“Ins and Outs” list: new year's resolutions are a thing of the past (2024)

FAQs

“Ins and Outs” list: new year's resolutions are a thing of the past? ›

The concept is simple: you draft a list of habits you want to implement into your life and ones that no longer serve you or you want to break. The lists often vary in length with some being as short as five and others having 20 “Ins and Outs”. My 2024 "ins" encompass various aspects of my life.

The trend kicking off the New Year on social media

The concept is simple. The “In” is what you want more of in the New Year. The “Out” is what you want to stop doing. Inspired by this trend, I came up with an “in” and “out” list to share with all of you.

Common ins for 2024 include early bedtimes, staying hydrated and red-light therapy, while impulsive shopping, mindless phone scrolling and vaping are popular outs.

Some reasons include the idea that we're thinking too big, we're not considering the 'why' behind them, and the fact that we may not be ready for change.

Smaller but still sizable shares made resolutions about money or finances (61%), personal relationships (57%), hobbies or personal interests (55%), or work and career (49%).

Unlike resolutions, ins and outs don't rest on those tropes about all the things we need to change about ourselves. Instead, they're about embracing the things we want to embrace while letting go of the things we don't.

In 2010, Washington Post staff writers Monica Hesse and Dan Zak co-authored The List, which itemizes people, places, things, and even ideas-and rates them as either "out" (not popular, not fun, not recommended) or "in" (popular, fun, and recommended).

New Year's resolutions work for many but are only a good fit for some. A nudge word or "nudge motto" is a way to give yourself a gentle attitude adjustment. Options that offer alternatives to traditional resolutions include making a series of one-month resolutions and a "to-don't" list.

What is bad about New Year's resolutions? ›

Most of our resolutions are either unattainable or too generic. Things like "work out a lot, be healthy" or other vaguely ambitious goals are just too easy to break as they aren't specific enough. I tried New Year's resolutions myself and always failed horribly.

To conclude, New Year's resolutions are largely a waste of time. Though setting goals as a new year dawns can be a good source of change, this often fails due to how unspecific and unrealistic New Year's resolutions can be. Making them at the start of the year can also make the excitement wear off quickly.

Let's see what Scripture has to say. Proverbs 16:9 gives us this truth, “The heart of a person plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.” Here, Proverbs is telling us that as we grow and discover our talents and gifts, we make plans that we hope would be fulfilling for us in the future.

Less popular resolutions include traveling more (6%), meditating regularly (5%), drinking less alcohol (3%) and performing better at work (3%). Among other results: 62% of respondents said they feel pressured to set a new year's resolution. Women (64%) feel slightly more pressured to set a resolution than men (60%).

So what will we wear this year? Crisp white and butter yellow will be trending for the months ahead, as are sequins and basics like denim pants and white T-shirts. On the accessories front, raffia is bigger than ever right now, while polished kitten heels and Mary Jane flats are popping up everywhere.

You can find trending topics by browsing social media platforms, industry websites, and forums like Reddit and Quora. However, you'll soon discover that this trend discovery process can be time-consuming and inefficient. It might take you hours to discover just one promising trend.

The three main types of trends are uptrends, downtrends and horizontal trends.