Voices

I Resolve To...

Why do we make them but can't keep them?

New Year's resolutions: It is a safe bet that all of us have made them at one or many times in our lives.

It's probably just as safe to bet all of us have failed to keep at least some of those resolutions, if not all of them.

That begs the question, why do people make New Year's resolutions, especially if the chances are they won't be kept?

According to the experts — psychologists and such that study these questions — people make resolutions because they do actually want to better themselves. They want to get healthier, look better, feel better, treat others better and the list goes on.

"The first reason, I guess, is that it is tradition. And yes, people want to improve themselves. But I also think it has a lot to with control, a feeling that 'I can start over again, have a new beginning,'" said Peoria psychologist Joy Miller. "People want and need to have power to make changes in their lives and take control of their lives."

It's not surprising, given the relative youth of this country, that making New Year's resolutions apparently comes from rituals of other lands, in other times. Some were religious, others were simply traditions.

In England, according to author Mary Bodel, people performed rituals on the first day of the year that were meant to signify how the rest of their year would go. "As an example, if you were a farmer you'd try to plow some land. A housewife might bake bread or do some sewing and so on," she said.

Bodel said the Scots had a tradition called "first footer." They wait to see who comes through the front door first in the new year and "gender, hair color and other attributes declared whether it would be a good year or a bad year."

Wow. Talk about pressure.

But the origin of the new year's resolution, much research shows, goes back 4000 years with a Babylonian ritual centering on making amends and making peace. Articles about that ritual also say the problem with keeping resolutions dates back just as far.

Statistics on how many make resolutions and successfully keep them vary with each study of the subject. All, however, agree that more people than not fail to keep the resolution beyond the first month.

The experts say the reasons for that are varied, as well, but less so.

Miller said like anything else a person wants to achieve in life, commitment to the resolution is the first necessity. If a person isn't committed to stop smoking or to lose 50 pounds, it is unlikely he or she will be able to do so.

"Unfortunately most people don't have that commitment because they aren't doing it for the right reasons or for themselves. Their reasons are less internal than external, such as doing it because someone else wants them to do it. The chances of succeeding under those circumstances are not very high," she said.

"A lot of people don't have the skills it takes to deal with setbacks and because there will inevitably be setbacks, they will not succeed," Miller said. "The people who succeed the most are the ones who establish realistic expectations but are specific about goals."

She also said people must not get too angry with themselves when they do have setbacks or it will be more difficult to get started again. "Be gentle with yourself. Then just start again," she said.

Psychologist John M. Grohol, founder of PsychCentral and psychcentral.com, wrote that the top three ingredients for resolution failure are:

• Not thinking about making resolutions until the last minute.

• Reacting on New Year's Eve and making your resolutions based on what is bothering you or on your mind at that time.

• Framing your resolutions as absolutes by saying "I will never do X again."

The best ingredients for success, Grohol wrote on his blog on psychcentral.com, are:

• Have a strong initial commitment to make a change.

• Have coping strategies to deal with problems that come up.

• Keep track of your progress. The more monitoring you do and feedback you get, the better you will do.

Finding tips on how to succeed with resolutions is easy with the Internet. The site psychcentral.com is one place to start, as is About.com. The latter site, for example, said careful examination of your motivation to change is probably the top tip, even above setting realistic goal.

That site also says a person needs to "Allow for imperfection. No one is exactly on target all the time. In fact you should expect to falter every now and then. If you give in to temptation, do not use this as an excuse to abandon the whole program. Learn from your mistake and move on."

Proactive.com says a compilation of studies suggest 40 percent to 45 percent of all American adults make one or more New Year's resolution each year. Of those, 75 percent will have kept the resolution through the first week, 71 percent past two week, 64 percent through one month and only 46 percent beyond six months.

That site also points out, however, that making resolutions is useful. "People who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don't explicitly make resolutions," it said.

That makes sense, doesn't it? Yes it does, said Timothy Drew, a Peoria psychologist, because there is a difference between a person who simply desires to do something and one who, in resolving to do something, puts together a plan to do it.

"A person who actually resolves to lose weight and get more fit and then puts together a plan to reach a reasonable and attainable goal is far more likely to succeed than the person who just goes and buys the latest workout video and expects that to do the trick. So yes, it makes practical sense," Drew said.

"I may desire lots of things but I am far less likely to get them without a real plan to get them," he added.

Drew said people who are unhappy or unsatisfied with their lives or certain aspects of their lives are more likely to make resolutions than those who consider their lives peachy.

But if there is a correlation between happiness and making New Year's resolutions, isn't making them and failing to keep them likely to make unhappy people more unhappy, perhaps depressed?

"That is absolutely true, because they have failed to satisfy their desires or their needs," Drew said.

There is a difference, he added, between desire and need, and the person who fails to satisfy a basic need is likely going to feel worse about it than one who cannot satisfy a desire.

"Nobody wants it put on their headstone that 'He made budget' or 'He wishes he'd spent more time at the office.' They want 'husband' or 'father.' That is a basic need, to belong and be loved. But while there is a difference between desire and need, they often go hand-in-hand," Drew said.

An article on WebMD.com had the headline: "Try giving resolutions a rest and just do your best." It further suggested people make one last resolution; that being to make no more resolutions.

It is hard to argue with that logic, said Drew.

"That is simply saying that making our need to make a change into a New Year's resolution is putting ourselves under undue pressure. It doubles the likelihood of failure. Who really says there is something magical about Jan. 1 other than it is somebody's tradition? Pick any other day of the year — Feb. 1, May 1 or Oct. 21 — any day you want to start your plan. A day that has no other significance to it than that is the day you should choose to stop smoking or start your diet or whatever," he said.

About the Author