Most people don’t keep their New Year’s resolutions. According to a 2023 poll from Forbes Health, the vast majority of people give up their New Year’s resolutions after less than four months. Only 1 per cent of those surveyed said they kept their resolutions for 11 or 12 months. At minimum, this is wildly uninspiring. At most, it is downright disheartening.
Why, year after year, do our New Year’s resolutions seem destined for failure?
Humans have been making New Year’s resolutions for thousands of years. About 4,000 years ago, ancient Babylonians made New Year’s resolutions; they are considered the first people to do so. March, when the crops were planted, marked the start of the new year for the Babylonians. To celebrate, they would hold a massive 12-day religious festival in mid-March called Akitu. During Akitu, they would crown a new king or affirm their loyalty to the reigning king. At this celebration, Babylonians would also make promises to their gods, willing to pay their debts and return any objects they had borrowed. If they followed through on their promises, the gods would show them good fortune for the coming year. If not, they risked falling out of the gods’ favour.
When Julius Caesar established January 1 as the beginning of the new year in c. 46 B.C., Romans began to offer sacrifices to the two-faced god Janus, making promises of good behaviour in the upcoming year. By the 16th century, for early Christians, January 1 became the traditional day for reflecting on one’s past mistakes and resolving to do and be better in the future.
Despite a rich history of New Year’s resolutions among human civilization, humans have long ignored a critical aspect of the etymology of the word “resolution.” “Resolution” directly originates from the Latin noun resolutionem, which refers to the “process of reducing things into simpler forms.” The noun comes from the verb resolvere, which literally translates to “to loosen.” By the 1540s, resolutionem became associated with a method of problem-solving, in the sense of solving a mathematical problem. In the 1780s, the word “resolution” in the context of the New Year had evolved to mean a “specific intention to better oneself.”
Herein lies a problem. Humans have continuously interpreted “resolution” by its noun and verb forms, leading to its association with a promise to better oneself in the New Year. Even as early as 46 B.C., when “resolution” had yet to be explicitly paired with the New Year as we know it today, Romans made sweeping promises of good conduct for the upcoming year. These large-scale promises can be overwhelming, leading us to give up on our New Year’s resolutions shortly after we set them. Like the Romans did in 46 B.C., we, too, tend to make ambitious promises to ourselves each New Year that can prove difficult to achieve.
What if we focused on the adjectival form of resolution instead? Both the noun “resolution” and the adjective “resolute” come from the same Latin verb resolvere, yet we tend to separate the two when it comes to making New Year’s resolutions.
This is a mistake: the adjective “resolute” holds a great power that is distinct from the meaning of “resolution.” The word “resolute” means “marked by firm determination” or “determined in character, action, or ideas.” Is this not the most fitting way to view New Year’s resolutions, as something to be achieved with staunch determination?
For too long, we have interpreted New Year’s resolutions as broad, sweeping promises to do and be better. We need to reframe the way we think about New Year’s resolutions by focusing on the adjective “resolute” instead of the noun “resolution.” Why not think of New Year’s resolutions as actions we want to achieve with resolve, determination, and willpower? Rather than aspiring to make a positive change to our lives or characters each year on a vague scale, we should set concrete goals for ourselves and work to achieve them resolutely. If we set action items for ourselves – like aiming to meditate for five minutes a day, or to go on walks outdoors three times a week – perhaps we would have higher success rates in achieving our New Year’s goals.
As we move into the end of January, it is worthwhile to reflect on the adjectival root of the word “resolution” in “New Year’s resolutions” to actually achieve what we set out to do in 2025.