Happy 2023! It is 2023, despite the fact that you keep writing 2022 on all your checks and memos. We’ll get there. But in the meantime, how you doing keeping your New Year’s resolutions?
New Year’s resolutions date back 4,000 to the Babylonians when they celebrated their first barley harvest. But resolutions are still alive and well these days. According to insidemastery.com, “38.5 percent of US adults set resolutions every year. The three most popular goals relate to health: exercising more, eating healthier and losing weight.”
Multiple studies show that 43 percent of us fail trying to keep our resolutions before February. With about 23 percent who give up in the first week. According to Strava, a Running and Cycling tracking app, most people quit on the second Friday of January. Strava has named that day “Quitters Day.”
And our overall resolution success rate after a year is only 9 percent. Yikes. So what are the reasons we give for failing to keep our New Year’s resolutions? The top three seem to be: we just lose our motivation, we are too busy and our goals and priorities shift. But the chamber’s premiere networking group, The Exchange, has another idea. They believe that if we just renamed our resolutions “goals” they would become more of a commitment. I agree but also think that sometimes we make resolutions that just are not attainable so that when we fall short, we take it as a failure and just give up.
Let’s say your resolution or goal is to eat better. Rather than start by ransacking your every meal plan, what if you just start with breakfasts. Once you get that breakfast routine down, move on to lunch then dinner, and we can check off the box in front of that resolution. And I believe you need to keep in mind attainability while making those resolutions. I can say I resolve to make one million dollars next year. Well, we all know that will never happen. But what if I picked something more realistic and attainable. How about I resolve not to move the chamber office again this year. Believe me, I can keep that resolution. We just moved. I still have not unpacked all the boxes, the pictures are not hung and we do not have adequate signage. So the chamber is staying in our new location for the next several years. That’s my resolution and I’m sticking to it.
Please do stop by and see us at 4051 Upper Creek Drive, Suite 100 in Sun City Center. We are open for business and waiting to see you. And I’m working on the signage and those pesky boxes. Happy New Year – resolutions or not.
Lynne Conlan is executive director of the South Hillsborough Chamber of Commerce. Call her at 813-634-5111, or email lynne@southhillschamber.com.