Butchy: Consider the value of attainable New Year’s resolutions

The phrase “time-honored tradition” applies to New Year’s resolutions in three ways. The phrase “time-honored tradition” applies to New Year’s resolutions in three ways.

Firstly, the tradition of forming New Year’s resolutions has indeed withstood the test of time. It is therefore, by definition, a time-honored tradition. Secondly, as paradox would have it, on a yearly and consistent basis the honoring of New Year’s resolutions decreases with the passage of time. Most resolvers still have a good chance of sticking to their goals on Jan. 2. Whether their commitment lasts into February — or even through the week — is another story.

Thirdly, both “time-honored tradition” and New Year’s resolutions are cliches — objects that retain a symbolic meaning thanks to common usage and habit, but that have become almost entirely unoriginal, impersonal and empty.

Working as a copy editor for a newspaper, I’ve been imbued with the view that cliches are among the world’s worst evils, to be avoided whenever possible. Yet every Jan. 1, I make a pledge. And I believe doing so is a worthwhile practice.

Although present-day resolutions are more frequently the brunt of jokes than serious undertakings, diligently considered New Year’s goals are not without value. Should we choose to use the new calendar year in its most helpful capacity — as a means to gain perspective on what has come before and what we hope for and anticipate in the future — we can look at New Year’s resolutions in a new light. This practice that, thanks to overuse and misapplication, has come to seem banal is actually less a cliche than a piece of history, and one that can still be useful today.

New Year’s resolutions, reports Yahoo News, have roots that extend into Roman tradition. In the fifth century B.C., leaders of the ancient civilization placed January at the beginning of their calendar. They named the month after the Roman god Janus, whose two heads allowed him to look at once both backward and forward. The image captured well the spirit of the changing year, symbolizing an opportunity to look toward the future while reflecting on the past.

Although the Babylonians celebrated their New Year in the month of Nissanu (the first day of which, by the Julian and Gregorian calendars, occurs in March), the very first New Year’s resolutions can most likely be credited to them. The members of this agricultural society made it their habit to use the New Year as a reminder to return borrowed farming equipment. As an online article from Australian newspaper The Age points out, the Babylonian tradition lives on in one of today’s most popular New Year’s resolutions — eliminating debt.

Over the years, the tradition of performing a simple positive task has given way to an endless variety of charitable promises and, even more commonly, pledges of self-improvement. Although this means that the conventional prospects for how best to usher in a fresh calendar year have expanded greatly, the widening of purpose has also had a watering-down effect on resolutions’ effectiveness and success rates. In an article on 43Things.com, journalist Lia Steakley reports that a 1997 University of Washington study found that 47 percent of the 100 million adult Americans who form resolutions do not maintain their commitments any longer than two months. In the past 10 years, she writes, the statistic has grown to 80 percent.

Steakley — author of a self-help book on organization and goal-accomplishment — states that, combined with the particular difficulty of pledges that involve behavioral changes, “the non-specificity of most resolutions is the main culprit behind the rising percentage of people who fail to keep their New Year’s pledge.” In other words, vague promises such as, “I’ll eat healthier,” and “I’ll work on being less stressed,” actually hinder well-intentioned resolvers from reaching their goals.

The organizers of lifestyle-improvement company MeYou Health agree. The company launched antiresolution.com to combat the practice of setting goals that are “unrealistic and set people up for failure.” On the interactive site, users can select a resolution and view tips for how to achieve the same end using any of a number of small, manageable tasks. “Instead of making a huge year-long goal,” the site claims, “we believe in the power of small daily actions.”

But deciding to stick to basic, achievable tasks doesn’t make forming a New Year’s resolution obsolete. Instead, perhaps the best advice is to combine practicality with positive opportunism by taking advantage the new start. The mindset of beginning fresh can help the resolutions you choose feel more like lifestyle shifts than items on a to-do list.

So, don’t let the clichéd nature of the modern New Year’s resolution discourage you from choosing a goal. Specific, manageable resolutions are not only millennia old, they’re also as achievable and beneficial as you choose to make them. Although MeYou Health decries the resolution philosophy, their site can offer a good place to start. The company’s Daily Challenge, which users can subscribe to from its website, was recently featured in the Philadelphia Inquirer as a handy way to start the new year with a fresh step toward healthy living.

This year, my resolution will be to never show up to class without a pen or pencil. It might be small and simple, but I know I can stick to it, and I expect it to add to my mental health, organization and general quality of life enormously. See if you can pick a challenge just as well-suited to you. You’ll be ringing in the new year right.

Email Cathy at catherinebutchy@gmail.com.