It’s that time of year again when some of us start to feel a little overwhelmed by everything Christmas brings. For many it is a time of great joy but for others it’s a time of sadness for whatever reason; they may have lost a loved one, they may have no one to share the celebration with or they may have not achieved all they had set out to this year. Whatever your reasons for loving or loathing Christmas it comes around every year often evoking the same emotions and along with it comes the inevitable New Year. January 1st is widely considered a time for new beginnings and new year’s resolutions but is the pressure of new year’s resolutions really good for our mental health and why do we feel the need to set, often unattainable, resolutions only to set ourselves up for failure and what effect does this have on our mental wellbeing?
Where do New Years resolutions originate from?
The tradition of setting new year’s resolutions dates back some 4,000 years to the early Babylonians, however back then the new year started in March when they planted the new crops. At this time they would make promises to the Gods that over the coming year they would pay off any debts and give back anything they had borrowed. If they didn’t abide by these resolutions, they believed that they would fall out of favour with the Gods which would subsequently not bode well for them in the afterlife.
Other famous characters throughout history have also had their impact on this ancient tradition, one such figure being Julius Caesar, who, with the power of the Roman Empire at his fingertips actually changed the calendar so that New Year’s Day became January 1st, as we know it today. He did this to honour Janus, the two-faced God who inhabited doorways and arches and was the God of beginnings and endings. The Romans believed that Janus had one head turned to the previous year and one head turned to the coming year. To ensure prosperity the Romans made sacrifices to him whilst swearing good conduct for the future.
With a tradition so imbedded in our history it is no wonder that we have an unconscious responsibility to keep the tradition going. It has been ingrained in our collective unconscious over thousands of years. The difference now however is that rather than making promises to the Gods it has become something much more self-involved with resolutions almost invariably being made to ourselves, promising self-improvement and self-development. The problem with this is that we tend to set such unattainable goals that even though we start off with the best of intentions a few weeks in to the new year we have failed on at least one, if not all of those lofty expectations and for some people this can be very damaging to their mental health.
Breaking away from the norm
It would be highly unethical if a therapist where to allow you to set unattainable goals but we play fast and loose without mental health every January 1st and when we fail we feel; disappointed, frustrated, like a failure, useless, angry or any other negative emotion that comes from not succeeding in something we set ourselves. So, what then if we were to take away the trap we set ourselves by not setting any aspirations but rather promise to live each day as best we can when that day comes? Good mental health is much easier to achieve when we take each day as it comes and if we have to set goals, set small achievable milestones so that when we reach them our mental health is boosted rather than damaged.
Can New Year’s resolutions do more harm than good?
It may seem like a strange concept, for some, to approach the new year with no resolutions but what use are resolutions if they do more harm than good? To break away from the “norm” can be freeing, to not be controlled by age old traditions but rather take each year as it comes and face whatever is on the horizon with a fresh determination because we haven’t “failed” before we’ve begun. I have been a victim of the new year’s resolution trap and I use the word trap purposefully because that’s what it is. We are lured (through centuries of unconscious manipulation) into thinking that we can’t possibly start the new year without resolutions – but here’s the truth…we really can! Without preconceived ideas of where the year “should” go, let’s just see where the year takes us and be free without ideals. When your mind is free to accept the eb and flow of day-to-day living it has a much better chance of sustaining an equilibrium; that is not to say that there won’t be down days but down days pass if there is no expectation of “shoulda, coulda, woulda”.
How can I set achievable goals
If you really can’t start the new year without feeling the need to set yourself some resolutions (and who can blame you when you are fighting against thousands of years of history) here are a few suggestions that are attainable, beneficial to all and will make your world a nice place to live in.
• Be kind to yourself and others
• Be patient with yourself and others
• Be considerate to others
• Accept responsibility for your mistakes and learn from them
It may sound corny or a cliché but if we started every day with the promise of kindness to all (including ourselves) and nothing more what can go wrong? No promises, just possibility!
