Every new year, thousands of people across the world make a choice. A choice to better themselves, to forge a new identity through sweat and grit. Many fail.
According to the Fisher College of Business only nine percent of Americans complete their new year’s resolutions, with 23 percent giving up in the first week, and 43 percent in the first month. Regardless, many still try. What are this year’s stormrays resolutions? Will they overcome their vices and truly embody the saying “new year, new me?” Or will they succumb to the statistics and give up?
“To go to Harbor Square [a gym] every weekday” Liam Gallagher, senior, said. “You know, to better myself, to become the best possible version of myself that I can be.”. But how does Gallagher keep motivated? “Buy a membership. Have a mentality that I need to keep going” Gallagher said, citing money as a major motivator. “I’m gonna buy a membership, that way I’m losing money if I don’t go.”
Some Shorewood students decided they wanted to make art a focus of their 2024 resolutions. “I want to learn how to sew [and]how to airbrush, getting into both of those,” Ashe Sandstrom, senior, said. Airbrushing is a form of painting using a pressurized gun, commonly used on clothing. “Maybe not specifically my clothes,” Sandstrom said, “just on various things, because I wanted to be able to express myself through art and I haven’t really had that opportunity’ ‘. Oftentimes we are prevented from achieving our goals because of money, however Sandstrom was already thinking about this: “I’m gonna job, because that will help finance both of these resolutions.” “Don’t wait for tomorrow, today you start, and keep pushing”. Sandstrom concluded.
“I think new year’s resolutions are a false prophet,” Henry Poetzl, senior, said. While some Stormrays have decided to undertake the daunting task of new year’s resolutions, others prefer a more holistic way. “What is it, like 75 percent of new year’s resolutions fail in the second month?” Poetzl brings up a very fair point, but doesn’t think goals are a bad thing. “I don’t think a new year’s resolution is inherently bad, it’s more like the majority of people don’t do a good job at setting a goal. One, people wait for new years to start their goals, two, a lot of times when you start waiting you make it this big goal, you make goals that are unrealistic, and that’s why you fail.”
Whether or not you have a resolution you’re trying to fulfill, Sandstrom says to just go for it.
