On your new year's eve resolutions

LAWRENCE OOKEDITSE
Correspondent | Monday December 20, 2010 00:00

New Year's Eve has as such always been a time for looking back to the past, and more importantly, forward to the coming year. So important it is that some have carried out research on it and even offer advice on what to do to keep those resolutions.

'My greatest resolution is to be able to complete my studies without a retake. These are tough times and I do not want the Ministry of Education and Skills Developemt to terminate my sponsorship', 20-year-old University of Botswana (UB) student, Kgosi Mbatshi, says.

For Kate Ramoja it is about family. 'I just want to be able to spend more time with my family. In the past few years I have been all over the place and unable to really appreciate them, especially my four-year-old son, Kevin', she says. She further says she has resolved that at least every other week she will spend time with her mother, 'just so that she knows she is still the best'.

They are not alone on this, as American socialite Kim Kardashian has already made her New Year's Eve resolution public. Kardashian wants to keep up with her New Year's resolution of staying away from the opposite sex. She has been widely cited in an array of media as having said: 'I've made a promise to myself and I'm really trying hard to stick to it, but I'm such a hopeless romantic that it's hard. I don't think that's going to last, because that's just how I am. But the fact that I'm trying is a big step for me!' 

So, there it goes, if you are resolving to take charge of your love life you are not alone. Also, research points out that many more people make some sort of resolution for the New Year. Not that anything really stops or that you pause breathing because it's a New Year, still though, it is a yard stick for evaluation and goal-setting. If you're like most Americans (around 88 percent per a GNC survey) you will make at least one resolution. Most people resolve to lose weight, and get regular exercise. This year though, both companies and individuals alike are likely to be more concerned with the health of their financial future.

In the earlier generations and with great enthusiasm, Edward Payson Powell famously said: 'The Old Year has gone.  Let the dead past bury its own dead.  The New Year has taken possession of the clock of time.  All hail the duties and possibilities of the coming 12 months!' On the other hand, those you would term pessimists have also spoken.

'Many years ago I resolved never to bother with New Year's resolutions, and I've stuck with it ever since', Dave Beard once said while also, Mark Twain made a famous declaration: 'New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions'. Cautiously, F.M. Knowles said: 'He who breaks a resolution is a weakling; He who makes one is a fool'.

But are New Year resolutions achievable or just another formality that humans engage in? Psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman would answer that better. Throughout 2007, the Quirkology study in the United Kingdom (UK) under Wiseman tracked over 3,000 people attempting to achieve a range of resolutions, including losing weight, visiting the gym, quitting smoking and drinking less.

At the start of the study, 52 percent of participants were confident of success. One year later, only 12 percent actually achieved their goal. Of these, men achieved their goal 22 percent more often when they engaged in goal setting, (a system where small measurable goals are being set, such as, a pound a week, instead of saying 'lose weight'), while women succeeded 10 percent more when they made their goals public and got support from their friends. The study uncovered why so many people fail, and what can be done to help ensure success.

According to this study, men may be more likely to adopt a macho attitude and have unrealistic expectations, and so simple goal setting helps them achieve more. Likewise, women might be reluctant to tell others about their resolutions, and so benefit more from the social support provided by friends and family once they have made their goals public.

Prof Wiseman advises that in order for your resolutions to be achievable and for you to remain faithful - and faithfulness we fail to have in many facets of our lives - you make only 'One Resolution'. This is because, he argues, the chances of success are greater when people channel their energy into changing just one aspect of their behavior.

Plan ahead - Don't wait until New Year's Eve to think about your resolution. Last minute decisions tend to be based on what is on your mind at that time. Instead, take some time out a few days before and reflect upon what you really want to achieve. Avoid previous resolutions - deciding to re-visit a past resolution sets you up for frustration and disappointment. Choose something new, or approach an old problem in a new way. For example, instead of trying to lose two stone in weight, try exercising more. Be specific - think through exactly what you are going to do, where you are going to do it, and at what time. Vague plans fail. For example, instead of saying that you will go running two days of the week, tell yourself that you will run on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6pm. Make it personal - don't run with the crowd and go with the usual resolutions. Instead think about what you really want out of life, so think about finishing that novel, or learning to play an instrument, rather than just losing weight and getting to the gym.

Closing on a positive note, for all the new year resolvers, as  former Benjamin Franklin once said, 'Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbours, and let each new year find you a better man', and rejoice in that as   Brooks Atkinson noted you can 'drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past.  Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go'. A happy New Year to You all! I am already resolving, am I not? It's now a norm.