As the year winds down, people around the world resolve to make changes in their lives. This New Year’s resolution tradition is more than 4,000 years old and dates back to the Babylonians, who resolved to pay old debts and return borrowed things at the end of the year.
Today, people all over the world still make New Year’s resolutions. A few years back, Google created a website recording peoples’ New Year’s resolutions from different countries. Google sorted these goals according to the most common topics: health, love, career, finance, and education.
Interestingly, health was the most popular goal for people in the US and Egypt, while romance was on the minds of those in Australia and Japan. Russians focused on educational goals, and in India, work-related goals were the most popular.
It’s hard to say if these goals really say anything about the culture of people in these countries. One of the reasons is that within each culture, there are different subcultures.
For example, in 1977, researchers collected the New Year’s resolutions of quote-unquote “average” children in the US and compared them with those of a separate group of Amish children in the US. The Amish are a religious group, originally from 17th century Switzerland, but are now living mostly in the US and Canada. They’re famous for wearing very simple clothes and for not using modern technology such as cars, telephones, and electricity.
The researchers found that the average children had goals that focused on the results, while the Amish children focused on the process. One example of an average kid’s goal was getting an A in their class. Interestingly, the Amish children also had a similar goal of doing well in school but described it in a way that focused on the process. For example, the goal was not to get an A but was instead to spend more time doing homework.
It’s unclear if the process-oriented Amish children were more successful than the results-focused average US children, but with the New Year around the corner , it’s interesting food for thought. Studies have shown that less than 25% of people stick with their resolutions after 30 days, and only 8% actually accomplish them. With such high rates of failure, perhaps setting measurable goals would be more effective than simply making results-oriented ones. And maybe we all should consider adding a process-oriented element to our resolutions in order to balance our approach. Perhaps that is the key to success.
References:
https://archive.google.com/zeitgeist/2012/resolutions/
https://www.history.com/news/the-history-of-new-years-resolutions
https://boingboing.net/2013/01/16/what-your-new-years-resoluti.html
As the year winds down, people around the world decide to make changes in their lives. The history of making New Year’s goals is more than 4,000 years old. It started with the Babylonians. They paid old debts and returned borrowed things at the end of the year.
Today, people all over the world still make New Year’s goals. A few years back, Google created a website recording peoples’ New Year’s goals. Google sorted these goals according to the most common topics. These were health, love, career, finance, and education.
Health was the most popular goal for people in the US and Egypt. Romance was on the minds of those in Australia and Japan. Russians focused on educational goals. In India, work goals were the most popular.
It’s hard to say if these goals really say anything about the culture of people in these countries. One of the reasons is that within each culture, there are different subcultures.
For example, in 1977, researchers collected New Year’s goals of quote-unquote “average” children in the US. They compared them with those of a separate group of Amish children in the US. The Amish are a religious group originally from 17th century Switzerland. Now they are living mostly in the US and Canada. They’re famous for wearing very simple clothes. They also do not use modern technology such as cars, telephones, and electricity.
The “average” children had goals that focused on the results. Interestingly, the Amish children focused on the process. One example of an average kid’s goal was getting an A in their class. The Amish children also had a similar goal of doing well in school, but they described it in a way that focused on the process. For example, the goal was not to get an A but was instead to spend more time doing homework.
It’s unclear if the process-oriented Amish children were more successful than the results-focused average US children. But with the New Year around the corner, it’s interesting food for thought. Studies have shown that less than 25% of people stick with their New Year’s goals after 30 days. Only 8% actually accomplish them. Perhaps focusing our goals on both results and process is the key to success.
References:
https://archive.google.com/zeitgeist/2012/resolutions/
https://www.history.com/news/the-history-of-new-years-resolutions
https://boingboing.net/2013/01/16/what-your-new-years-resoluti.html
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