I went to the gym on December 27th, just before the new year, expecting it to be overflowing with early-start-resolutioners and already-regulars. I parked, checked in, and began scanning for an open treadmill and found… plenty? This gym looked about as busy as a bar on Tuesday at 3pm. As I shoved my coat and keys into a locker I started to wonder if working out and being more healthy just isn’t the New Years’ Resolution anymore. Maybe NYRs as whole aren’t a thing anymore.
Mid-year resolutions, or random times throughout the year when we realize we can improve, seem to make waiting for January to make Resolutions unnecessary.
Many people, at different points throughout the year, move weight loss and getting healthy to the top of their priorities. With new diets and miracle weight loss powders and pills emerging each month and Instagram models pushing anything from SkinnyMint and detoxing to the latest diet trend, it’s almost impossible not to get sucked in to eating healthier, or pad dieting with something else, at any given point throughout the year. I have easily clicked and researched one-too-many of the pedaled miracle fixes. Not to mention the mail order healthy food businesses out there; HelloFresh, Home Chef, and Blue Apron make cooking healthier meals at home easier and at least one of them is on my feed each day with a promotional discount.
Aside from diet, fitness trends throughout the year make getting in shape a month-to-month resolution.
May is National Fitness Month and it’s an optimal month for Bridal Bootcamps, May (not January) is a popular time to #GetFit. New Years happens at winter, the time of year when you want to be lazy and cozy and snuggled. Before January, at the onset of winter, is the holiday weight gain, and many people avoid that by starting a diet or exercise regimen in November to prevent added poundage at their family gathering- and to look good in front of their (maybe judgemental) family and in-laws.
Also, who wants to start training in the Winter? People who already have an exercise regimen, especially one that involves outdoor running or other outdoor activities, often have trouble transitioning or keeping up their routine in the winter. If people who are already on the wagon don’t want to stay, how are the ones on the ground supposed to jump on?
Okay, so maybe you start indoors because you don’t like the outdoors that much anyway, or you’re lucky like my earlier-twenties self and you live in Florida (or wherever) and you don’t have to worry about the snow and cold just making you feel like you want to go home to your couch and blanket. Maybe winter isn’t a factor, but maybe your instagram feed or your mental state push you to make a change. You see a friend post a fitness challenge or you join a fitbit challenge and you jump in, for a week or two, and that spurs you to continue- be it January or September. Or you’re scrolling in an app and the Margarita 5k or Hot Chocolate run sound fun so you decide to run a little and find you actually like it and then you go half-marathon crazy. None of this is happening in January. Maybe it is, but it’s not strictly in January.
Clearly weight loss and physical activity is too year-round of a self-improvement platform to be a NYR anymore, but there are other NYRs.
Spring cleaning, it would seem, would happen in the spring and January is not spring. Nevertheless, January is still a popular time to get rid of things. For adults who do not have children of school age, December and January are popular times to move, rental and purchase prices often go down and there can be tax benefits for buying and selling before the year ends. When you move you try to only move what you have to, so before moving is the getting-rid-of-things cleaning. “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo“, the book that purred tidying across the US and her native Japan, among many other countries, is still popular today, as are many other “get your life organized by getting rid of things” books, shows, and articles.
A slightly less common, but not uncommon, re-prioritized object is to write more. For some, this is journaling or blogging. Others seek to get their creativity and persistence together to write a novel. Enter NaNoWriMo. National novel writing month is November. Partakers in NaNoWriMo, therefore, may plan ahead a little are start story mapping in September or October, but the goal is to have a solid product at the end of November. Maybe you lag a little and take a couple extra weeks into December, but come January you’re not going to set a resolution to write a novel, you already did that. Maybe you decide to keep doing it, or to do another one, but that’s not a resolution, that’s having truly found a passion or seeing a new part of you- the writer- through.
Even celebrities seem to be more interested in not making resolutions than making them. Oprah says they’re more trouble than they’re worth, and she’s the spokeswoman for Weight Watchers and queen of everything. Johnny Ray Gill says waiting until January to reflect on yourself and make improvements is an unnecessary procrastination. After new years, my Instagram was overflowed with cliche’ posts from major and minor celebrities, and friends. Not the trite “new year, new me- check out my new gym membership!” or someone lobbing their hair off to donate while simultaneously getting a new ‘do for the new year, but useless “my New Year’s resolution is to put my grocery cart back” or “to be a better person”.
New Year’s resolutions are dead. Not resolutions, not introspection or self-evaluation, not goals and plans and growth, just waiting until the New Year to change. We all still love NYE and fireworks and friends and the midnight cheer, though.
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