Consequences and challenges of New Year’s resolutions

New Year is a time for change and bettering yourself with the famous slogan of “New year, new me.” To accomplish this change, many people challenge themselves to create a New Years’ resolution and challenge themselves further to keep that resolution. Despite this being well known, only about 75% of Americans succeed in even making New Year’s resolutions, according to Finder.

According to Piedmont, making a New Year’s resolution creates dopamine in the brain. The dopamine helps create pleasure in the brain which makes people feel accomplished just for creating a resolution. While the dopamine levels are maintained at the beginning of the resolution, the levels slowly drop as the person contains in the resolution. Since the person no longer feels accomplished, only about eight percent of the people who make their resolutions actually finish them by the end of the year. 

However, according to Forbes, it isn’t about keeping the resolution, making it is what is important. Forbes states that making a resolution is already a step in the right direction because it is an admission that there needs to be a change in one’s life. For example, most of the resolutions that are made are regarding eating better and getting in better shape. This is an acknowledgement that the habits that the person has aren’t healthy. Additionally, they say that making a resolution with the intention of keeping it helps create hope. This optimism is what will help create the drive to continue the resolution. It also makes the person responsible for whatever their resolution was made for. In regards to the previous example, it will keep the person responsible for eating unhealthy foods because they know their resolution is about losing weight. 

New Years’ resolutions, according to Merriam-Webster, were made to be broken. They say that back when resolutions were created, resolutions were an excuse to “sin all month of December,” then use a resolution to correct themselves for the New Year. 

Whatever the reason New Years’ resolutions were created, people are still creating them to this day, and some people are still using them to better themselves.