beauty

Here are all the New Year's resolutions we've already broken.

We’re not even a week into 2017 and some of us are already surrounded by the tattered remains of broken New Year’s resolutions. Just what kind of grownups are we?

In the Mamamia office alone, we have broken more resolutions than we’ve kept, and those of us silently persevering are statistically likely to abandon them by the end of next week.

Most happiness and wellness experts don’t recommend New Year’s resolutions because of how inflexible they are. We’re more likely to say, “I will jog every morning,” instead of, “I will jog as often as I can,” thus setting ourselves up for failure when we inevitably skip a morning.

Sorry, 2017. Some things will never change. (iStock)

Here are just some of the goals the Mamamia team has already abandoned:

"I resolved to not buy coffee every day at work and I bought one this morning."

"My resolution was to be free of screens for an hour before bed and that hasn't happened."

"To drink less wine and exercise more. Have drunk ALL the wine and not exercised once."

"Resolution to eat healthier (I know, how cliched) was broken precisely 30 minutes after midnight when I bought a bucket of chips on the way back to our campsite at the festival I was celebrating New Year's Eve."

"I resolved to do 'meat free Mondays' and I accidentally ate meat on my Oysters Kilpatrick."

"I wanted to be healthy. And I have never eaten so many chips in my life. They just keep appearing and entering my mouth, I don't even know how."

"I was going running this morning and every morning. No running. Just snooze button."

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Deakin’s senior lecturer in philosophy Dr Patrick Stokes told the Herald Sun we should stick to realistic, small goals rather than lofty resolutions.

“If you break large goals into little chunks, you get to have a little moment of victory,” he said.

“If your goal is just to ‘get fit,’ for example, break that down into little milestones – I’ll be doing 10 laps by February, 20 laps by April.” (Post continues after gallery.)

So while the success of New Year's resolutions seems to lie in the making of them, we can't help but feel a little disappointed in ourselves for those goals we've left lying in our wake.

Some of us have broken our resolutions due to established habits that are difficult to break. Others have broken theirs by accident.

It doesn't help that many of us are still in 'holiday mode' and find ourselves out of our normal routines... not to mention the fact there are delicious leftover Christmas nibblies at every turn.

Last night, my mum texted to tell me that seeing as it was bin night, she was throwing all the offending foods away. She'd already broken her resolution to avoid snacking and drastic action had to be taken.

Bridget Jones was always so good at making New Year's resolutions, and so bad at sticking to them. Image: Canal Films
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Which begs the question: once we've broken our New Year's resolutions, are the irretrievably broken or can they be salvaged?

And though experts assure us that there is no hard and fast rule when it comes to making changes beneficial to our lives, it just seems so motivating to start them on the first day of the New Year — as though we magically become different people between 11.59pm and 12.01am.

Whether you chose not to make any resolutions or you've broken them already, it's never too late to be your best self. And that can be done by choosing less definitive goals revisiting them throughout the year for necessary tweak.

We'll all be jogging, chip-less, healthy, Monday-meat-free, digitally detoxed wonder women! Just watch this space...

Listen: In this episode of Mamamia podcast I Don't Know How She Does It, author and social commentator Tara Moss shares all of her tips for setting goals and working smarter.