New year, New me

Now that it's finally new years, everybody is going to be on one of 2 sides. Those that create new years resolutions and those that hate on those who create new years resolutions. Simply because new years resolutions tend not to work. But why do they tend to fail? It's not only because people are failures at life and will never be successful. But there are a few other reasons why I think people tend to fail to change and only last a few weeks.

"Obstacles are the things we see when we take our eyes off the goal" -Henry Ford.

Firstly, people don't want to change. They're happy the way they are. The ones who are actually motivated to change don't wait until new years. They don't need a specific day to start their transition. If somebody really wants to change, then nothing will get in their way.

"Normally if given a choice between doing something and nothing, I’d choose to do nothing. But I would do something if it helps someone do nothing. I’d work all night if it meant nothing got done." -Ron Swanson.

Secondly, people are lazy, they're not bothered putting in effort. Change takes time, and time is something people don't want to spend. Unfortunately you can't instantaneously change something about you, things that you have become accustomed to. And after putting in effort for a few weeks to change it kinda sucks and you realise what a mission it actually is. So people start convincing themselves that their decision to change is actually not that important. A theory to which social psychologists refer to as cognitive dissonance.

"Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well" -Mark Twain.
Then there's those people who can't even get started. These people fail in understanding the notion of time. The procrastinators. I mean, they have a whole year to fulfill their new years resolution. So what's the hurry? On top of which, there probably aren't any huge consequences if they don't end up starting, because hey, there's always next year. This can generally be explained through the theory of temporal discounting. This is where, as the video explains, people 'discount' the value of the reward depending on how far away the reward is.

Of course, there's many, many more reasons why new years resolutions never seem to work. But in the end, it's not only because humanity is a complete failure, but it's also partly because that's just how the human mind works, and the only way to change it (in my opinion) is to educate ourselves and find ways to manipulate how we think about what we think. If that makes sense.