As the new year is upon us, many people plan to make New Year resolutions. A typical resolution may include eating healthier, getting more exercise or saving more money. As inspirational as these goals may be, they hardly ever pan out.
According to a study by The University of Scranton’s Journal of Clinical Psychology, 39 percent of people in their twenties achieve their resolution goals each year. As one gets older, the chances of completing these goals decreases. Fifty-year-olds, for example, have a 14 percent chance of achieving their new year resolution. If so few of us are likely to succeed in these goals, why do we keep making them? Where does this tradition have its roots?
The month of January is named after Janus, the two-faced Roman god whose spirit inhabited doorways and arches. Believing that Janus symbolically looked backwards into the previous year and ahead into the future, the Romans offered sacrifices to the two-faced god and promised to be good for the coming year. Thus, the first day of the new year became an occasion for reflecting on the past year and promising to do better in the future.
Today we make promises to ourselves that focus primarily on self improvement. While you may be motivated to achieve these goals at first, your motivation begins to crash and burn when you are unable to see any meaningful change. After all is said and done, we make the same goals for ourselves again the next year, hoping that somehow things will turn out differently.
So how can we get out of this vicious cycle? Many New Year resolutions are centered around making new habits or changing old ones, something that is easier said than done, according to Susan Weinschenk, a psychologist at Psychology Today, an online literature magazine. Weinschenk said habits are automatic, “conditioned” responses.
To change a habit, create a new one by following these three steps: picking a small action (ex: save five percent of a paycheck, as opposed to ‘save money’), attaching this new action to a previous habit, then committing to making this task manageable for at least the first week.
Note that these steps are not specific to the start of the year. If you are looking at truly changing your ways, start the change when you are ready, instead of following along on the bandwagon, because that kind of goal rarely results in meaningful change.