The tradition of making New Year’s resolutions began with the Bablyonians and has been around for over 4,000 years. In recent years before the pandemic, around half of the US population usually committed to some kind of New Year’s resolution.
For Montgomery Blair High School junior Grace Thomas, new years do not typically begin with concrete resolutions, but with a general intention to improve some aspects of her life. On the other hand, Blair student Sophia Sun does not make New Year’s resolutions at all on her own time. However, Sun says that there have been times when making resolutions were a part of required school assignments.
Despite the number of people committing to new goals at the start of the year, only around 7% manage to maintain all of their resolutions for the entire year. Reasons for this include unrealistic expectations, not having a concrete, feasible plan, or simply forgetting about the resolutions. “You can get really inspired and motivated in the moment, but that energy doesn’t carry over into actual productivity unless you have some kind of system in place,” Thomas said, reflecting on her own experiences with resolutions.
At the beginning of this year, however, significantly less people were planning to create resolutions in the first place. While 40-50% of people made some sort of new goal in previous years, only 29% planned to make any New Year’s resolutions at all for 2022. This is largely due to the impact of COVID-19. For example, many resolutions focus on health and involve visiting the gym more often, which has been impossible for those whose gyms have closed because of COVID-19.
Although she did not make her resolutions on New Year’s Day this year, Thomas still developed goals as the year began. “I got kind of inspired by people posting online about their resolutions and adopted the ones I kind of liked.” This year, Thomas’s resolutions include submitting more of her writing and art pieces to publications and being less afraid of using up the nice things she owns.
Despite the challenges that COVID-19 brought, it did have a positive impact on Thomas’s views on resolutions by making the process less stressful. “Before [COVID-19], I was more anxious about making personal progress and changing myself for the better, but having a year where those expectations were taken away was kind of nice,” Thomas said.
Article by Kathereen Yang of Montgomery Blair High School
Photo courtesy of Unsplash