Why sticking to your New Year's resolutions matters.

By Dr. Diana Maatouk, Clinical Psychologist

If you think New Year’s Resolutions are a recent invention of the 20th century, think again. You have to go back more than 3,000 years to ancient Babylon to see resolutions in their first incarnation. At a festival held every March - the beginning of the year on the ancient calendar- the Babylonians considered the making of promises to be a way to improve their behavior from the past year as well as do right by their gods. Their resolutions were less about losing 10 pounds or learning how to play the guitar and more about paying their debts and returning tools they had borrowed from their neighbors. Still, it shows that even the most ancient of civilizations were cognizant of the passage of time and able to reflect on their pasts versus their futures.

Meaning of the Modern Resolution

About 30% of the Western population makes at least one New Year’s resolution, and interestingly enough, the youngest adults - those ages 18-29 - make the most. Forty-nine percent of them make at least one. The most likely reason for the high number is that they are the newest age group to live?on their own and the most likely to see glaring areas in their lifestyle that they want to improve on as soon as possible. The number drops to 31% for ages 30-49 and again to 21% for those over the age of 50; giving the idea that as older people become set in their ways, they become less likely to embrace change. The biggest motivation in the modern resolution is to do something different concerning our physical health. That is usually exacerbated by all the eating we tend to do around the year-end holidays! The most glaring statistic is the one about keeping our resolutions; it’s painfully low - just 9% of people turn their idea into a reality over the next 12 months.

Pausing For the Passage of Year

Taking time at the end of a year to consider what you’ve accomplished is an important process that everyone should undertake, especially given that most of us have a couple of holidays before the new year begins in force.

Taking some quiet time to reflect on the highs and lows of your past 12 months gives you the ability to ?really quantify what things stood out, what you were most proud of, and what happened that your brain hasn’t been able to completely process.

When we start formulating a list of New Year’s resolutions, what we are really doing is giving voice to our subconscious mind and the things that it has noticed about our behavior over the past 365 days. We might not have had time - or wanted to make the effort - but our minds deemed the topics important enough to keep them near the surface of our minds to be processed later on.

Being able to notice and effect change in ourselves over a long passage of time is not only the mark of a higher form of intelligence, but also the realization that improvement can and should be part of our lives as we age. While we might hit the occasional plateaus in our lives, we should not believe we are the best version of ourselves and cannot continue to make improvements.

How to Make Your Resolutions Stick

When it comes to getting your New Year’s resolutions to stand the test of time, the #1 thing to remember is that this isn’t a pass/fail test. If you vow to start walking 2 miles a day, and you only do it four times in the month of January - don’t give up or deem it hopeless! Resolutions usually involve big-time changes in our lifestyles or long-term goals that take a considerable amount of effort - both mental and physical to achieve. Regardless of how old you are, it is considerably different to move your behavior and thought patterns from a standard way of living to an alternative.

It takes considerable dedication and conscious decision-making to move from the old mindset to the new one. Instead of trying to abruptly change, take the time to map out a plan with attainable goals and milestones along the way that will allow you to make the change gradually. For instance, let’s say your resolution is to run in a marathon a year from now. If you make that decision on December 31, you’re not going to wake up on January 1 and run 26 miles, are you? Of course not! You need to build up your body’s endurance and ability to run the whole way, so you take it slow, try 1 mile this week, and gradually increase the distance until it’s next December and you can handle the whole course.

The biggest issue with resolutions is aiming too high, not achieving the results you want immediately, and then chalking up the entire thing as a failure and not continuing to try.

Conclusion

Ironically, the resolution that everyone should make and try to achieve first is: Keeping my New Year’s resolutions. Overcoming the mental barriers of giving up quickly when we don’t see immediate results is one of the biggest obstacles to overcome throughout our lives. Give yourself grace, patience, and the understanding that failure is part of the process, and you’ll have a much better chance of seeing your resolutions through to the end of 2025.