It is that time of year again where the main topic of conversation is about how quickly 2017 went by and how much quicker 2018 is going to go. Everyone sets themselves a New Year’s resolution to try and make their year better than the year before and already ,by the second week on January, everyone I know has failed to stick to their resolution; the saying ‘new year, new me’ really has not gone down too well. But what is a New Year’s resolution and how did it all start?

A New Year’s resolution is a tradition most commonly found in the West in which someone sets out to change an undesired trait or behaviour to achieve an individual goal. It is believed to have been started by the ancient Babylonians over 4,000 years ago. They were also the first to hold recorded celebrations in honour of the New Year; although the year for them did not begin in January but in mid-March, when the crops were planted.

Despite it being such a long-living tradition, we still don't seem to have got the hang of it. Only 8% of people manage to keep up their New Year’s resolutions and by the second week of January 50% have already given up; but why are we so incapable of keeping them up? Studies have shown that the reasons why people most commonly fail to keep up their resolutions is that people either set to many of them or get derailed by small failures; so perhaps instead of just being incapble of having self-control, people are overly ambitious.

With my track record of failing to stick to resolutions, I did not set one this year and perhaps without even knowing it I will achieve exactly what I want as I am not continually focused on it and pressuring myself to succeed. Have you managed to keep up your resolution so far?