{"id":1629,"date":"2015-01-23T13:55:32","date_gmt":"2015-01-23T18:55:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/?p=1629"},"modified":"2015-01-23T13:55:32","modified_gmt":"2015-01-23T18:55:32","slug":"ways-to-keep-your-new-years-resolutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/2015\/01\/23\/ways-to-keep-your-new-years-resolutions\/","title":{"rendered":"Ways to keep your New Year\u2019s resolutions"},"content":{"rendered":"

By LAURA HUMBLE \u2013\u00a0STAFF WRITER<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Another year, another you\u2014at least, in theory.<\/p>\n

Every Jan. 1, millions of people make resolutions to better themselves over the course of the New Year. Whether that\u2019s eating more healthfully, being more fiscally responsible, or finally getting started on that magnum opus you know that\u2019s inside you, the New Year promises it all. The only trouble is getting there.<\/p>\n

Come February, the motivation that you started with is completely down the drain. By then, CentreTerm has taken its toll and those Wednesday No-Bakes were just too hard to resist. You\u2019ve blown all your work-study money at Walmart and you\u2019re no closer to finishing that novel. Sound familiar?<\/p>\n

The key to keeping a New Year\u2019s resolution is having a specific goal, a good plan on how to achieve it, and some strong willpower.<\/p>\n

And if you think all this sounds about as easy as Organic Chemistry lab, then you are not alone.<\/p>\n

A large sample of the student body on campus didn\u2019t even make resolutions this year. Why is that? For many, they just didn\u2019t want to deal with the disappointment they knew may accompany a resolution two weeks down the road.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are afraid of failure so we don\u2019t come up with New Year\u2019s resolutions if we don\u2019t think we can keep them,\u201d sophomore Shruti Ram said.<\/p>\n

Of course this makes sense; if you don\u2019t have a positive attitude from the beginning, why even bother?<\/p>\n

So here we come to the most important initial step when making and sticking with your New Year\u2019s resolution: have a positive attitude.<\/p>\n

\u201cBe the change you want to see in the world,\u201d \u201cNothing is impossible, the word itself says \u2018I\u2019m possible\u2019\u201d\u2014whatever adage you want to use, make your resolution with a positive attitude in mind. There can be no lingering doubts, or you\u2019re already setting yourself up for failure.<\/p>\n

On the flip side of that, if at some point you do mess up during the course of the year, that\u2019s no reason to throw all your positivity out of the window. Pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and tell yourself that everyone makes mistakes. Hannah Montana said it, so it must be true. The importance lies in how you respond to your mistakes. You can\u2019t fail if you never quit.<\/p>\n

So what else can you do to ensure success? First-year Fah Robbins was brimming with great suggestions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would set a specific goal. Say if I wanted to eat healthier, I would pick a specific number of calories every day. I would also put a reminder on my door or something,\u201d Robbins said. \u201cOr, if I wanted to go to the gym more, I would put a mirror on my door so I could see myself before I left my room. All it takes is to do it every day for a week and it becomes a habit. You need the right attitude.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Robbins, in addition to a positive attitude, you must have a very specific goal you want to achieve and a specific way of bringing it about, such as determining calories and counting them if you want to lose weight.<\/p>\n

Also, Robbins brings up an interesting pro tip: give yourself a daily reminder. If you do that, you go a long way toward building a daily habit.<\/p>\n

So with all these good ideas on how to make and maintain a New Year\u2019s resolution, why don\u2019t other students make them in the first place?<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do we need the new year as an excuse to change?\u201d junior Aubrey Russak-Pribble said. \u201cIf we want to make a change, we\u2019ll just change [at any time of year].\u201d<\/p>\n

Many students echoed Russak-Pribble\u2019s sentiment, including Robbins and Ram. The importance of a New Year\u2019s resolution is not in the timing, but in the willingness to change. Knowing this takes some of the pressure off the need to succeed if you did make a resolution. At any point if you fall of the bandwagon, you can get right back on it any time you want.<\/p>\n

Junior Daniel Curran takes a different approach. Curran was one of the few people to have actually made a New Year\u2019s resolution: to eat less Cowan pizza.<\/p>\n

\u201cI gained fifteen pounds last semester just from Cowan pizza,\u201d Curran said. \u201cSo now, I\u2019ll look at the pizza in Cowan and just say \u2018no.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Curran\u2019s strategy is beautifully simple: he\u2019s taking baby steps. In order to become healthier, he is making a small, easily manageable change to reap a larger reward. So maybe take a step back from those ambitious goals, and think of smaller ones that lead to a similar end result.<\/p>\n

Regardless of whether you made a New Year\u2019s resolution or not, if you want to make a change in your life remember to keep a positive attitude, set specific goals, give yourself daily reminders and keep your goals attainable. So go on, make that Jan. 22 resolution. No one will know the difference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By LAURA HUMBLE \u2013\u00a0STAFF WRITER Another year, another you\u2014at least, in theory. Every Jan. 1, millions of people make resolutions to better themselves over the course of the New Year. Whether that\u2019s eating more healthfully, being more fiscally responsible, or finally getting started on that magnum opus you know that\u2019s inside you, the New Year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}