Symbolic of the fresh start the New Year presents, or a way of setting yourself up for failure the moment January gets going? Opinions on New Year’s resolutions are divided.
While some enjoy making a list of what they hope to achieve over the coming months and look forward to ticking off each achievement, others are convinced that a wish list of things that may or may not get done remains an unwanted nagging reminder of personal disappointment.
“A New Year may symbolise a turning point between the past and the future, an occasion we can call a ‘new beginning’,” says Dr Diana Cheaib Houry, psychotherapist at Thrive Wellbeing Centre. “We make resolutions to encourage ourselves to reach goals that are hard to achieve without a serious decision.”
Mandeep Jassal, a behavioural therapist at Priory Wellbeing Centre Abu Dhabi, says: “New Year resolutions help individuals to manifest their goals and create a vision for the year ahead, which provides both focus and direction. This is particularly useful at the start of the year to give a fresh outlook and purpose for the next 12 months.”
Resolutions differ from person to person and from culture to culture, but similarities often appear in the pledges made.
Weight loss, new jobs or promotions, healthier lifestyles and saving money tend to feature globally, alongside taking up new hobbies, self-care and environmental promises such as reducing waste or recycling more.
A recent survey of more than 2,000 adults in the UK by GoCompare found that two out of five people planned to make resolutions for 2022. Alongside the usual wishes, people also hoped to spend less on grocery shopping and cut back on food delivery.
Why do we make New Year’s resolutions?
The idea of putting together promises for the year ahead has its roots in religion. People used to make small promises to the gods they worshipped, for example, that they would return borrowed items or repay debts. The Romans made their promises to the god Janus, after whom January is named, inextricably linking the practice with the start of the year.
“When we want to change something in our life that makes us unhappy and discontent, we make resolutions to fix that issue,” says Taruna Karamchandani, therapist at Miracles Dubai. “New Year is usually a popular time when people want to press the reset button and give themselves a second chance to get in control of their lives. The New Year is the beginning of a new chapter – a chapter for many to create something new or get some things right.”
Why you should (and shouldn’t) make resolutions
There are benefits to making a list of things you would like to achieve within a set time frame. One that particularly resonates during these pandemic times is the hope that resolutions can offer, along with the ability to believe change is possible. Resolutions can also make the changes we wish to effect feel more concrete and therefore more achievable. The act of writing out them requires a certain amount of introspection and reflection, both on the year past and the one ahead.
“Resolutions can provide a sense of direction, for example, in an individual’s career, spiritual or social life – all of which help to create a growth mindset,” says Jassal. “As individuals learn and expand their mind, they often find this can help them to open up and create more opportunities in their life.”
Alternatively, making resolutions can force individuals into a cyclical rather than organic way of thinking. Much as a person might abandon their diet “until next Monday” if they break it mid-week, so too might resolution-makers be tempted to throw their pledges out the window if they break them by January 20.
More recently, the notion that adhering to a less rigid “resolutions must be made in January” way of thinking has been gaining traction, particularly in conversations around mental health.
“Many people go about attaining their goals from a ‘need’, ‘should’ and ‘want’ space,” says Karamchandani. “It almost gives a sense that if the goal isn’t achieved, their lives will come to a standstill. This ‘desperation energy’ puts unwanted pressure on them, which in turn impacts the momentum, so they are likely to give up.”
Why do resolutions fail?
Resolutions often become a list of unwavering, one-dimensional promises we make to ourselves – lose weight, get a pay rise, meet a partner – whereas the life goals most likely to succeed are ones that are built over years, a fact making them difficult to quantify in list form.
“Any change requires time,” says Houry. “Change is a process that needs to be respected: if we are not ready to eat healthy on December 31, nothing much will change on January 1 to make eating healthy more feasible. What we need to be aware of is that our ‘psychological time’ does not necessarily follow physical time.”
Houry adds: “Knowing that, rushing the process can put us under pressure and set us up for failure. We can start blaming and criticising ourselves, which can have an impact on our self-esteem. If this happens repetitively, we will believe less in our will and in the possibility of change. It can also make us abandon our goals, if not lose hope.”
An intrinsic problem with resolutions is that they are inherently self-critical. Pledges such as losing weight, joining a gym or attaining a promotion are mired in the suggestion that we, as we are now, are not good enough. That if we could only fix certain aspects of our lives, we would be happy. Such an approach to self-betterment leaves little room for nuance, such as factoring in our personal strengths or our worth before we attempt sweeping changes.
“For a lot of us, the resolutions stem from a space of seeking validation from others,” says Karamchandani. “It has barely anything to do with what we would like to feel by the end of the day or year, or how it might contribute to our surroundings.”
Making resolutions during a pandemic
With the global pandemic entering its third year, resolutions aren’t the only thing to have been relegated to the “things we used to care about” pile.
“The pandemic made us realise anything can happen anytime. In other words, things can be unpredictable and what we planned for can simply not happen,” says Houry.
The need for PCR testing, school closures and the novelty having worn off work-from-home – with so much uncertainty in the world, why resolve to do, well, anything?
“The work-from-home routine can make it difficult for many to build relationships with their peers and socialise,” says Jassal. “As a result, individuals are somewhat limited with their New Year’s resolutions and what they can achieve this year in particular.”
The enduring attraction of making resolutions lies in their whitewashing, redemptive appeal. Making a list of all the things you’ll do better this year can help lay to rest the ghosts of failures of the previous year, allowing you to start the next 365 days with a clean slate.
“Let’s not set many resolutions at once,” advises Houry. “Change is a hard process that needs adjustment and can be consuming.”
“With unprecedented circumstances around us, whereby everything is shifting and changing at the speed of light, the resolution that one should make is to be flexible and let go of resistance,” says Karamchandani. “The start of the year or the start of your journey within doesn’t have to begin on January 1. One can commence this journey at any given point during the year. What matters is that you start.”
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Janet Yellen's Firsts
- In 2014, she became the first woman to lead the US Federal Reserve
- In 1999, she became the first female chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers
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Date of start: 2013
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Size, number of employees: 12
Funding/investors: $400,000 (2018)
'The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting up a Generation for Failure'
Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, Penguin Randomhouse
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The calling app is available to download on Google Play and Apple App Store
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
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50-man Royal Rumble
Universal Championship
Brock Lesnar (champion) v Roman Reigns
Casket match
The Undertaker v Rusev
Intercontinental Championship
Seth Rollins (champion) v The Miz v Finn Balor v Samoa Joe
SmackDown Tag Team Championship
The Bludgeon Brothers v The Usos
Raw Tag Team Championship
Sheamus and Cesaro v Bray Wyatt and Matt Hardy
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AJ Styles will defend his WWE World Heavyweight title and Cedric Alexander his Cruiserweight Championship, but matches have yet to be announced
Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
Bloomberg
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Started: November 2017
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Ruwais timeline
1971 Abu Dhabi National Oil Company established
1980 Ruwais Housing Complex built, located 10 kilometres away from industrial plants
1982 120,000 bpd capacity Ruwais refinery complex officially inaugurated by the founder of the UAE Sheikh Zayed
1984 Second phase of Ruwais Housing Complex built. Today the 7,000-unit complex houses some 24,000 people.
1985 The refinery is expanded with the commissioning of a 27,000 b/d hydro cracker complex
2009 Plans announced to build $1.2 billion fertilizer plant in Ruwais, producing urea
2010 Adnoc awards $10bn contracts for expansion of Ruwais refinery, to double capacity from 415,000 bpd
2014 Ruwais 261-outlet shopping mall opens
2014 Production starts at newly expanded Ruwais refinery, providing jet fuel and diesel and allowing the UAE to be self-sufficient for petrol supplies
2014 Etihad Rail begins transportation of sulphur from Shah and Habshan to Ruwais for export
2017 Aldar Academies to operate Adnoc’s schools including in Ruwais from September. Eight schools operate in total within the housing complex.
2018 Adnoc announces plans to invest $3.1 billion on upgrading its Ruwais refinery
2018 NMC Healthcare selected to manage operations of Ruwais Hospital
2018 Adnoc announces new downstream strategy at event in Abu Dhabi on May 13
Source: The National
