“What are your new year resolutions?’ ‘I’m going to start eating healthier and I’m gonna stop smoking.” This is close to a common conversation you’d hear around the end of the year. They are called new year’s resolutions.

Usually, the resolutions are written down right before the year ends and the new year starts. Most resolutions are along the lines of eating healthy, staying up on work, fixing a sleep schedule or something like that.

This tradition originated as a religious holiday. People would make promises to their god that they would pay back their debts and return borrowed objects at the beginning of the year. Romans began the year making promises to the two faced god the month January is named after, Janus. Knights in the medieval era took the peacock vow at the end of Christmas to  re-affirm their chivalry commitment. Christians prepared for the new year by praying and making resolutions.

An example of a resolution is the diary of Anne Halkett , which has an entry from January 2 1671 titled “resolutions” which contained religious pledges from the bible. One phrase written was “i will not offend anymore.”

Making new year’s resolutions is important because making new goals and creating a new life for yourself  is very helpful if you’re reshaping yourself.  “New year new me” is a common phrase used when people decide they want to be a better person and reshape their lifestyle.

For some people it’s better to not make resolutions all at once but make a few at a time and slowly change habits. Making all your resolutions at once can be stressful and a hard goal to get started quickly, and they hardly follow through. Unreasonable goals are made to get a better lifestyle and most of them are hard to accomplish. If someone is not ready to move on from their problems, it can make it hard to follow through with resolutions.

Everyone has different opinions about this tradition and everyone has different resolutions or goals. If you do decide to make new years resolutions, don’t go to war with yourself and stick to doing only a couple resolutions per month.

Personally, I didn’t make that many resolutions this year but I am not against this tradition.