More than 80 percent of us set at least one New Year's resolution, but good intentions often don’t last until March.
So what's the history of New Year's resolutions, why do we make them and why can they be so hard to keep?
The idea goes back 400 years, psychologist Sarb Johal told Summer Times.
Do you set yourself for New Year's resolutions?
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“Around 4000 years ago Babylonians heralded in the New Year, but they did it in March.
And it was very much kind of tied in with planting new crops and what was going on in their calendar, in their part of the world.
And you can see that happening with the ancient Egyptians too.”
Then the Romans adopted it, but they moved it to January 1, he says.
“It was done in honour of the Roman God of beginnings, Janus.
“And that's where we get January from.”
These days it's more to do with wiping the slate clean, Johal says.
“Perhaps sometimes the indulgence over that holiday period, you’ve got either the solstice in the deep mid-winter, where you're kind of breaking into your provisions.
“Or here at this end of the world, we're in the summertime and we want a new start to the year; so often it’s wiping the slate clean.”
Around 80 percent of people who make resolutions fail, he says.
Psychologist Sarb Johal Photo: Supplied
“When you make a New Year's resolution, it's kind of difficult, because it's not what you would call a smart goal.
“It's not particularly specific, it is in terms of the behaviour that you want to change, but it's not in terms of timeframe - the rest of your life is a very long time.
“And the first time you hit a speed wobble, and perhaps you're not so great on that day, it's easy to feel like you've just failed and there's no point carrying on.”
Evidence suggest embracing something positive rather than abstention is more effective, he says.
“If we can adopt what are called approach behaviours, so adopting more healthy things, rather than trying to avoid unhealthy things.
“And this is the trick; whenever you're trying to replace a behaviour, replace it with something that you enjoy and you get benefit from.
“And that way you're much more likely to stick to it than just avoiding something that you find unhelpful or is making you unhealthy.”
Having a specific time frame also helps, he says.
“I think we get a nice little clue on things like campaigns like Dry July. So, they're saying here's 31 days where you can make a commitment.
“Not only is it a time limited commitment, but you're doing with a whole bunch of other people as well.
“And there's all kinds of social support, people in real life, online campaigns where people can feel like they're part of a group, and they're all achieving them. And they're all taking it one day at a time across these days off on one page of the calendar, rather than flipping over 12 pages and seeing this huge amount of time that you need to kind of get through to the end of the year.”
