I hope you’ve all had a wonderful Christmas! I’m going to assume most of you haven’t pulled out your hair from the chaos of the holiday festivities. Now that the most festive holiday of the year is over, have you taken the time to focus on your resolutions for the new year? When you really think about it, do we need the “New Year” to make a resolution for ourselves? Who created this tradition and why do we do it? We need a new years resolution for what exactly?
New year’s resolutions started some 4,000 years ago by Babylonians. Since they were pagan, they believed in paying back debts, and returning things they had borrowed before entering the new year to gain favor from the gods. If they failed on their promises, they then would fall out of the gods’ favor.
The Romans also did the same. Offering sacrifices to a deity and making promises of good conduct for the new year.
Today, about 45% of people make new year’s resolutions. Of those 45%, only 8% are successful in achieving their goals.
New year’s resolutions are the reason why all the machines at LA Fitness are taken in January! Irks my nerves! OMG, flashbacks. Anyway. The gym is always less crowded by June. I have to keep telling myself that to calm my nerves while I wait for the arm pull machine thing. Stop playing people! They don’t follow through. Unfortunately, that holds true for many other participants of this thousand year old tradition. We do something for a week or a month, then give up. Here’s why I believe this happens.
The truth lies in the fact that you don’t need to wait for new years to change or start something. It’s a trend. What do people do with trends? Follow them…most times, blindly.
For example, you have plans to start a business, but you’re waiting until January to start it, and we’re in the month of October. McScuse me? Why not start meow? I mean, now? The answer is always now. Don’t put your plan on hold because of a pagan ritual. A lot of the time, we make resolutions we have no business making because…society.
Just know that any revelation you may have, or any epiphany bestowed upon your noggin at any given time, act on it right then and there. Instead of making new year’s resolutions, set goals. You don’t need a January 1st for that.
Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success
-Pablo Picasso