it would leave no room for the creative student excuses for why work hasn’t been done. Similarly, don’t make a resolution that will barely alter your life like wanting to sleep more, because as students you will be getting plenty of this – along with countless naps – so you would only verge on nocturnal if you chose this route.

If you’re going to make a New Year’s resolution this year (and I recommend you do), just make sure it’s something realistic and attainable. There’s no better feeling than achieving something that you’ve been wanting to do for ages; a New Year’s resolution just gives you the motivation to start. Although New Year’s Day may have passed, we are still only at the start of January: it’s still not too late to make a resolution, if only so you can finally say the cliché of ‘New Year, New Me’.

Ailsa MacLachlan

Let’s be realistic

New Year, New Me’ will once again be the cringe-inducing phrase filling our Facebook and Twitter feeds on January 1st . As everyone looks back on the year and promises to do better, I begin to wonder… what’s the point?

January 1st doesn’t strike me as the best day to begin this new healthy lifestyle; I think it’s safe to assume that most, if not all of us, have spent the holidays gorging. To go from this to an extreme diet seems quite illogical and will surely send our body into a state of shock. Not to mention, after a night of boozing, the main thing occupying the mind on January 1st will be cigarettes or junk food, possibly both. Our willpower has already taken a beating in the form of a hangover, so why on earth would this be the chosen day to make a fresh start and big promises?

To be frank, we’re all going about it the wrong way; we need to have achievable goals. The top resolutions cropping up year after year are usually: get fit, eat healthily, quit smoking. Now, I’m not saying don’t do these things, of course it would be fantastic if we all could, but let’s be realistic. It’s not going happen overnight, or even in the first few weeks. If it were that simple we’d all be a lot healthier by now. There’s no point in making goals we can’t even imagine ourselves achieving. We need to be less optimistic and a little more specific — i.e. ‘I’m going to cut down from 10 a day to 5 a day’, ‘I’m going to jog once a week’, or ‘I’m going to limit myself to three pints of purple at Pop each week, as opposed to my usual six’.

So, please refrain from making huge and unrealistic promises this year; conquer smaller goals first, and do it all year round rather than just the New Year (when you’re still thriving off the Christmas spirit and nearing the end of a sugar high). Major lifestyle changes can come later. Baby steps, people, baby steps.

Jodie Marsden