Senior Alaina Lopez

As of last year, about 12.3 percent of people made New Year’s resolutions to make improvements to life and themselves, along with 6.3 percent of people vowing to do more exciting things in the New Year, according to statisticbrain.com.

Starting off the New Year with similar goals in mind, senior Alaina Lopez said she created two new goals for herself to work on this year with new changes coming up for her such as college in the fall. Lopez said she tries to keep her goals semi-realistic as she sees herself as someone who “sets the bar too high” and often forgets about other things as a result.

“I don’t typically do a New Year’s resolution every year; it just [varies] from year to year,” Lopez said.

Lopez’s resolutions for this year are to stay organized, be confident in what she’s involved in along with trying new things and not to being forgetful. Lopez said she created her first resolution about organization based off of experiences she had last year.

“Over the last couple years of my life, I’ve had a few moments when I wasn’t well put together and started forgetting about things, and showing up late; I just want to get that stopped,” Lopez said.

She said she decided to set her second resolution for the reason of starting college in the fall, and wants to be more comfortable with trying new things and being confident in everything she does while away. On the other hand, besides this year’s new resolutions, Lopez said she continues to have the same goal of doing well in school and receiving good grades.

“[I set my resolutions based off of] what I’ve struggled with the most every year, and realize I can see myself getting better and trying to keep pushing myself and not giving up in the new year or new day,” Lopez said.

Sophomore Natalie Gish

In 2017, 21.4 percent of people set their New Year’s resolution to eat healthier, according to statisticbrain.com. Likewise, in relation to a healthy balance, sophomore Natalie Gish said her resolution for this year is to eat cleaner for a healthier lifestyle.

Gish said she doesn’t know exactly how long she will keep up with this, but expects it to be on and off throughout the year. Also, she said she would be eating healthily at home, but predicts herself cheating a little when it comes to eating out.

“Lately, I’ve been seeing that I’m eating a lot of bad things because I’m bored or just hanging around the house and I know that’s not good for me,” Gish said. “I made this goal because I play sports and I think your body runs better on healthy foods rather than just processed junk you find in your pantry.”

Gish said she plans to approach her resolution by replacing what she would normally eat with healthy items, such as an apple rather than a bag of chips when she gets hungry. Gish said she liked this goal because it will help her make better, healthier decisions that may eventually turn into a lifestyle if kept up with long enough. Furthermore, she said she described this as a reachable goal in comparison to other resolutions.

“I believe that New Year’s resolutions are more of an idea than a practice because most people don’t [follow] through with them, but it’s good to get your mind thinking of things you can do better in your life and that’s the whole point of them,” Gish said.

Junior Jenna Hope

Keeping consistent goals throughout the past few years, junior Jenna Hope said she has tried to keep up with a New Year’s resolution of working out more often and eating healthy.

This year, Hope said she is trying to focus on working out more often, as she believes setting a goal for the year helps her see the New Year in a more positive and uplifting way to improve herself.

“Honestly, my resolutions stay pretty consistent each and every year because that is the one aspect in my life that I feel like I could work on a little bit more, especially when I’m not cheering or in anything physically demanding,” Hope said.

Last year, she said she tried keeping up with the same resolution, but failed toward the end of year as her schedule got busier.

“I don’t necessarily know a certain point when [my goal] starts to fizzle out, but life just gets too busy and schedules change and our priorities shift,” Hope said. “The one thing that we were so fixated on at the beginning of the year kind of takes a back burner spot.”

Therefore, Hope said she tried to make her goal seem more realistic this year by working out twice a week, which she finds to be reasonable with her current schedule.

“I decided to set a goal for this year because I had a good feeling about this year,” Hope said. “It’s going to be my senior year so I decided I might as well try to be my best self and be the best I can be so I can feel like I had a successful year.”  

She said she thinks she will accomplish her goal easily because it allows her to be flexible and exercise at home. Hope said when it comes to making a New Year’s resolution, it’s best to make [it] seem reasonable to yourself and be thoughtfully planned out.  

“[If you] plan it out reasonably then you can actually have a lot of benefits and you’ll feel better about yourself and how motivated [you were] throughout the year,” Hope said. “You’ll feel better about your year all around if you fulfill your goals.”