“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language,
And next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.”
T.S. Eliot
At midnight, on December 31st, we say goodbye to 2023 and embrace the new year 2024. For many, this can be quite a poignant time as they reflect on the year gone by, regret the mistakes made and all that was left undone, and thereby resolve to correct that in the year to come, hence the new year resolutions.
The practice of making new year resolutions is, actually, quite old. Around 4,000 years ago, the Ancient Babylonians celebrated the new year during the spring equinox and made promises to the gods to pay their debts and return borrowed items.
The Ancient Romans also made promises to their god Janus (the two-faced deity who looked backward into the old year and forward into the new one) to improve themselves morally and socially. While in the medieval era, knights took the “peacock vow” at the end of the Christmas season each year to re-affirm their commitment to chivalry, the 17th century England saw people making promises and commitments for the upcoming year, focusing on self-improvement and personal growth.
New Year’s resolutions gained popularity in the United States during the 19th century, when temperance societies encouraged individuals to make resolutions to abstain from alcohol. The practice of making resolutions became more widespread and diverse in the 20th century as people began to set resolutions related to health, career, education, and personal relationships. Today, new year resolutions have become more of a fad. They seem to be the rage as one year blends into another, but then, they fizzle out.
Why do they fizzle out? Why do our new year resolutions fail? Though there can be many reasons for the same, and often those reasons would be specific to the individual, some reasons are common, at least for those who make the resolutions for all the wrong reasons. So, what then are the wrong reasons for making new year resolutions? Let’s look at a few –
Click to expand and read the points below:
Right Resolution, Wrong Reason – Case in point – health.
One doesn’t need a new year resolution to start leading a healthy life. Choose health! Start now!
Too big a challenge
One of the biggest reasons for the failure of new year resolutions is the magnitude of the task. Instead of easing into something, we try to scale a mountain or make a sweeping change, which is totally out of our comfort zone and, more often than not, hard to achieve. The unsuccessful process might just leave us frustrated, demotivated and in self-doubt.
Do I need to change?
Change can be good, but one needs to understand whether they really need the change or not. Is the change aligned with a goal for the coming year or is it just for the sake of changing something with the changing year? An important question to answer.
So, why then do people make new year’s resolutions? Just for the sake of keeping a tradition going, or perhaps for meeting new challenges and emerging a winner? Maybe one does it just because everyone else seems to be doing it or perhaps one doesn’t want the coming year to be the same as the one that went past? Whatever the reason, why do people still make new year’s resolutions, when most of them are unable to see them through?
Though lots of reasons come to mind, one stands taller than the rest – hope. People hope for change, for something better, for a chance to correct a mistake, to right a wrong, to do what was left undone. A new year’s resolution gives people a purpose, a direction, something to look forward to, and that in itself is reason enough for it to be.
“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something.”
Neil Gaiman
