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You've probably heard the term resolutions,
but do you know why we make them or how they even started?
A New Year's resolution is a decision that people make
at the New Year that they plan to keep for the full year.
People might decide to stop a bad habit,
start a new habit or accomplish a goal.
Humans have celebrated the start of a new year
for thousands of years.
Historians and archaeologists have discovered evidence that
the ancient Babylonians, people who lived
over 4000 years ago in an area that is now
part of modern day Iraq, celebrated their new year
in a festival called Akitu, other cultures have their own
New Year's traditions that dates back
to thousands of years.
For example, the Lunar New Year has been celebrated through
thousands of years and continues to be celebrated
by East Asian people all over the world,
including in China and Korea.
Jewish people celebrate Rosh Hashanah in the fall
and in Iran and other parts of the world,
Nowruz, sometimes known as the Persian New Year,
is
While these different New Year's start at different
points in the year, what these celebrations have in common
is the idea of leaving the bad behind in the old year
and starting the New Year with good intentions
and good luck.
For people in the western world, like Canada,
The ancient Romans had a fairly big impact on our calendar
and how the year is shaped.
The calendar we use in Canada, and a lot of the world
is based on, is the Julian calendar.
Julius Caesar, the dictator of Rome, put it in place
in 45 B.C. January, the first month of the Julian calendar
is named after Roman God, Janus
Janus was the god of doorways and entrances.
He has two heads, one that is looking forward and one
that is looking backwards.
When we make a New Year's resolutions, in many ways,
we might be looking backwards to see what we can improve on
from the past, while also looking forward to what
we can achieve in the future.
Kind of like
According to Merriam-Webster, the earliest known printing
of the phrase New Year's resolutions was in a Boston
newspaper in 1813.
In 1883, a British journal published an opinion piece
about New Year's resolutions, saying that they pass away...
Basically, they argued that resolutions are easily broken,
so there's not much point to making them.
Nearly one hundred and forty years later and New Year's
resolutions continue to be a topic of debate.
Should you make them?
And if you do, how do you avoid breaking them?
2022 is set to be another uncertain year.
We are still in a global pandemic, so it might feel like
a lot to add a resolution on top of that,
but even with the challenges, I still wanted to know
how kids could set goals for the new year or at any point
in the year and still be successful at it.
To better understand how to set goals and make new habits,
I turn to several experts.
Hi, I'm Elliot Berkman. I'm a psychologist
and I study goals.
[slide whistle]
Hi, my name is Kathy Archer.
I am a leadership development coach.
I'm Aaron Gruber, and I study how the brain works.
What's even going on in the brain when we set a goal?
Well, the parts of the brain that deal with our goals
are actually different from the parts that control
our day to day actions and where habits are formed.
But many times these parts work together.
So in the beginning, you have a goal
that you want to play a musical instrument, for instance,
and so the goal centered parts of the brain set that
as a goal.
As we do the same thing day after day,
the brain starts to form a habit
and you don't have to actually think as hard about
the action you want to do,
but that's also why it's so hard to quit doing something
that is already a habit.
The most popular resolutions for adults in multiple surveys
over multiple years, are fitness and health goals,
including losing weight and quitting smoking.
Now, while those are probably goals kids shouldn't be
too worried about, we can learn from adults failures too.
Goals like quitting smoking,
they're hard to keep according to research,
because it's a lot harder to stop doing something
than it is to start a new habit.
Because the habit system is... just becomes on autopilot.
In more kid friendly terms,
that means it will be easier for most of us to start
practicing the cello once a week than it will be for us
to stop playing video games altogether.
OK, but first things first.
Does it even make sense for kids or anyone to make
a New Year's resolution?
Well, here's what our experts think.
New Year's resolutions can be a little bit tricky
because a lot of people set goals,
even if they don't really want to change.
We often set New Year's resolutions and then fall off
the wagon really fast.
You know, it's important to think of what you want
your life to be like, and if there's certain things
you want to improve on, to set that as goals,
and so the New Year's resolutions can be quite useful
for helping us do that.
Sometimes people are trying to change things that
they've wanted to change for a long time,
but are sort of looking for a good start date,
you know, so, OK, January 1st is a good one.
Now, if you do decide to set a goal or resolutions
for the next year, all three experts we spoke to
agreed on a few strategies for success.
Tip number one, set realistic goals for yourself.
That also means setting them because you want to,
not because you feel like you need to
or you're feeling pressure from others.
One way to set realistic goals is to follow the smart method
Specific.
What exactly do you want to accomplish?
Measurable.
How will you know when you meet your goal?
Achievable.
Can you meet the goal?
Relevant.
Is this goal worth the work?
Do I have what I need to reach this goal right now?
Time based.
How long will the goal take
and when will I work on it?
when setting goals that are achievable,
Kathy Archer recommends using what's called stretch goals.
Those are goals that are a little bit out of your comfort
zone and might be a little bit of a challenge, but aren't
so hard that you won't be able to do it.
So you want to like stretch a little bit like an elastic band,
but not to the point you're going to snap.
Number two. Break down the big goal
into smaller parts.
All three experts agree that breaking down your goals
into smaller steps and goals will work best for most people.
Instead of having one big goal like,
I want to become a YouTuber.
We'll probably be more successful if you set smaller
goals throughout the year that adds up
to the bigger resolution.
For example, to become a YouTuber,
you might first want to start with deciding what kinds
of topics you want to cover.
So maybe your first goal is doing some research,
then you can add on more goals as the year goes on.
Set your goals early.
Start small.
Keep playing with them,
and again, if you don't achieve them, that's OK.
That's totally part of the process.
And that leads us on to tip number three.
Don't aim for perfection. When we set a realistic goal,
that also means having fewer expectations of ourselves.
That means aiming for say, 80 percent instead of 100.
If we get discouraged by setbacks and if you miss
targets, that could mean that we abandon the goal altogether.
It's about improvement, not perfection.
The good news, though, is kids and teens
and even young adult brains are still developing.
This means that in many ways, the kid's brain is better
at learning new things than the adult brain.
Every single person's brain and their own needs
is different from everyone else's.
That's why when we set goals, it's good to remember
not to compare ourselves too closely to others.
At the end of the day or the year, whether or not you make
a New Year's resolution is up to you.
Are you planning to make a New Year's resolutions for 2022?
My goal this year is to have a million followers
by the end of the year.
Hmm, no.
Why? Is that not a realistic goal?
That's it for KN Explains.
For CBC Kids News, I'm Caden Teneycke.
A lot of research and fact checking went into
making this video.
First off, I want to thank our experts Kathy Archer,
Aaron Gruber and Elliot Berkman.
We also spoke to Dwayne Meisner, who filled us in on
Roman and ancient Babylonian history.
Plus, we consulted sources like the Encyclopaedia...
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