Every New Year’s Eve billions and billions of people on our planet make something called a New Year’s resolution. A New Year’s Resolution is a promise that you make to yourself to start doing something good or stop doing something bad on the first day of the year according to the Cambridge Dictionary. Some people consider their New Year Resolutions important. But, how important are New Year Resolutions and do people really follow through with them? When did they start? And are they really even worth making?
Firstly, what are some popular New Year’s Resolutions? According to a Forbes.com poll ¨The most popular in 2024 are Improved fitness, Improved finances, Improved mental health, weight, and an improved diet. The less popular resolutions are traveling more, meditating regularly, drinking less alcohol, and performing better at work¨. As you can see in the numbers previously stated, health is a very popular topic. Another health poll by Forbes.com asked what ways people achieve these resolutions. The most popular tools are the Diet program, gym membership, habit tracking, calorie counter, and meditation app.
Next, when did New Year’s Resolutions start? The history of New Year’s Resolutions dates back to the ancient Babylonians about four thousand years ago. The ancient Babylonians were also the first to hold celebrations in honor of the new year. According to History.com, ¨The Babylonians crowned a new king or reaffirmed their loyalty to the reigning king. They also made promises to the gods to pay their debts and return any objects they had borrowed. These promises could be considered the forerunners of our New Year’s Resolutions. If the Babylonians kept to their word, their gods would bestow favor on them for the coming year. If not, they would fall out of the gods’ favor a place no one wanted to be.¨
Why are New Year’s Resolutions so popular and is there a use for them? Making Health changes was a very popular resolution, but unfortunately, many people are not very realistic about their goals. Many people seek to lose an absurd amount of weight and when they don’t see an immediate change in their weight they give up on their resolution within a month or two. If most people would make their New Year’s Resolutions more simple and realistic like drinking more water or being more active there would not be as many people giving up their resolutions.
With all the information that we have, it begs the question: are New Year’s Resolutions worth it? I don’t think so because if you were really going to accomplish something like losing weight or gaining muscle you would not have to wait until a new year to do so you just need the willpower to do it on your own. At the end of the day the person who does have to be told to do something and just does it will end up accomplishing their goal. But this does not mean that you should not make New Year Resolutions ever again just be smart about the goal you set for yourself.
