Don’t feel bad if THAT New Year’s resolution isn’t on your list

It's the start of the year, not the end of the world.

The second the clock struck midnight marking January 1, the beginning of 2018, the first day of the New Year, Instagram became inundated with one thing - the #NewYearNewMe hashtag. Out were the #BoyDoneGood posts, and in were the images of fruit baskets, kale soup, and gallons of water all under the guise of the iconic Gingham filter. They took over our feeds, taunting us with their health and fitness as we sipped tentatively on our seventh prosecco of the night thinking "Shit, I've to sort myself out now, don't I?" Okay, that's probably not exactly how it went down but you get the idea. Scrolling through typical New Years resolution lists you'll find the usual suspects:

• Eat more vegetables
• Be nicer to strangers
• Drink less
• Read more books
• Stop blaming all of your problems on men, they're definitely the cause of about 80 percent of your issues but that other 20 percent simply cannot be accounted for, etc.

One thing that all of these lists have in common though is the top resolution. Seasons change, years go by, another Kardashian announces a pregnancy, and yet this one thing remains constant, a repeat offender at the top of every single New Year's resolution list known to man - lose weight. It's understandable too. Christmas has just finished, you've probably eaten about 10 turkeys and drank eight bottles of Baileys over the course of the holidays, maybe you're feeling a bit more sluggish than you did before you went home for the festivities and didn't move an inch all week. That, we all know, is a very acceptable way to spend Christmas. And yet, come January everybody's wrecking themselves in the gym, refusing to eat carbs, and nibbling on their fifth raw Chopped of the week. ... Which is a very acceptable way to spend January if you genuinely want to do all of those things. If so, fair play, you have more self-control and willpower than most of us ever will. But if you genuinely don't want to do all of those things, then you really shouldn't feel bad about not doing them. New Year's resolutions are, mostly, a load of crap. They should be ways for us to better ourselves, cut out the alcohol that leaves us hungover for days, or save some money, but most of the time, they're not. They make people feel bad about not doing enough and they make others feel even worse about not doing anything. So if you haven't got the top, number one, seemingly most important, weight-loss-based New Year's resolution on your list for this year, don't worry. At the end of the day, 80 percent of people give up after a month anyway.