Why Your New Year's Resolution Didn't Make it Past the First Month
By Lionel Getten
With a New Year comes new promises that individuals often fail to keep, putting an expiration date on the renowned “New Year's Resolutions.” Typically, these resolutions have the potential to change people’s lives for the better, so the question arises, why do New Year's resolutions not work?
New Year’s resolutions were said to have first begun by the ancient Babylonians as a religious promise. History.com details the yearly process instilled in their culture, as well as the consequences to either fulfilling or neglecting these promises.
“They also made promises to the gods to pay their debts and return any objects they had borrowed,” History.com states. “If the Babylonians kept to their word, their (pagan) 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.”
While some still practice New Year’s resolutions as a religious belief, the concept has evolved into a more widespread, secular tradition. It seems simple, as a new year emerges so do new promises, but as for why these promises are often broken is a little less simple.
Breaking habits is hard enough but breaking them abruptly is even harder. Often referred to as going “cold turkey,” many professionals advise against practicing such behavior if attempting to break habits.
The Oxford Dictionary defines cold turkey as the abrupt and complete cessation of taking a drug to which one is addicted. Drugs are a more extreme example, but the concept is applicable for all types of addictions or habits.
For instance, a popular resolution is to quit smoking, and according to Dr. J. Taylor Hays of the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, going cold turkey is extremely ineffective for this. Hays stated, “research over the past 25 years has shown that out of 100 people trying to quit smoking cold turkey, only about three to five of them will succeed for longer than six months. In other words, while some people can quit this way, at least 95% of people can’t.”
Whether it’s attempting to eat healthier, stop drinking or stop bad spending habits, going cold turkey has medically been proven to be ineffective. In contrast, attempting to ease habits in or out of a routine gradually rather than abruptly proves more effective which raises a new argument: Why wait until January 1st to improve yourself?
Chaffey student Elijah Jones was riddled with this same question in response to his opinion on New Year's resolutions. He stated, “I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions because limiting yourself to a specific day to make a difference in your life will do you more harm than good; you can start any day.”
Given the task to reach an intended goal throughout the course of a year can become overbearing to some, and disheartening to those who fail to pursue this goal. Doctor of Physiology, Cynthia Vinney attests to the idea that setting such big goals over the course of an entire year is too overwhelming, and partly why New year's Resolutions aren’t successful.
“As a result, if we want to be able to meet our goal of, say, learning a language, we need to set smaller goals along the way to be successful, like devoting five minutes a day to learning a new word or phrase,” Vinney states. “That way we can ease ourselves into the change, instead of making an overwhelming change that we probably can’t sustain, like planning to be fluent in the new language in four months.”
This article isn’t meant to crush dreams or encourage pessimism but rather offer advice to those who are looking to change their lives for the better. Instead of overwhelming yourself with year-long promises to abruptly build better habits, think small to achieve big and quit limiting yourself to the new year, and then maybe you’ll make it past the first month.