English Podcasts |

Ever heard of a SWOT ? It's often used to assess the feasibility and progress of projects, but how about applying it to your language learning ? It's a great way to kick start your motivation and learning plan by assessing your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunties and Threats. Listen in to find out more.

13, March, 2026

Episode 245: Making Resolutions for The New Year

In this podcast, we look into setting resolutions for the New Year, and should we even bother setting resolutions?

Making resolutions for the New Year

by English Podcasts | Podcasts in English

https://english-podcasts.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Resolutions-2025.mp3

Apple PodcastsBlubrryAndroid PodcastsRSSSubscribe by EmailSpotifyYouTube

Welcome back to English-Podcasts, in this episode we examine the good and the bad of setting resolutions for the New Year. Is it of any use? Did you know that 93% of all resolutions made on 31 December are abandoned just a week or two later?

Notes

Whether or not to set New Year's resolutions depends on your mindset, personal goals, and what works best for you. Here’s a breakdown to help decide:

Reasons to Set Resolutions:

Fresh Start Effect: The new year feels like a clean slate, which can motivate you to pursue goals.

Reflection and Growth: Resolutions can help you evaluate your past year and set intentions for growth.

Structure: Setting goals gives you direction and a framework for self-improvement.

Accountability: Declaring a resolution often makes people more committed to their goals.

Challenges with Resolutions:

Unrealistic Expectations: If goals are too lofty, it can lead to frustration and burnout.

Pressure and Guilt: Not achieving resolutions can cause feelings of failure.

Short-Term Mindset: Many resolutions fade by February because they lack a long-term plan.

External Influence: Resolutions driven by societal pressure rather than personal desire often lack meaning.

Recap & Takeaways

Alternatives to Resolutions:

Set Intentions: Focus on a word or theme for the year (e.g., "balance" or "growth") rather than rigid goals.

Break It Down: Set small, achievable goals throughout the year instead of one big resolution.

Reflect Regularly: Monthly or quarterly reviews can help you adjust goals as life changes.

Celebrate Progress: Focus on the process and celebrate small wins along the way.

Ultimately, if resolutions inspire and motivate you, go for it! If they feel overwhelming, there are other ways to reflect and grow without the pressure. What’s your take—do you set resolutions, or do you prefer another approach?

Stay Tuned For Our Latest Episodes

Subscribe to our Facebook group and page, our Youtube channel and to our Instagram to get all the latest podcasts, quizzes and blog posts.

Start Listening Today!

View Episodes

Contact Us

[email protected]

FollowFollowFollowFollow

Short answers are longer than just saying "yes" or "no". Native speakers tend to add the axuarily to the yes and the no. Listen in to find out what we mean. Practice with the exercises and see how quickly you can answer.

Tag questions are questions added to a short sentence, usually at the end, to engage the listener, check understanding or confirm that an action has heppened.

Tag questions are very common in natural English and they can also have distinct meaning according to the tone used with the tag, a rising tone and a descending tone can communicate very different meanings from the question asked as you will find out in this podcast.

Common tags include: Won’t you? Wasn’t it? Don’t you? Haven’t you? Wasn’t it? Wouldn’t you? Isn’t it? Isn’t there? etc.

In this series we are going to be looking at ways that we can enhance and improve our learning and perhaps crushing some of the myths about learning techniques that we learnt in school.

Every day we meet people with different techniques for learning vocabulary, but most of them revolve around some pretty shaky ideas, those being 'if you write stuff down, you've learnt it.'

If only things were that simple ...

This rarely works, due mainly to the fact that some important steps have been missed out - those being, actively learning the vocabulary and then actively using it.

Let's put this in prallel with sport, to illustrate the idea.

Imagine that you are a huge cycling fan and you love the Tour de France and you would like to experience the grueling (look that one up if you like) hardships of a day riding in the mountains of the Tour de France.

So, you get all the magazines about the Tour and mountain cycling, you have the maps and you have read all the technical stuff on hydration and nutrition during a massive climb in the Pyrenees mountains in the south of France.

You have even chosen your mountain, Le Col du Tourmalet - wow! that's a big one, and have bought a fabulously expensive 'S-Works' bicycle for the climb. 

You've seen the videos and read all the information, but that's as far as you go - THAT is how a lot of people learn - they don't go the final mile of training before getting on the bike after weeks of muscle and stamina building. They don't prepare for the day that they will be climbing Tourmalet on their bike.

OK, they know all about Tourmalet, Le Tour de France and mountaing cycling - but they have no guarantee of ever being able to achieve the ascent of a mountain on their bicycle.

Listen to the podcast, N°1 in a series, to get some ideas to improve your learning.

Staying focused, motivated and driven can be tricky, especially when you have a busy working and/or family life to deal with.

Check out this podcast to find 10 golden rules for staying motivated learning English.

When we start learning something new, it can be a novel experience at the start and we want to put a lot of effort into our learning, but as time goes on, we can start to flag and at times we just cannot get the motivation to continue learning.

This is especially true if we don't have a clear plan for our learning or if we can't see our progress moving along as fast as we would have expected.

Try some of these golden rules.

How many are you using now?

How many come as a surprise to you?

Will you try and use some of them?

 Want a website like this one?