It’s 2018 now and like every year, people are declaring their resolutions. According to Readers Digest and Time Magazine and pretty much every other source out there, the number one resolution every single year  without fail, is “lose weight”. It’s something everyone struggles with, whether it’s 5 pounds, or 100. Everyone always wants to lose weight and often people decide to make this change on new year’s day. The problem is that people don’t actually know what they are doing or just casually make the resolution just because it’s something they feel needs to be said.

Don’t be one of those people. If you are going to change, do it for you and you alone. If you make a resolution just because everyone else is, you’ll never stick with it because you aren’t doing it for you. You’re just saying things to make conversation, and that doesn’t help you at all.

I made plenty of resolutions every new year, and none of them ever stuck. In 2013, I had yet another moment where I told myself that I would lose weight. But it was half hearted and and I barely thought about it in the first couple weeks of January. Then I just straight up forgot about it entirely for the third week, ignoring my body and my so called “resolutions”. On the 22nd, I woke up and stared in the mirror, seeing myself and suddenly realizing that I seriously needed change in my life. (Read more about that here.)

In that moment, I truly made a resolution. In anger, in defiance, and direct to the soul. It was a resolution the likes of which I had never felt before. I knew the moment I said it that it would stick, because I meant it. It was a hardcore promise made directly to the soul. It happened alone, in the bathroom, with a face full of tears. Not some offhand conversation with friends or coworkers casually asking “so does anyone have any new year’s resolutions?”

Those conversations mean nothing. I would advise that you never ever include personal health goals in a conversation like that. Say something you know is achievable and is more of a lighter topic. The more you include your own weight loss goals in these moments, and the more you fail at them, the worse off your mental health is going to be. You’re going to get more and more depressed, year after year while your health deteriorates. Don’t do this to yourself. Don’t be casual about your health goals, your life is worth more than that.

If you make a resolution, mean it. Promise it to yourself, your soul, and never look back. It’s not a New Year, it’s a New You.