Setting New Year’s Resolutions is common, achievable, and is a tradition that has been around forever.
The origins of New Year’s Resolutions can be traced all the way back to 4,000 years ago with the ancient Babylonians.
According to history.com, the new year for the Babylonians started mid-March at that time because that is when crops were planted.
During the 12-day festival surrounding the new year, the Babylonians made promises to the gods saying that they would repay all of their debts and return any objects that they borrowed throughout the year.
This religious practice is what is said to have started the tradition of New Year’s resolutions as we know them today. Nobody really knows how, why, or when, but the ritual has since somehow evolved into more of an exercise on self-improvement for most Americans. This is not a bad thing by any means, but is quite the opposite. Goal setting can be beneficial to our physical and mental health and overall wellbeing.
According to Stastista, The highest ranked resolution of 2022 was to live a healthier lifestyle. Twenty three percent of people aimed to reach this goal. Just behind that, twenty one percent of Americans said they wanted to concentrate on personal improvement or overall personal happiness in the upcoming year.
New Year’s resolutions are just goals or intentions that people set for themselves each year. According to positivepsychology.com, goal setting is important to those who want to reach a higher level of success.
Resolutions help to trigger new and improved behaviors, they help us to focus and they give people momentum to push forward in life. Accomplishing goals also helps to give people a sense of achievement.
Challenge yourself and set small goals each day that help guide you toward reaching your overall objective. Setting and achieving small goals helps us to stay motivated by giving us a sense of accomplishment. The more tasks we accomplish in a day, the better we feel about ourselves.
Announce your intentions. Share them with friends and family so that they can help to support you in this endeavor. By doing this, it holds us accountable and keeps us motivated to continue down the path to success.
You can do it and you should do it. We all have improvements we want to make in one way or another. Now is the time. Be creative and break it down into easy to reach goals and you can never go wrong.