Why should we make New year resolutions and its benefit? (Part1)

Have you written your new year’s resolution yet? Did you write your resolutions last year? Have you made a New Year’s resolution before?

Have you heard these questions before? Of Course you have!

Why do you think we make resolutions for the New Year?

What is a New Year’s Resolution?

Why should we keep writing our Resolutions?

And How could we keep ourselves on the track of making our resolutions come to life?

Anyone who decided to write a New year’s resolution has asked themselves these series of questions at one point. So let’s resolve them all for once;

Let me start by saying that, I believe that New Year’s Day is always a time for looking back on the year that is finishing and looking forward to the year that’s coming (Just like Janus a mythical god of early Rome with 2 Faces). It is the best time to practice verb tenses; Evaluate yourself throughout last year and motivate yourself in the coming months.  

The first step to writing a New Year’s Resolution is to assess / evaluate yourself for the past year.

Why is self assessment/evaluation important? 

Self evaluation is a great opportunity for individuals to self-reflect and consider what their strengths and weaknesses are, not to forget, you can be your own best judge and guidance. You can omit resolutions that are repetitive or you may have learned a few resolutions that can help you be the best you. 

Now what exactly is a New Year’s resolution and why do we hear its importance?

A New Year’s resolution is a tradition, most common in the Western World but also found in the Eastern World, in which a person resolves to continue good practices, change an undesired trait or behavior, accomplish a personal goal, or otherwise improve their life at the start of a new year.

Origin of this tradition is found between the traces left from Romans; They began each year by making promises to the god Janus – Which the month January is apparently named after -. Later on this tradition changed path for the methodist christians – at Watchnight services – to say their resolutions in their christmas prayers. This tradition dates back to the reign of Cesar period. At the time, New Year’s resolutions were of a moral nature, such as being kind to others. 

Why New year’s Resolution?

Oleksandra Naumenko

A New Year’s Resolution as you may all have heard is a decision to accomplish a personal goal over a short term or long term or just to break a habit but all in the means of improving self. Every year we decide to be better, it’s the course of nature that by changing seasons and a beginning of a new year, you want to change, set new goals and expectations for the year ahead. 

Why we make (and break) New Year’s resolutions

Dr.Charles Herrick, Chair of Psychiatry at Nuvance Health has shared a paper on why we make New Year’s Resolutions and some points are worth the mentioning: 

• Research shows that fewer than 10 percent of people who make New Year’s Resolution keep them for more than a few months.
• Giving up on New Year’s resolutions is often related to three issues: difficulty breaking old habits, focusing on specific outcomes, and problems with purpose.
• Uncertainty and hardship related to COVID-19 may make it especially difficult to prioritize New Year’s resolutions in 2021.
• You can increase your chances of achieving your New Year’s resolutions by setting realistic and achievable process goals that will help you form new habits, as well as following other steps for success.

Now we know the importance of new year’s resolutions. So we could start making it a necessity in our personal and work life. In our next blog, we would talk about the reasons that we fail at our resolutions and the solution to this problem.

Written By: Asal Ghamari

Edited And Published By: Sepideh Lashkari, Mina Haselian