In anticipation and immediately after the New Year, many Internet users publish lists of goals that they want to achieve in the coming year, or useful habits that they want to instill themselves. We decided to find out whether to make promises effectively in early January.
Many of the lists of New Year's promises (they are also New Year's resolutions, from the English New Year’s Resolutions) inspired the film that was released in 2001 "Bridget Jones diary". The main character promised to lose weight and quit smoking, not to contact drunkards and workaholics, as well as stop looking at her own boss (spoiler: she did almost nothing of this). On New Year's Days and the first week of January, many Internet users Publishing Lists Various New Year promises, and the advice, how to make them correctly to accurately fulfill them, you can Meet V Media, on entertainment, cognitive And Information Portals, c Blogs, social networks And on video hosting.
Practice Making New Year's promises is by no means new - historians report that such traditions existed Even in Babylon and ancient Rome. In 1863, Mark Twain He wrote About January 1: “Yesterday everyone smoked the last cigar, drank the last glass and gave the last oath. Today we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days later, we will throw our reforms to the wind ... ”The tradition was modified until it reached this day in the form of lists in notebooks or social networks.
In December 2023, the portal "Work.ru»Published the results of a survey of more than 3,600 respondents over 18 years old, during which it turned out that the Russians most often promised themselves to increase their income, start accumulating money and playing sports in 2024 more. By data STATISTA platforms, similar goals for Americans - the most popular promises for 2024, they began to save more, play sports and have more healthy food. But the British, claims Forbes, the financial issue worries less: the first three places of the rating of promises there are sport, the fight against excess weight and healthy food.
Most likely, not all these resolutions will be fulfilled. The rejection of New Year's promises is so common that there is even a comic holiday for the day of the surrenders (Quitters Day). It is celebrated on the second Friday of January, when, by statistics The social network for STRAVA athletes, most of those who decided to play sports from January 1, lose their motivation and cease to strive to achieve their plan.
One of the earliest research The effectiveness of the New Year's resolutions was conducted by scientists of the University of Scranton (USA) in the late 1980s. For two years, they observed 200 subjects who made a decision to change their lives before the New Year. The most common promises were to quit smoking and losing weight. It turned out that during the first week, 77% of the participants were fulfilled, but after two years only 19% continued to follow them.
In December 2019, the YouGov company specializing in the collection and analysis of data conducted among 1174 adult Americans Online survey On the implementation of New Year's promises given in January. About 16% of those respondents who made up the lists of promises said that they were observing all of them, 44% - that some of them adhere to, and 18% - that they completely abandoned their New Year's resolutions. A year later, the platform Repeated survey. According to the results of 2020, about 35% of the Americans claimed that they were observing all their New Year's promises, and only 16% admitted that they did not fulfill one.
Although the results are far from 100%, judging by the later study of the same specialists from the University of Scranton, they are not as deplorable as it might seem at first glance. In 2002, scientists published the results of their research, during which for six months they watched two groups of participants. People from the first group made a list of New Year's promises, and from the second - although they wanted to change their life in a similar way, they did not compose any list of goals before the New Year. Researchers conducted telephone interviews with participants in both groups for six months. It turned out that in the first group of success 46%achieved, while in the second - only 4%. The authors of the study Tied The results obtained with the fact that people who made their promises thus have already switched to Stages of action, which means that they were more ready for changes in comparison with those who just thought about them.
In addition, in psychology there is such a thing as the effect of a new start. Specialists from the Worton Business School (USA) in 2014 Studied The frequency of search queries in Google by the word “diet”, statistics of the attendance of the local gym and service data that helps users set tasks and control their implementation. It turned out that at the beginning of the new calendar periods (for example, in the early days of a month or year), people were much more actively taken over for the setting of personal goals. Researchers note that it is not known how long the effect of a new start can inspire people to follow promises (judging by the surveys given above - not particularly), but you should not underestimate its meaning for specific one -time goals (for example, undergo a medical examination or make a donation to a charitable organization).
To increase the chances of the implementation of the New Year's resolution, specialists Consult Do not set global goals, but to divide them into several small and easily achievable. It will help to keep the promise and the answer to the question of why a specific change in life is generally necessary. When a person understands what benefit to him, for example, regular sports, it is easier to turn them into a habit than if he simply believes that "so is needed." The implementation of New Year's promises is also affected by their formulation. Swedish scientists in the course experiment, in which about a thousand people took part, they found that promises related to any undertakings are fulfilled with great success than aimed at abandoning certain habits (58.9% versus 47.1%). In other words, it is more effective to promise yourself to read more books, and not less sit in social networks. In addition, easier execute More specific goals: do not “lose weight” or “start playing sports”, but “to refuse sweets for six weeks” or “visit the pool every Tuesday and Thursday”.
Thus, according to the results of surveys and research, although New Year's promises do not guarantee real changes in life, they can really contribute to them. People who set their goals before the New Year (or, probably, in any other date selected in advance), more often achieve them than those who do not do this, even if they want to change their lives. In addition, the key to the successful implementation of the New Year (and, apparently, any other) promises to oneself - in the correct wording. Anyone who sets a goal to learn a certain number of new foreign words or to hand over a test for knowing the language for a certain assessment will more likely reach it than the one who promises simply “to learn Finnish”. At the same time, there are not so many qualitative studies of how New Year’s resolutions really help to change life for the better, and most of them are based on the subjective reports of participants in studies about their own sensations.
Photo on the cover: pexels.com
Read on the topic:
- Verywell Mind. The Psychology Behind Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail
- Is it true that any habit is formed in 21 days?
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