New Year’s resolutions: Making them and keeping them

Ever wonder where the idea of the New Year’s Resolution (NYR) originated?  According to history.com, the ancient Babylonians began making them over 4,000 years ago.  Now practiced the world over, the NYR is most popular in the West with 41 percent of Americans making them—and breaking them—year after year. Statisticbrain.com says of those 41 percent, only 9 percent felt they actually achieved their NYR in 2017.

The top three NYRs in 2017 according to nbcnews.com were:

1. Get healthy
2. Get organized
3. Live life to the fullest

If you want to increase your chances of keeping your NYR, psychcentral.com says to:

1. Keep goals small and simple—don’t seek to change your entire life, just pick a bad habit and work on it;
2. Be specific—write down exactly how you plan to achieve your goal and by when;
3. Don’t get discouraged—put setbacks into their proper perspective by being kind to yourself, acknowledging your humanity and limitations and trying again and
4. Ask for help—whether it’s from your financial planner or a close friend, know your strengths and get help where you are weak.

Health and fitness website activebeat.com says the number one goal of weight loss is best met by setting such goals as getting in shape to run a road race like a 10K or half marathon, rather than setting your goal to lose a certain number of pounds by a certain time.

Whether you make NYRs or keep them or not, statisticbrain.com says those who explicitly make NYRs are 10 times more likely to achieve a particular goal than those who do not. So keep making those NYRs and if at first you don’t succeed, try and try, again.