Over the past week, millions of people are likely to have considered New Year's resolutions.
What does data tell us about their success and should we continue to make them?
The word resolution originates from the Latin word, "solutus", meaning "made loose" or to "release". This suggests a breaking down of a substance into a simpler state.
The prefix "re" indicates intensity rather than repetition. Thus, a resolution is a "complete release" or a "complete breaking down" rather than a "releasing again" or "breaking down again".
This brings us to our first key insight into resolutions.
THEY are now more for the egosystem and the self and less about the ecosystem and the community.
THERE are no consequences if resolutions are not honoured.
The second insight is this: resolutions have a high failure rate.
In the 1970s, almost 25 per cent of people abandoned their promises within 15 weeks. Some 20 years later, the same proportion of people abandoned their resolutions in the very first week.
New Year's resolutioners typically report making the same pledge for five years or more before they manage a six-month streak of success, and of those who fail this year, 60 per cent will make the same resolution next year.
Thus, it appears that the best predictor of what you will do in 2023 is what was done in 2022.
Psychologist Richard Wiseman conducted a study on more than 3,000 people and their New Year's resolutions in 2007. He found that at the start of the study, 52 per cent of the participants were confident of success. However, one year later, only 12 per cent actually achieved their goals.
It is clear resolutions have a high failure rate. But it is also critical to note that they disappear very quickly, too.
Resolutions are romantic and seductive. This is the third insight.
Perhaps a New Year's resolution has become the equivalent of a birthday wish for peace, love, promotion, money and beauty.
It invites a new beginning to the romantic, but it does not invite the middle or end to the logical mind. It does not come with a roadmap.
Goals, on the other hand, are defined as outcomes which we want but have difficulty in achieving.
The "soul" of a goal knows suffering must be endured in order to achieve it.
Resolutions inspire wishful thinking such as "I want to be a world-famous writer". However, they do not entail sacrifice, training and endurance.
The same study by Wiseman found that:
THE 12 per cent who succeeded tended to break their goals into smaller steps.
They also told their friends about the goals, focused on the benefits of success and kept a diary of their progress.
MEN were 22 per cent more likely to achieve their resolutions if they set specific objectives and wrote them down. Women were 10 per cent more likely to achieve their goals if they shared them with family and friends.
In fact, more than 100 studies have concluded that people who explicitly state when and where their new behaviours are going to happen are much more likely to stick to their goals.
This brings us to our third insight. Resolutions are often about what you wish for. But this has no bearing on everything else that's needed to make it come to fruition.
So maybe it's time to permanently blow out the candle of the New Year's resolution.
You should focus on setting goals instead.
The writer is an organisational psychologist and a certified professional coach who has been in practice for over 20 years