As the end of each year rolls around, people all over the world begin thinking about how they are going to better themselves in the upcoming year. By making resolutions, people put into words their aspirations and goals for the year ahead. According to today.yougov.com, 34% of U.S. adults plan on making New Year’s resolutions. However, studies show that 23% of these resolutions do not make it through the first week. If these goals are always so doomed to fail, why do people keep making them?

Part of the problem seems to be how outlandish some resolutions are. Some people will claim that their goal is to be a billionaire by the end of the year. Going from a Pizza Hut employee to Elon Musk competition within a year is not exactly attainable. Keeping in mind your situation and abilities before committing to such a resolution may be the key to being successful in completing the goal. Setting many miniature goals might also be beneficial rather than one big one. Having the satisfaction of crossing many small things off a list may be more encouraging than waiting all year to finally complete one major task.

Another issue with many resolutions is how incredibly vague they are. Part of a good goal is explaining the steps needed to reach said goal. Simply stating “I want to get richer this year” as a goal is very unconstructive. After finding a dime on the street; congratulations! The goal has been achieved. Explaining the steps that need to be taken and tracking progress will help keep the person engaged in completing the goal. Without visible results, many will falter and give up on their resolutions.

Many New Year’s resolutions fall under the health category. Most people on the planet could see themselves getting in better shape but few commit to doing so. People all over the world set out to accomplish their dream physiques at the start of each year. Yet over and over again, they disappoint themselves when the multiple “last” pieces of cake begin to add up, and the six-pack abs turn into a bubble of fat once again. Due to the fact that most New Year’s resolutions lack structure and planning, many fail quite quickly. Without ways to track progress and see results, many people will give up on their goals.

As Americans, we tend to have a tendency to assign days to getting stuff done. There are National days for doing laundry and we coin terms such as “Spring Cleaning” just to make ourselves feel as if everything in our life is running right on schedule. The same goes for New Year’s resolutions. People wait until the last day of December to begin making goals for themselves. Why do 100 million people all determine they want to start going to Planet Fitness on the same day? Why did Aunt Nancy decide she was going vegan for the fourth time on December 31st rather than June 11th? Goals should be strived for as soon as one realizes they have a need for a goal. No need to wait for the end of the year before working towards it.

Setting goals to better oneself is a great thing to do, but most people tend to fall short of their New Year’s resolutions. Rather than putting so much effort into just one grand resolution, maybe setting more attainable, specific, and trackable goals could be the key to seeing improvement.