The History of Making New Years Resolutions
mystic • January 14, 2021
4000 years is a long time to prepare to get started!
“New year, new me”, or so the saying goes. Each new year brings with it a wave of self-improvement and healthy-habit changing in order to make this year better than the previous. While the new year gives you an excuse to start your new calendar, why do we set resolutions every year, even if many fade away within months of the goal setting? New Year's Resolutions may seem like a modern development, but the history of the “new year, new me” mentality stems from near pre-history.
The first recorded New Year’s resolutions began cropping up in ancient Babylon where, at the beginning of each sowing season, a celebration would be held in honor of what the civilization saw as the new year. Their 12-day festival, known as Akitu, would signal not only an opportunity to appoint a new king, but an opportunity to every citizen to set resolutions for the coming year. These resolutions were backed by the belief that, if they adhered to the goals they set, their gods would positively reward them. If an individual failed to meet their goals, their favor from the gods would decrease in a way which could only be repaired by the coming year’s resolutions.
The New Year date as we know it was established in ancient Rome by Julius Caesar who set the beginning of the year January 1st, in honor of the Roman god Janus. This two-faced god was believed to look both forward to the future and backward into the previous year. Should the Romans set and adhere to their goals, much like the Babylonians, the gods would be pleased.
What many people practice as New Year’s celebrations in modern times was more or less established by the founder of the Methodist Church in 1740. John Wesley established the precursor to watch night services, the covenant renewal service. Held on New Year’s Eve or Day, the covenant renewal service was designed to reaffirm one’s convictions to God, reestablish the presence of scripture in one’s life for the new year, and help set positive goals which were favored by God. Despite the tradition’s methodist roots, many churches now practice watch night services around the New Year’s holiday in order to do many of the same things that clergyman Wesley sought to do nearly 300 years ago.
The New Year as we know it has many ties to the more religiously-oriented days of yore, but remains a largely secular observance in the current era. Despite many resolutions losing their godly connotations, nearly 50% of Americans set new year’s resolutions for themselves for the sake of personal betterment. Many resolutions have evolved into weight loss or fitness goals, but more pious goals which remain popular include learning a new hobby, spending more time with family and friends, and ridding oneself of bad habits. Despite these good intentions and generations of practice, only about 8% of Americans report adhering to their goals for the entirety of the new year.
No matter your dedication to a new year’s resolution, each New Year’s holiday brings an opportunity to reflect and grow into your best self. As we move through the month of January and beyond, if you’re feeling that conviction to your resolution slip, remember you have 4,000 years of ancestors cheering you on.
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