No More Resolutions

Susanne is a 20-something nurse who had lap-band surgery at Penn in 2012. In this blog post, Susanne discusses why New Year’s resolutions aren’t for her, and how her continued journey after weight-loss surgery at Penn is helping her get healthy in 2013, with or without resolutions.

You can read more about Susanne on her blog, Purl Before Swine.


I hate the idea of “New Years’ Resolutions.”

My first problem with the idea is the fact that waiting until January 1 to make the changes that I want to see in myself makes little sense. Of course, if it is August, waiting until January does buy a person a few months to come to terms with that crazy diet they want to try. Life is short, though, and there really is no time like the present. Start tomorrow or even today!

My second problem with the “New Year’s Resolution” is that resolving to do something makes life sound like it needs a complete overhaul year after year. The term is so loaded that I don’t even know anyone who has ever achieved his or her “resolution.” In my opinion, resolutions are for governments, GOALS are for people.

Third, we often fail to provide ourselves with even the most basic of road maps for achieving said resolutions. You might as well stand at the bottom of a sheer rock face without a rope and decide to climb. Just because we are flipping a page on our calendars doesn’t suddenly mean that the treadmill will no longer be the clothes rack that many of us use it as.

To get from point A to point B, it is really helpful to have some idea of where you are going, some knowledge of what obstacles might greet you along the way, and a few helpful tools in your back pocket in case you hit a really big pothole.

Have you made New Year’s goals? Are you sticking to them?