With the start of the new year, people all across the world are taking action on their new year resolutions. Whether your goal is to lose weight, get better grades, or to simply become the best version of yourself, it’s easy to say that the new year brings something out in all of us.

While some people’s resolutions involve getting out of their comfort zone and completing a difficult task, others will focus on becoming a new version of themselves altogether.

I recently found myself scrolling through Twitter, only to discover an overflow of ‘new year, new me’ posts on my timeline. Although witnessing this didn’t surprise me since it happens annually, I began to question why we set such high expectations on ourselves in the first place.

According to American clinical psychologist Joseph Luciani, 8% of people achieve their new year resolutions, while roughly 80% don’t. This can cause people to question, doubt, and lack confidence in themselves when completing a goal.

However, if we didn’t set such difficult to reach goals and rather take one small step at a time, we wouldn’t have to deal with the emotional and mental after effects of not meeting our own standards.

While I do believe that setting goals can be beneficial, I think that this year we should stop setting high expectations on ourselves to become the ‘new you.’ Instead, we should strive to be the best version of ourselves, but take it one step at a time.

According to psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert, one way that you can ensure achieving your resolutions is by making them more specific to your needs. Instead of saying you want to lose weight, set a certain amount you would like to lose by a certain date.

It could also be beneficial to set a timeline, but if you want the best outcome having short, medium, and long term benchmarks will keep you on track to meeting your goal.

Another common reason why people’s new year resolutions fail is because despite the effort put in to achieve their goal, they lack the motivation to continue with it.

In most cases, the person will set the same resolution for themselves the year after, however, it remains unlikely that they will meet their goal if they spend more time talking rather than taking action to meet it.

As American entrepreneur Walt Disney once said, “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”

Like many of us, Disney had goals of his own. But instead of spending his time talking, he began doing in order to build the life he wanted for himself. The worldwide known company he produced has touched the hearts of billions, all because of how he managed to create the impossible.

But sadly, people often fear the unknown, however, I believe that it’s never a bad idea to see what would happen if I, or anyone for that matter, were to explore the possibilities. As Joseph Campbell once said, “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”

Forget a new year resolution, this year, let’s create a new life resolution to become the most authentic version of ourselves. We should take more risks and get out of our comfort zone, while also managing to not be too arrogant or too humble.

As someone who strives to always improve as an individual, I believe that it is important to become the best version of yourself. However, things like that don’t happen overnight, which is why it’s good to take things one step at a time. After all, tomorrow isn’t promised.