Transcription
If one of your New Year's resolutions is to become fluent in English, I have bad news for you. You're probably not going to achieve your goals. And I mean this in the nicest possible way.
Unfortunately, the numbers don't lie. Statistically, most people give up on their New Year's resolutions. So, if you want to avoid this and one of your New Year's resolutions is to become fluent in English, then watch until the end of today's video because I'm going to teach you a strategy you can use to avoid becoming like most people and to avoid giving up on your goals.
Now, personally, I actually don't believe in New Year's resolutions. I never make them for myself simply because I don't believe in putting something off until the new year when I could start it earlier. And if you are a highly motivated person, which I assume you are since you're watching this video, I always recommend starting immediately. If you have a goal, if there's something you want to achieve, don't wait until January 1st. Start right away.
Whether that's in December, November, October, or whenever in the year, January 1st is a time when people make goals. They set what we call resolutions for the new year. And if you've ever been to a gym on January 1st, you know how busy it is. Everybody wants to start their new routine. But if you've ever been to a gym on February 1st, you know how empty it is. All those people who started going to the gym on January 1st gave up.
There's actually something called Quitter's Day. And Quitter's Day is often described as the second Friday in January. So, in 2026, this is going to be January 9th, and this is where most people give up on their goals. That's right. They don't even make it 10 days into the new year before giving up on their goals.
Another survey from Forbes Health found that the average New Year's resolution lasts just 3.74 months. It doesn't matter whether somebody quits on Quitter's Day or in February or in March. The bottom line is most people don't make it through the first 3 to four months, let alone the whole year.
Recently, I've been thinking a lot about this and I've been trying to figure out why this is. And I think I know the reason. You see, most people overload themselves. On January 1st, everybody feels pressure to meet their goals, to set New Year's resolutions, and to do as much as possible to achieve those goals. But unfortunately, they overload themselves. They do too much at once. And when you overload yourself, it's not sustainable.
If you've gone from doing nothing on December 31st to doing a few hours a day studying a language or in the gym, then obviously you're not going to be able to keep up at that pace. It's going to be very difficult because you're not used to it.
The solution is to do less. Everybody thinks about doing more on New Year's Day, but what if you did less? Ask yourself this. Would you rather study 5 hours a day and quit after one week or on January 9th, which is Quitter's Day, or would you rather study for 10 minutes every day and actually stick with it for the whole year? The person who spends 10 minutes a day for the whole year is going to get a lot further than the person who studies for 5 hours and quits after 10 days.
At the beginning of the year, you have an initial burst of motivation. You really want to become fluent. You tell yourself, "New year, new me." But the problem is that motivation fades. That passion fades. And success comes from consistency. Doing something for an extended period of time regularly and consistently.
If your New Year's resolution this year is to improve your English, then you need to grab your calendar. You need to write down at the same time every day in the calendar. You can block off 10 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever is realistic for you. Write in the calendar that you're going to study English at that time. Mark it off, make it visible, but put it in the calendar.
If you use a digital calendar, you can create one event and you can set it to repeat every single day. That way, when you check your phone, when you check your calendar, you see 10 minutes, 20 minutes of English, and you're reminded to actually put in the work and to study. If you put in 5 hours of English, you would look at your calendar maybe in a week, and you would feel overwhelmed. You would feel overloaded. You would feel like there's no way you could possibly spend 5 hours on English, and you'd give up. But 10 minutes, on the other hand, you can take 10 minutes in the morning, in the evening. And that's a very realistic amount of time.
I talk a lot about studying English. And I want to clarify what I actually mean by that. I don't mean sitting at a desk with headphones, reading textbooks, studying a subject like you would at university. When I say studying, I simply mean doing anything in English. It's as simple as that. watching a video in English, reading a book in English, reading the news in English, listening to a podcast, speaking anything. You're not sitting in the library reading a textbook. You're simply doing something in English. In fact, right now, you're watching my video and you're studying. It doesn't have to be complicated. It doesn't have to be stressful. You just need to do something in English.
Have you ever heard of the KISS principle? KISS is an acronym which stands for keep it simple stupid. It was supposedly adopted in 1960 by the US Navy, but it's been in common usage in English since at least the 1930s. And I love this principle. Keep it simple stupid. You don't need to over complicate things. You don't need to reinvent the wheel, as we say in English. You just need to do something, something simple, something obvious that you know will help you improve your English, but it doesn't have to be perfect. You don't need to over complicate it. You just need to keep it simple.
10 minutes a day, 20 minutes a day is not glamorous, but it will put you ahead of most people. As we've seen in today's video, most people don't reach their New Year's resolutions. They give up. They quit. And if you want to avoid that, simply do less. but do it for longer.
I hope you found this video useful. If you'd like to study English with me and my team in the new year, this is the perfect opportunity to apply for our premium online programs. We have several options available, and we have group classes, private classes, recorded classes, and so much more to help you improve your English. It just takes a minute to submit an application, and you can do so by clicking the link in the description below.
Of course, don't forget to subscribe to English at the Ready here on YouTube. Leave a like and let me know in the comments what your New Year's resolutions are for 2026. I hope you have a great start to the new year and I'll see you in the next.