For many, the arrival of a new year brings an opportunity to stamp out some of their worst habits and adopt new ones.
‘New Year‘ is often associated with celebration for many, but the second January rolls around, health trends are all the rage and language app subscription rates are soaring – with many others now eschewing the clichés and making more creative goals.
Making resolutions may not be as modern a practice as people tend to think, however.
When did New Year’s resolutions begin?
Historians often consider Ancient Babylonians to be the first people to have made New Year’s resolutions 4000 years ago when their New Year began in mid-March instead of the start of January.
A long 12-day religious festival called Akitu saw them reaffirm their loyalty to the new reigning king crowned that year. Debts were also promised to be paid to gods and borrowed objects returned.
Though construed as a forerunner to modern resolutions, it was religiously important the Babylonians kept to theirs as they believed that falling short of doing so would place them at risk of falling out of their gods’ favour.
A similar practice later occurred amongst the Romans in 46 BC after Julius Ceasar reformed the calendar so the start of the New Year would fall on 1 January. Its name was inspired by Janus, the God with two faces – one symbolically looking back at the year that had passed, and one looking ahead which signified sacrifices to the deity and promises to be good moving forward.
For early Christians, the first day of the new year became the traditional occasion for thinking about one’s past mistakes and resolving to do and be better in the future.
In 1740, the English clergyman John Wesley, founder of Methodism, created the Covenant Renewal Service, most commonly held on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day.
Despite the tradition’s religious roots, New Year’s resolutions today are a mostly secular practice, adopted by people across the globe. So instead of making promises to the gods, most people make resolutions only to themselves, and focus purely on self-improvement.
What are some of the most popular resolutions today?
Top New Year’s resolutions of 2025
YouGov analysis has revealed 513 Britons’ most popular resolutions for the new year included:
- Save more/spend less
- Get fit/exercise more
- Lose weight
- Gain new skills and knowledge
- Better health
- Eat more healthily
- Be a better person, personality and attitude improvements
- Spend more time with/improve relationship with friends and family
- Start or increase investments
- Make more money
- Travel/take a holiday
- Improve financial management
- Better time management and productivity
- Drink less alcohol
- Quit smoking or vaping
- Reduce levels of debt
- Read more
- Start or focus on business ventures
- Find/change job
- Prioritise self
More than a quarter of Britons (27 per cent) say they plan to make New Year’s Resolutions for 2025. The younger Britons are, the more likely they are to be making an annual promise to themselves, with 52 per cent of 18-24-year-olds saying they will do so, compared to only 16 per cent of the over-55s.
How many people keep New Year’s resolutions?
New Year’s resolutions are meant to go beyond January, but are rarely kept…
According to a YouGov study of resolutions based on those made at the end of 2021, only 28 per cent of them say they kept all of them. Meanwhile, just over half (53 per cent) say they managed to keep some but one in six (17 per cent) admit they didn’t keep any of their resolutions.
The study found that almost twice as many men (40 per cent) were likely to claim they did as women (21 per cent) were.
But there may be ways to remedy this. Life coach
“If your New Year’s resolution is to improve your fitness, setting the goal of starting with just five push-ups a day, will feel way less overwhelming than 100 push-ups per day.”
2. Get ‘comfortably uncomfortable’ doing things that won’t be a burden
“If you want to finish writing the book you’ve been trying to write for 10 years, start by writing for 10 minutes per day – which will probably amount to a chapter per month. This can suddenly feel like a pretty easy and manageable goal to work towards.”
3. Change your daily habits
“As a coach, I don’t really focus on how many days a habit will take to form but focus more on becoming the type of person who always sticks to your new habit – no matter how small or insignificant it seems.
“We all have 10 minutes a day to devote to something worthwhile. We don’t need to put aside hours a day to learn something new, or exercise or write or whatever it is you really want to do.”
4. Make your resolutions more achievable
“Make your New Year’s resolutions so ridiculously easy that you can’t not do them. Stanford professor BJ Fogg suggests that people who want to start flossing their teeth every day begin by flossing only one tooth. Just one.”
