New Year's Resolutions: Are They Worth All the Hype?

Today, I happened to stumble across my new year’s resolutions from 2008. Looking back, a lot of the habits that I wanted to change 10 years ago are still things that I need to work on. That’s depressing, but I’m not alone in the millions of people who make these promises to themselves that they don’t keep. New Year’s resolution customs are more common in Western culture, but it happens all over the world. It’s a tradition that has BEEN happening for quite some time.

NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS ORIGINS

The ancient Babylonians are regarded as the first people to make New Year’s resolutions about 4,000 years ago. They were also the first to hold celebrations to bring in the new year – they were recorded every year in mid-March when the crops were planted. During this 12-day religious celebration, known as Akitu, the Babylonians crowned a new king or reaffirmed their loyalty to their reigning king. They also made promises to the gods to pay their debts and return any borrowed objects. If they kept their promises, their gods would bestow favor on them in the coming year. If not, they would fall out of the god’s favor. Luckily, there are no real stipulations placed on the failure of our resolutions now.

In Rome, Julius Caesar fiddled with the calendar and established January 1 as the beginning of the new year circa 46 B.C. January had a special significance for the Romans since it was named after Janus – the two-faced god who symbolically looked backward into the previous year and ahead into the future. The Romans offered sacrifices to Janus and made promises of good conduct for the coming year.

In 1740, English clergyman, John Wesley created the Covenant Renewal Service – a night service most commonly held on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day that includes reading from scriptures and hymn singing, and served as a spiritual alternative to the raucous celebrations that observe the new year. This custom is still common within evangelical Protestant churches. These celebrations did not serve to make promises for the upcoming year, but to pray for blessings upon it.

THE PSYCHOLOGY BEHIND IT

Even though we’ve had about 4,000 years of practice of making resolutions, most of us can’t seem to keep them. Why is that? There are a few viable reasons for this.

‘TOP SECRET’ Resolutions
“When you keep your resolutions a secret, no one is going to check up on you. You’re only accountable to yourself,” explains Joe Ferrari, a professor at DePaul University in Chicago. Having a resolution announcement party or the use of social media is a way of letting others in on your goals and once others are involved, they’ll be more likely to help you help you reach your goals.

Laundry List o’ Resolutions

I know that I have the tendency to try and pile my resolution list quite high with the hopes to stick to each of them and create a new and better version of my life for the new year. But every time, I forget AT LEAST half of them.

Limiting yourself to a few resolutions, may
be even one, and being specific are a few things to keep in mind,” says Michael Kitchens, assistant professor of psychology at Lebanon Valley College. “It’s tempting to take a list of “to-dos,” but that list will easily be overwhelming, and you will end up frustrated.”

All it takes is specificity to increase your chances of sticking with a goal that you set. Instead of the common resolve to losing weight, set how many pounds you want to lose and the exact date you plan to be at that weight. “Set a goal that is challenging, but manageable,” Kitchen explains. New research is finding that it takes longer than 21 days to form a habit. On average, according to a recent study, it takes about 66 days to form a habit of doing something new.

“Don’t try and do everything,” Kitchen says, “Take things on one at a time.”

Keep Your Eyes on the Prize AND the Progress

Now that you have your very specific goal and time frame on when you will achieve it, tracking your progress is the key to success. "It feels very good to check things off and cross them off, so that's very rewarding in and of itself," Dr. Stephan Graef, a sports psychologist at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, explains. Visual representation of your progress is also a motivation to some. "If on your calendar, you've marked off five days in a row where you've met your goals, that's going to really increase the likelihood that you don't want to break that on the sixth day. It just looks aesthetically pleasing to the human eye to have that consistency in that tracking," Graef said.

Don’t Beat Yourself Up
"People on the whole tend to be harder on themselves than they are with other people. They tend to beat themselves up," says Dr. Karen Lawson, director of the Integrative Health Coaching program at the Center for Spirituality & Healing at the University of Minnesota.

"So, when we have a day when we fall down on the diet, instead of telling yourself that you're weal or bad, tell yourself that you had a bad day and that tomorrow's a new day to start over." It's important to be compassionate with yourself, acknowledge your slip ups, and move on. Focusing on getting back into the swing of things is what will continue the momentum and help achieve the success in the long run.

PARTICIPATION AND SUCCESS RATE

A few quick facts about resolutions:

• 40 to 45 percent of Americans say that they usually make New Year’s resolutions. Only 8 percent are successful in achieving their goals.
• Meaning, most people fail in adhering to their goals. Specifically, 22% fail after one week, 40% after one month, 50% after three months, 60% after six months, and 81% after twenty-four months. Which goes to show you, that most people don’t consider needing to stick to their resolutions past the first year.
• The most common resolution is made to increase the amount of exercise that one gets – it’s estimated that 37% of resolutions are this one.
• 46% of those who made common resolutions (e.g. weight loss, exercise programs, quitting smoking) were over ten times as likely to succeed, compared to only 4% who chose not to make resolutions but still succeed.

Ultimately, a lot of people fail, some people succeed, but you’ll never see any change if you don’t at least try.

I took an alternative method last year and created a dream board for this year’s determinations. It might be my subconscious seeing the images every day and connecting with my conscious level living, but a lot of more of the decisions that I made were coming true. Maybe combining these tips for success with a new board this year with new goals will make 2018 the most successful yet!