Opinion: Fixing your New Year's resolution hangover

Keeping on track with your New Year's resolutions can be hard. Image/Bromhead cartoon

Who has a New Year's resolution hangover?

If you're anything like me, you started 2018 with gusto, promising to lose weight, eat healthy and stay on top of work deadlines.

You've gone hard out for the first two weeks; running the puppy up mountains, eating salad for dinner and drinking 2L of water a day.

You've cut out fizzy drinks, takeaways and you're going to bed at 9pm every night.

It's all going so well you start thinking you've made the change for good.

But then comes week three.

You've twisted your knee running, you're getting diet Coke withdrawals and you're craving carbs. Bad.

At least, that has been my experience.

Every year I am filled with the same resolve to live a better (usually healthier) lifestyle. But it never takes long to fall off the wagon.

In all honesty, I probably restart my "New Year's resolutions" four times in one year.

I always have good intentions, but life (and stress) gets in the way. And when I do revert back to the chippie-eating, fizzy-drinking Stephanie, I'm left feeling worse than before.

Well here's my new, New Year's resolution: Stop making them.

I'm not saying I'm going to stop trying to better myself, I'm just going to stop putting pressure on myself to make all these changes, all at once, all at the beginning of the year.

Besides, the Gregorian calendar, in which the new year starts on January 1, is an entirely man-made construct.

If, for example, I was following the Chinese calendar, I wouldn't have to worry about getting fit and quitting bad habits until February 16.

By taking away the pressure to change multiple aspects of your life as soon as the new year hits, you're less likely to become disheartened if you slip up.

Perhaps this way I will have more motivation to run my puppy up the mountain every night if I still get to indulge in the odd diet Coke.