The celebration of New Year’s holds a special place in many cultures as the dawn of a new year is symbolic of new beginnings. One of the wide-spread traditions when the ball drops is the setting of personal New Year’s resolutions. When looked at more closely, however, usually there are more pens writing than crossing off during this time.
Often, people make resolutions to exercise more, to eat less junk food and to improve their finances, but does setting these lofty goals lead to anything practical? New year’s resolutions are an outdated practice, in not just their practicality but also their usefulness.
Setting unrealistic expectations inevitably leads to disappointment. Attempting to fulfill these broad desires ultimately sets people up for failure, with 91 percent of Americans not accomplishing their so-called resolutions by the end of the year.
This disheartening outcome contradicts the purpose of resolutions as the tradition aims to motivate people to change their lives, usually for the better. In reality, however, resolutions have been demonstrated to worsen mental health and increase feelings of failure and disheartenment. Incomplete resolutions can leave individuals feeling guilty instead of excited for the end of the year.
When working towards goals like resolutions, it is important to break them down into manageable, incremental steps to make the end result achievable. Small steps are key as they provide a sense of accomplishment when reached, further motivating individuals to continue to the next step.
The same mindset holds true when looking to implement a new action or behavioral change into daily life, which is a common topic for resolutions. The Harvard Business Review stated that “the reality about big behavioral changes is that it’s unlikely you’ll make a dramatic shift overnight — otherwise you would have done it long ago. But we often underestimate our resistance to smaller adjustments as well;” therefore, it is important to work from these small changes gradually to larger ones.
New Year’s resolutions ultimately fail because they are either unrealistic, lack proper motivation or are never implemented. In order to have a successful resolution, don’t treat it as a resolution, treat it as a goal that needs to be worked towards overtime through small achievable steps.
According to a study conducted by Columbia University, only approximately 25 percent of people stay committed to their resolutions just a month after Jan. 1. (Photo/Freerange).
