How To Make The Most Of Your New Year's Resolutions

Around 4000 years ago (give or take a couple decades) the Babylonians were some of the first people to make New Year's Resolutions. This remains a tradition loved and practiced by many today, even the Kardashian family! With the New Year having recently passed, it is important to look back and reflect on 2022. From the death of Queen Elizabeth to the first successful heart transplant from a pig to a human, there was no shortage of shock and grief in this past year. Having reflected on this eventful past year, there is now a lot of emphasis on New Year's resolutions, a constant question of “what do I want to do better this year?” While the idea of a New Year's resolution can be exciting in theory, it is also vital to ensure we are choosing helpful New Year's resolutions. These new goals have the potential to be incredibly meaningful, so it is important to take a step back and understand what makes a good New Year's resolution before forming one. Like many things, social media has created ideals for what New Year's resolutions should look like. Topics of self-improvement such as weight loss, exercising, and eating healthy foods often flood the main pages of popular apps like Instagram and TikTok. Though these may seem possibly beneficial, resolutions also have the potential to be extremely harmful. Some of the harms include gaining a negative relationship with yourself and leaving you feeling as though you are inadequate and need to be improved. In order to avoid the harm a simple New Year’s resolution could pose, it is necessary to craft resolutions with care and purpose. This begins with an understanding of the two ways in which people make goals: approach oriented and avoidance oriented. Approach oriented goals indicate “reaching or maintaining desired outcomes”(Pychyl), an example of this would be, wanting to be more productive during the day. Avoidance oriented goals are explained as “avoiding or eliminating undesired outcomes”(Pychyl), these are among the most popular New Year's resolutions, as they present themselves as, cutting certain foods out of your diet in order to reach a weight loss goal. While both of these types of goals have their own advantages, approach oriented goals have a better statistic for satisfaction, self-esteem and competency (Pychyl). However, an important thing to note is that avoidance oriented goals can be framed as an approach oriented goal, it really is all about your perspective! This change would look like making an avoidance oriented goal such as “I want to stop eating carbs” and changing it to “I want to start making healthier food choices”. While this does broaden the approach to the goal it takes away the avoidance of a specific thing, and can then lead to better results when it comes to achieving this goal. Another way to formulate goals is by using the SMART acronym. The acronym includes making goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound (Miller). By using this acronym you should be able to make goals that you will genuinely be able to accomplish and measure your success. An example of a goal that follows the SMART acronym is wanting to review lecture material for at least 2 hours every day. By following all letters of the SMART acronym, this goal can be more easily tracked and maintained than a less structured counterpart. While deciding on a New Year’s resolution it is also extremely important to remember to love and forgive yourself, as it is impossible to be perfect. Throughout the upcoming year it is important to show ourselves love and gratitude, and strive to be a better person while not dampening the one we currently are.

Written by Lena Kahn

Edited by Sinead George

References:

Materson V. New Year, new start? this is how to keep your resolutions, according to Science [Internet]. World Economic Forum. [cited 2022Dec21]. Available from: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/12/new-year-resolutions-goals-science/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CResolutions%20regarding%20avoiding%20or%20quitting,%2Doriented%20resolutions%20%E2%80%93%2047%25.

Miller JA. How to make (and keep) a new year's resolution [Internet]. The New York Times. The New York Times; [cited 2022Dec21]. Available from: https://www.nytimes.com/guides/smarterliving/resolution-ideas#:~:text=Your%20goals%20should%20be%20

Oscarsson M, Carlbring P, Andersson G, Rozental A. A large-scale experiment on New Year's resolutions: Approach-oriented goals are more successful than avoidance-oriented goals [Internet]. PloS one. U.S. National Library of Medicine; 2020 [cited 2022Dec21]. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7725288/

Pychyl TA. Approaching success, avoiding the undesired: Does goal type matter? [Internet]. Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers; [cited 2022Dec21]. Available from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/dont-delay/200902/approaching-success-avoiding-the-undesired-does-goal-type-matter#:~:text=Approach%2Doriented%20goals%20involve%20reaching,more%20happiness%20than%20the%20mother.