New Year’s resolutions have become tradition at this point. Even if you don’t partake in it, there will certainly be a contingent of people who crave change and the new year is a great symbolic moment for a fresh start.
It’s also a great time for the other contingent of folks to start taking jabs at it in the form of posts, memes, and reactions because we all know the gym is going to be empty roughly a month or two later.
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So, why are New Year’s resolutions so prevalent and observed in many parts of the world? The short answer is that they’re important and healthy.
One of the reasons has already been hinted at in the introduction and that is that resolutions can provide a fresh start. “New Year, new me”, after all.
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The new year is like hitting kind of a reset button, which allows you to set new goals (or pretend they’re new, but they’re actually old, just needed a revisit). Whatever the case, it’s a nice symbolic time to reflect and refocus your priorities in life. And with that, you gain more clarity, you finally have a direction to work towards, which in turn allows you to plan and be prepared for the challenges ahead.
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If anything, resolutions can make us feel good. Well, all right, completing resolutions can make us feel good. It’s the same as accomplishing anything important, except this time around you’re doing this for you.
And besides feeling like a million bucks (inflation not adjusted), you will actually get something done which in turn should improve your life. And who knows, you might end up doing more.
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Would you be surprised to learn that New Year’s resolutions have been around for roughly 4,000 years? Though, it wasn’t in January, but rather in March because crops.
The celebration would last 12 days, they’d crown a new king or reaffirm their loyalty to the old one, they’d promise the gods they’d pay their debts, return anything borrowed and whatnot, not unlike how folks do resolutions today.
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Now, you can joke about how even after 4,000 years humanity is still making promises of change. But it’s not uncommon for us to break promises made to ourselves.
You see, many of us lose our resolve when we’re stressed or tired. It’s just how our brain is wired. These promises to ourselves are about self-discipline, and it’s easy to shut that part of the brain down with worry and exhaustion.
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There’s this thing called executive function—a set of mental skills like working memory, flexible thinking and self control. Stress and tiredness shuts those down after a hard day’s work and so it becomes very naturally tempting to just skip a beat. Or two. Or all of them—who needs to go to the gym? I’m not in that bad of a shape, right? Right!?
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Luckily, it’s possible to keep it up by creating what Shooksvensen called a stress budget. It works just like a financial budget, except you’re not spending money—rather, you’re giving time and attention to things that stress you out. And if you don’t give any, then it won’t stress you out. Pure and simple.
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An example of conserving a stress budget would be to skip reading or watching the news for a day, don’t reach out to people who stress you out, don’t pile commitments or events into one day, don’t tempt yourself with things that support bad habits or whatever else that might deplete your stress budget. In other words, identify what stresses you and don’t invest yourself in it.
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So, once that is out of the way, you can really focus on keeping your New Year’s resolutions: make them realistic and attainable by taking baby steps rather than leaps; try to internalize resolutions to a degree where it becomes a routine as it becomes easier to keep up; don’t be afraid to experiment and change things if it isn’t working—so long as you keep it up; celebrate small victories as it goes a long way and keeps you focused. There are more, but you get the idea, but pace yourself first.
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So, what are some of your New Year’s resolutions for this year? How will you approach them? Or why don’t you have resolutions? Share your takes and stories in the comment section below!
And if your resolution is to scroll through more Bored Panda content—very commendable—then there’s definitely more memes and posts about New Year’s resolutions.
