With the New Year just around the corner, it’s a given that people will be ­making resolutions.

Unfortunately it’s also a given that many will spend the next few months boring the backsides off the rest of us by constantly bleating on about their better/healthier/greener lives.

Because, laudable as many resolutions may be, the good effects are often offset by the resolution-maker’s desire to boast about having turned over a new leaf on social media and whenever you meet up.

So, if you’ve yet to settle on your resolutions for 2026, here’s a guide to the ones to avoid – or, at least, have a careful think about your approach to – if you don’t want to end the year friendless. Plus, the ones that I wish peoplewouldmake…

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Resolutions we wish you’d avoid…

Dry January and Veganuary

Now, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to eat less meat and drink less alcohol – but did you know that it’s perfectly possible to do both without boasting about it on social media? Yes, apparently you can eschew animal products and pack in the proseccowithoutgiving daily updates to all your disinterested friends.

You know what’s even impressive? Taking it up full-time, rather than abstaining for four weeks then reverting to sinking a skinful and ­gorging on fried chicken.

Being charitable

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We all have a duty to give to charity when we can – and a quiet monthly direct debit to a favourite cause is what most of us choose. But if your resolution means you are going to take up triathlon, start climbing hills and swimming in lakes – and badger us to sponsor you for doing it – then, frankly, you can get on your bike.

Donating money to charity? Yes. Sponsoring your new hobby? Get lost.

Saving the planet

Turning your heating down by two degrees, buying Fair Trade coffee and wearing ­second-hand clothes are all great ways to be greener.

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But here’s my problem with those who trumpet their intentions to live a ‘greener life’; they’re usually the people who have two homes and drive between them in their Range Rovers, in between jetting off on holiday three times a year and polluting the air with their woodburning stoves.

Want to save the planet, Jessica? Give up your foreign holidays and cars. It’ll achieve much than donating your Boden cast-offs.

Practising self-care

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Resolving to spend time focusing on your mental, physical and emotional ­wellbeing sounds good on paper. However, in reality, what it invariably means is taking a picture of yourself in a bubble bath with a glass of wine and posting it on Instagram with the hashtags #selfcare #selflove #glowup. Just go for a walk and keep it to yourself.

Exercising

Vowing to get fit is one of the most popular resolutions – even though we all know, for most, it means joining a gym, going three times, then quietly cancelling your membership.

If that’s your plan, fine. Worse are the ones who become obsessed with fitness and imagine all their friends share their fascination too as they post their Park Run times, Strava screenshots and bang on about ‘PBs’ and ‘HIIT.’

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You’re a middle-aged suburbanite like the rest of us, not an Olympian.

Less screen time

You only have to look around on a train to see how we’ve all become smartphone zombies, so wanting to reduce your screen time is sensible.

Here’s the dilemma though: how do you cut down your screen time without using a screen to virtue signal about it to all your friends? It’s a tough one. And what will you do instead of looking at your phone? Watch Netflix? Read on your Kindle? They’re screens too, Susan!

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The habits we wish you’d ditch!

Online ‘vaguebooking’

I can guarantee you’ll know at least one person guilty of ‘vaguebooking’ – that is, posting cryptic messages on social media in the hopes of generating a rush of messages from concerned friends.

‘You really learn who your friends are at times like this,’ they’ll post. Or ‘worst day ever, please send supportive vibes’.

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Hinting at a crisis without actually saying what happened is the worst kind of attention-seeking behaviour.

Just say what you mean and stop fishing for sympathy. And while you’re at it, quit with the doctor’s surgery and hospital bed selfies, too.

Middle-class dumping

Got a load of old tat you can’t bothered to take to the tip? No problem! Just pile it all outside your house, upload photos of your junk in online neighbourhood groups and act like you’re performing some kind of community service. ‘Free broken lamp outside No 17,’ and ­‘bedside table, scratched and wobbly, help yourself’.

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This year, please, just take it to the recycling centre on a Sunday like everyone else.

E-scooters

Over the age of 12? You look ridiculous on an e-scooter and that includes you, Prince ­William. How did something that has always been a children’s toy suddenly become an acceptable form of transport for middle-aged adults?

Meanwhile, the rest of us are fed up of nearly being maimed by irresponsible e-scooter ­idiots zooming past us. Buy a bicycle, get off the pavement and have some dignity.

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Voice notes

‘Thought I’d leave a voice note as it’s easier than texting.’ Yes – for you! Nothing makes the heart sink faster than ­seeing a friend has left you a six-minute-long voice note on WhatsApp.

It’s arrogant and presumptuous; you can’t be bothered to spend the time texting, but you expect the receiver to spend the time listening to your breathless drivel. Do voice note-leavers ever wonder why people so often don’t respond? It’s because we delete without listening.

Not using headphones

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People holding conversations on loudspeaker, watching videos and listening to booming music without headphones have become the scourge of public transport.

Suddenly everyone thinks it’s OK to force the entire carriage to listen to their tedious conversations about what they’re having for their dinner, or to endure whatever moronic content they’re watching on YouTube or TikTok. If you do this, know that everyone around you loathes you and wishes you’d acquire some good ­manners. So why don’t you?

Gentle parenting

Haven’t we all rolled our eyes after witnessing some ­middle-class mummy attempt to ‘negotiate’ with her tantruming toddler blocking the entrance to Waitrose? If ‘gentle parenting’ was rebranded as ‘raising a brat’, would you be quite so quick to follow this annoying trend?

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There’s nothing admirable in refusing to discipline your unruly child and letting them run riot in restaurants, shops and cinemas, ruining outings for the rest of us.

Going to work sick

Made it into work with a streaming cold, sore throat and hacking cough? What a brave soldier you are! Actually, scrap that. What a selfish colleague you are. Instead of staying home, you’ve brought your germs into the office, you’re littering the desk with your snotty tissues and annoying the life out of everyone you’re infecting. In 2026, if you’re ­feeling unwell – stay home!