Hey everyone and welcome back to the Easy English Podcast.
I'm Oliver, and if you're listening to this just after Christmas, I hope you're having a great holiday, and today we are going to talk and learn about an exciting topic, and that is New Year's resolutions.
So what are they?
And what are my New Year's resolutions?
And also, are they very effective?
So let's get started.
So the New Year is coming up.
And for some of you, that is a big holiday.
And for others, it is also still a celebration to welcome in the brand new year.
And for this year, it is 2025.
I always think the new year is a great time to reflect.
To reflect.
To reflect means to look back on the previous year, to think about the previous year and everything that has happened, the good things, the bad things, the things that we have learned, maybe the people that we have met and the experiences that we have had.
And this helps us to grow as people.
To learn and to grow and improve.
And even with your language learning, I think this is a very important time of the year.
And I will probably make a separate episode about this, about how to start this new year with your english learning, to reflect and learn from the previous year.
But that's not today's topic.
Today's topic is new year resolutions, so let's get stuck straight into this great topic.
What are New Year's resolutions?
So the definition of a resolution is a firm decision to do or not to do something.
So what does this mean with New Year's?
So a New Year's resolution is when we decide to maybe start something new for this year.
We say OK, this year I am going to do exercise every day, or I am going to learn English every single day, or maybe three times per week.
For some people, perhaps their New Year resolution could be to not do something, to quit something.
For example, to quit smoking or to quit alcohol or maybe other negative things in our life.
Maybe junk food.
Perhaps you want to find better friends or healthier relationships.
These can all be New Year's resolutions.
Resolutions or decisions that we make to do or not to do something.
So it's a great phrase New Year's resolutions and i want you so first, if you're listening on spotify and you're new, to follow this podcast, to continue learning english with me, and if you're new on youtube, subscribe to the channel um.
But i also challenge you to comment below if you have any new year's resolutions, things that you want to do or not do in the next year.
So i don't know about you, but usually around this time of year, i hear a lot of people talking about new year's resolutions, things that they're starting, things that they want to do And, to be honest usually, as time goes on maybe a month, two months, even three I start to stop hearing about the things that people had started doing.
In other words, a lot of people don't continue or stick with their New Year's resolutions.
So I wanted to see how effective are these New Year resolutions?
I myself have done resolutions in the past, so ideas that I wanted to do for the new year, and some of them I've had more success with than others
For example, looking at last year, I decided that I wanted to read at least one book per month.
So it's not a lot, but for me I had not been reading as much the last number of years and I really wanted to set the challenge quite easy.
So just one book per month to get back into reading.
And as a result, this year, I have read a total of 16 books.
So I beat my target.
So I would say this New Year resolution was a success.
But I have had other resolutions that have not went so well.
For example, last year I wanted to continue my language learning with foreign languages And, I'll be honest, I haven't been so consistent.
I haven't been learning every week.
So I would say this resolution was not so successful.
So I decided to have a look online.
And C, are New Year's resolutions helpful?
Are they successful?
And what I find is that some research, some studies suggest that approximately 90 of people don't complete their New Year's resolution or their resolutions, with some people even quitting, quite a large percentage quitting in the first week.
However, another survey found that approximately 2 out of 3 people achieved some level of success.
So what I think this shows is that, although most people don't do their new year resolutions perfectly they don't complete them they do get a benefit from this and they have some level of success.
So some improvement in these areas.
And this can come from what we can call the fresh start effect.
So almost like starting a new year of school or a new job, it's mentally a new year for us.
And therefore it can motivate people towards some of these positive changes.
They think, great, this is a new year, new me.
That's a phrase I hear quite a bit.
But some of the reasons people can feel their New Year's resolutions could be pretty much what I did with my language learning, which is setting goals that are too big or unrealistic.
So, for example, I wanted to continue learning Russian, because I have been learning Russian for about five or six years.
And my goal was to start learning again and to learn a little bit every day.
But if I made my goal, maybe once or twice per week, just to start with, I probably could have achieved this and then done extra and not felt so much pressure to do this every single day because realistically, with jobs, with life, if we set our goals too high,
It can be quite demotivating when we are constantly failing and constantly not meeting these goals.
So setting a realistic resolution is a good thing.
It's a good idea.
So another reason a lot of people fail their New Year's resolutions is going too hard too quickly.
Or another way to say this would be doing too much too quickly.
It's so common that people will say, for example, I want to exercise lots.
And as soon as January 1st starts, everyone goes to the gym.
It's so busy, they start going every day.
They're taking protein shakes, eating healthy, going 150%.
And after two weeks, they are tired.
They've done too much, too fast, and they end up not doing much at all after this.
So it's important to do sort of more small, immediate goals and to pace yourself.
That phrase means to spread your time.
So don't look at it as I need to do 110% right now.
Think of it as a realistic long-term goal with more achievable little goals along the way.
So those are my thoughts on New Year's resolutions.
Maybe why they fail and why they can be successful.
So you might be wondering, what are my New Year's resolutions for this year?
And I will tell you.
So my first resolution is with this podcast.
So I want to make at least two episodes per week.
And that includes the two YouTube videos as well.
And this is important for me because I want to keep growing this podcast.
Eventually, my long term goal is to make this project my job, so I can make lots of content to help you learn English.
I can maybe make courses books, lots of things that I am passionate about to help you guys improve your English.
And to do that, I need to be consistent.
So my goal is to make two of these episodes every week and to not miss any weeks.
So if I have extra time, I'm going to pre-prepare episodes, that type of thing.
And I think it's an achievable goal and not too intense.
If I said, for example, I want to do an episode of the podcast every day, I know that there are days where I just can't do that.
So it's better to make it realistic.
My second resolution is that I want to exercise more.
So I make this goal every year.
I do like exercise and I love going to the gym.
Usually I try to go to the gym twice per week.
And I think last year I set the goal of going three times every week.
But this year I want to change it to two times per week because I need to get back into my routine and to make this last and stick.
So my next goal after this is that I want to try to eat less sugar sugar, so less artificial sugar like sweets cakes, that type of thing.
Just because i'm not trying to lose weight or anything.
I'm a very skinny guy, um but i find that when i eat a lot of sugar, i feel quite tired afterwards, so it's just for my own energy levels.
And so that is my first one.
The next one is I want to have a more regular bedtime or, more specifically, to get up at the same time every day.
I find with my job, often I go to bed at different times, I wake up at different times and I can feel very tired because of this.
So I want to have more of a specific time that I wake up in the morning.
For example, 6.30 rather than some days getting up at 5.30, other days 8.30.
My sleep schedule is quite random at the moment.
So that's my other goal.
So let me know what you think about those goals and please tell me yours, your goals or your New Year's resolutions for 2025.
I would love to hear them.
So thank you so much for listening.
If you're new, subscribe, follow.
And if you would like to support me, get bonus episodes and help this project, please check out the Patreon in the description below and consider joining and becoming a member.
Thank you for listening and have a great rest of your day.
Goodbye.
