New Year’s Resolution 2025 Edition by Angela Rieck

Well, it is time for New Year’s resolutions. While I am not particularly good at keeping them, I am skilled at making them.

I am not alone in my lack of commitment. Eighty to ninety-one percent of New Year’s resolutions don’t last more than six months. Twenty-three percent of those who make New Year’s resolutions quit them by the end of the first week and 43% quit by the end of January.

So, I count myself in the majority.

This year I made my usual resolution to lose weight. I am consistent about making this resolution…and some year I hope to keep it. Twenty percent of New Year’s resolutions are to lose weight. It is no surprise that commercials about weight loss programs are ubiquitous. But this year I notice a change. Most of the commercials are about GLP prescription solutions. Even traditional diet or behavior-based programs are offering this option. Let’s face it, most diets and willpower solutions don’t work.

My second resolution is to become more technologically savvy. My phone is my lifeblood and my nemesis. There is an app for everything, and I am expected to use all of them. My phone contains apps for my bed, my oven, my vacuums, my heating and cooling systems, my Wi-Fi’s, my refrigerator, transit trains, flights, hotels, UBER, LYFT, money, banking, email, calendar, music, calculator, flashlight, credit cards, Starbucks, Walmart, eBay, weight loss, Target, Instacart, grocery stores, messenger services, games, social websites, Internet phone, Internet services, texting, cable, television, streaming services…and more. I cringe every time I hear the phrase, “you need you to download our app.” But this is the world that we live in and ignoring it will not make it go away, no matter how hard I try. So, I am resolved to use my phone instead of my computer and to purchase most tickets on the phone. I suspect that this will be my hardest New Years’ resolution, even harder than my weight loss resolution.

And finally, I am resolving to be more active on social media. I am an intensely private person and have no social Internet presence. But I need to add social media apps so that I can enjoy the postings of others.

I know that I will not be successful unless I develop a plan. I need to set milestones and ways to measure incremental success. Experts say not to rely on will power. But let’s face it, if New Year’s resolutions did not require will power, we wouldn’t need to set them. 

Another way to be successful is to set a routine or schedule. For example, one of my plans is to access social apps for an hour three times a week. 

Another tactic to increase chance of success is to use groups. Classes also offer both expertise and group support. 

Of course, resolutions are a marathon and not a sprint; and because of that, I have to be willing to accept setbacks. I can accept the slip, but not to use it as permission to quit. 

And finally, there is SHAME. 

Which is why I put my resolutions in a column every year to hold myself accountable. Clearly, a desperate attempt.

Angela Rieck, a Caroline County native, received her PhD in Mathematical Psychology from the University of Maryland and worked as a scientist at Bell Labs, and other high-tech companies in New Jersey before retiring as a corporate executive. Angela and her dogs divide their time between St Michaels and Key West Florida. Her daughter lives and works in New York City.