Why is taking New Year's resolutions a bad idea ?
New Year is coming, and with it, the famous ‘New Year’s resolutions’. For those of you who don’t play that game (or may don’t know what it is), it is a traditional habits of expressing changes and wishes for the year incoming.
But where does it come from ?
According to some research, Babylonians were the first to take New Year’s resolutions. Promisses were made to the god, on subject such as money or social relations. It had evoluated trough time, from the Roman Empire to medieval Christianity, where knights were renewing their vows to chivalry. In modern times, new year’s resolutions are a time for introspection.
New Year’s resolutions held, at their creation, religious values. Now, it is more of a symbolic talking rather that religious actions with deep meaning.
Taking resolutions can increase anxiety, and by making a summary of your year, your exposing yourself to self-criticism. 34% of people taking resolutions wants to ‘lose weight’, while 32% wants to ‘improve diet’ (Forbes, 2023). If it seems like a good idea for some people, it’s most of the time doing the opposite. It is a time for self-criticism, to looking your body in the mirror and saying ‘I don’t like this or that’ and thinking you need to be somewhat different.
The number 1 tip from the British Psychological Society for New Year’s resolutions is ‘don’t make resolutions’. Dr Audrey Tang explains that New Year’s resolutions can erase the progress made in the past. In a interview for the British Psychological Society, she advice to people to ‘take a moment to recognize what you have, because at one point those things were as much your goals as your new resolutions’ (2022).
Expressing resolutions is more of a marketing argument. Indeed, a lot of brands and companies have used the tradition of New Year’s resolution to push people to consumption. Sports brands will push you to ‘practice more sports in the year incoming’ to push you to buy more sports clothes.
You can take resolutions at any other time of the year, whenever you feel ready to. Do not feel pressurized to do so because of a date in the calendar : )
So, what if not taking any resolutions became your new resolution ? : )