In the run-up to and immediately after the New Year, many internet users post lists of goals they want to achieve in the coming year or healthy habits they want to instill in themselves. We decided to find out whether it is effective to make promises to yourself in early January.
Many people were inspired to make lists of New Year’s resolutions (aka New Year’s resolutions) by the 2001 movie “Bridget Jones's Diary" The main character promised herself to lose weight and quit smoking, not to get involved with drunkards and workaholics, and also to stop staring at her own boss (spoiler: she did almost none of this). On New Year's Eve and the first week of January, many internet users publish lists a variety of New Year's promises, and advice on how to compose them correctly in order to accurately execute them can be meet V Media, on entertaining, educational And information portals, in blogs, social networks and on video hosting sites.
Practice making New Year's resolutions is by no means new—historians report that such traditions existed even in Babylon and Ancient Rome. In 1863 Mark Twain wrote about January 1: “Yesterday everyone smoked their last cigar, drank their last glass and took their last oath. Today we are a godly and exemplary community. In thirty days we will throw our reforms to the wind...” The tradition was modified until it reached our days in the form of lists in notebooks or social networks.
In December 2023, the portal "Rabota.ru” published the results of a survey of more than 3,600 respondents over 18 years of age, during which it turned out that Russians most often promised themselves to increase their income, start saving money and play more sports in 2024. By data Statista platforms, Americans have similar goals - their most popular promises for 2024 are: saving more, playing sports and eating healthier food. But the British, he claims Forbes, the financial issue worries less: the first three places in the ranking of promises are occupied by sports, the fight against excess weight and healthy eating.
Most likely, not all of these resolutions will be implemented. Giving up New Year's resolutions is so common that there is even a joke holiday called Surrender Day (Quitters Day). It is celebrated on the second Friday of January, when statistics social network for athletes Strava, the majority of those who decided to exercise more often from January 1 lose motivation and stop striving to achieve their plans.
One of the earliest research The effectiveness of New Year's resolutions was conducted by scientists at the University of Scranton (USA) back in the late 1980s. For two years, they observed 200 subjects who made a New Year's resolution to change their lives. The most common promises were to quit smoking and lose weight. It turned out that during the first week, 77% of participants kept their promises, but after two years only 19% continued to follow them.
In December 2019, the data collection and analysis company YouGov surveyed 1,174 American adults. online survey about fulfilling New Year's resolutions made in January. About 16% of those surveyed who made lists of resolutions said they kept all of them, 44% said they kept some of them, and 18% said they had abandoned their New Year's resolutions entirely. A year later platform repeated survey. At the end of 2020, about 35% of Americans said they kept all of their New Year's resolutions, while only 16% admitted that they didn't keep any.
Although the results are far from 100%, judging by a later study by the same specialists from the University of Scranton, they are not as dire as they might seem at first glance. In 2002, scientists published the results of their research, during which two groups of participants were observed for six months. People from the first group made a list of New Year's resolutions, and from the second, although they wanted to change their lives in a similar way, they did not make any list of goals for the New Year. The researchers conducted telephone interviews with participants in both groups over a period of six months. It turned out that in the first group 46% achieved success, while in the second - only 4%. Authors of the study tied up the results obtained with the fact that people who made promises to themselves have thus already moved on to stages of action, which means that they were internally more ready for changes compared to those who simply thought about them.
In addition, in psychology there is such a thing as the new start effect. Specialists from the Wharton School of Business (USA) in 2014 studied the frequency of Google searches for the word “diet”, statistics of attendance at the local gym and data from a service that helps users set goals and monitor their implementation. It turned out that at the beginning of new calendar periods (for example, in the first days of the month or year), people were much more active in setting personal goals. The researchers note that it is unknown how long the fresh start effect can inspire people to keep promises (judging by the surveys above, not much), but do not underestimate its importance for specific one-time goals (for example, getting a medical test or donating to a charity).
To increase your chances of achieving your New Year's resolution, experts advise do not set global goals, but divide them into several small and easily achievable ones. It will help you keep your promise and answer the question of why a specific change in life is even necessary. When a person understands what benefits, for example, regular exercise will bring him, it is easier to turn it into a habit than if he simply thinks that “it is necessary.” Keeping New Year's resolutions is also affected by their wording. Swedish scientists during experiment, in which about a thousand people took part, they found that promises associated with any endeavors are fulfilled with greater success than those aimed at giving up certain habits (58.9% versus 47.1%). In other words, it is more effective to promise yourself to read more books, rather than spend less time on social networks. Moreover, it is easier perform more specific goals: not “lose weight” or “start exercising,” but “give up sweets for six weeks” or “go to the pool every Tuesday and Thursday.”
So, according to surveys and research, while New Year's resolutions don't guarantee real life changes, they can actually help make them happen. People who set goals before the New Year (or probably any other pre-selected date) are more likely to achieve them than those who don't, even if they want to change their lives. In addition, the key to successfully fulfilling New Year's (and, apparently, any other) promises to yourself is in the correct wording. Someone who sets a goal to learn a certain number of new foreign words or pass a language test with a certain score is more likely to achieve it than someone who promises to simply “learn Finnish perfectly.” At the same time, there are not many high-quality studies on how much New Year’s resolutions really help change life for the better, and most of them, for obvious reasons, are based on subjective reports of study participants about their own feelings.
Cover photo: 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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