People all around the world celebrate the start of each new year which has been a tradition for at least five millenniums. Most New Year's festivities begin on December 31 (New Year's Eve), the last day of the calendar, and continue into the early hours of January 1
(New Year's Day). Common traditions include attending church, parties, cooking a special New Year's day meal, seeing family, making resolutions for the new year and watching fireworks displays.
Over the last couple of years the most common thing about new year’s for a lot of people was the setting of resolutions for that year. The vast majority of people create a list of resolutions that reflect positive changes they hope to make in the year ahead, but in the last year or so there has been a decline in this number which is perhaps due to the unpredictability of 2021, but the percentage of UK adults making New Year's resolutions for 2022 has dropped from the past two years.
“According to Statista's Global Consumer Survey, just 27 percent of UK adults will have made a New Year's resolution for 2022.”
Overall it’s been found two weeks into the year the most popular resolutions for 2022 are to exercise more (43%), eat healthier (43%) and lose weight (40%).
Positive Factors of setting Resolutions
Making resolutions may seem mindless to some, but there are positive factors to setting them like:-
Goal-setting is an important component of life. Goals are key because they provide general direction in life. A goals are guidelines that give you an direction of where you are heading and the sets required to take to get there
They help with self-improvement
They create consciousness for Success
They can create some bigger life changes
They create time for reflection, where you can assess the impact of your actions both past, present and future, figuring out what has been working and what may need to be changed to provide a boost
Reality of Resolution setting
“Most New Year's resolutions are doomed to fail because it takes a lot more than setting a resolution to change,” says Warren Holleman, director of MD Anderson’s Faculty Health & Well-Being Program. “It takes self-understanding, skills, strategies and support.
Research shows up to 80-percent of New Year's resolutions fail by mid-February.
The reason behind this fail is a critical problem with most New Year's resolutions as they're just a want, a wish, a vague idea of something you want to do better with no hard deadline or specificity to the goal. Majority of the time It's something that you're vaguely putting out in the universe. But the universe rewards those who are specific. The fact is that vague goals produce vague results.
10 Alternatives to New Year's Resolutions
Create a Bucket List For the New Year
Follow a Monthly 30-Day Challenge
Take a Yearly Challenge
Create a List of Things to Look Forward To
Decide What to Track or Measure
Decide on One-Word for the Year
Reboot an Area of Your Life
Take a Life Audit
If you are looking to be successful with the resolutions you have set yourself try setting small steps that will lead you to outcome of the resolution you have set yourself and add time frames to each step. If you want to go a step further ask a close friend to help motive you and keep you on track so you can definitely achieve your goal.
If you or anyone you know needs help with setting goals and sticking to them read our blog on Steps To Effectively Measure Your Progress to help you start 2022 off in the right way.
Listen To Podcast S2 E14: Does The Meaning of New Year's Change as you get older?
