The Importance of New Year's Resolutions

When we were ten years old we made resolutions to stop biting our nails or to work really hard at school this year. In reality, we'd probably broken these within a week of the new year. Now I'm twenty are my resolutions any different? And is my determination to keep them still as weak?

I googled 'new year's resolution quit..' and the first option that came up was smoking, then drinking and thirdly Facebook - why would you want to quit Facebook? This suggests that perhaps New Year's resolutions have turned into a time just to give things up. I'm pretty sure most people reading this will have pledged at some point or another to 'lose weight' but look at yourself, has it really worked out? For those of you who it has, congrats. I know it hasn't for me.

I'd like to suggest that one way to be more successful with New Year's resolutions is to 'take on' something, try something new, rather than giving something up - after all, isn't that what lent is for?

One of my resolutions last year (other than the guilty standard ones of lose weight and watch less TV) was to blog more. It feels quite ironic writing about this really. And if I'm honest I wasn't that successful. I mean I didn't post until October, but that's the point of New Year's resolutions right? You have the whole year to do it and I have written six posts in the last 3 months (including this one), which, considering this is my last year of university and I'm supposedly writing my dissertation, isn't that bad. What I'm trying to say is, I've gained so much more from the positive perspective of taking on instead of giving up. I'm not saying everyone should start a blog (although it 's really good fun) I'm just saying maybe you could try something a bit different this year. Take up that new hobby  you've always wanted to try. Learn a new skill. Make new friends. Whatever you do this year, make it different to last year!

This year my New Year's Resolution is to create a LinkedIn profile. It sounds pretty easy right? However for someone who already looks after 1 Facebook account, 2 Facebook pages, 3 Twitter accounts, 1 Pinterest account, 1 Instagram account and of course this Blogger account, it's quite a big decision to take on another, new social media account. And what's the point in doing it if you're not going to do it properly? I mean what employer is going to consider a page that doesn't even have a profile picture. Would you? In the last few weeks I've been mulling over this decision and I've heard a lot of encouraging comments about LinkedIn. Apparently it's 'the first place employers will look' and if you're not there how will they find you? I think it's a bit like a piece I read by Tasha Hinde in Company Magazine, who compares social media to dating. Each account is like a boyfriend and there are times when you need certain ones. Perhaps it's just the time for me to move on?

I don't know how it's going to work out, but it's like the slogans from those personal injury advertisements,
"You've got nothing to lose but perhaps a lot to gain".