We’re already three months into the new year and March pegs the question: what’s happened to everyone’s New Year’s resolutions? Every year when January rolls around, people tend to draft resolutions, but there have always been mixed feelings about this tradition. When 2019 ended, people set goals for getting better grades or excelling in the workplace. Despite praise for this custom, many people also disagree with it because of beliefs that resolutions are useless and ineffective.

The devotion to New Year’s Resolutions has a more interesting history than most people know. The Washington Post credits Romans for starting the tradition after naming the month of January after the Roman god Janus. They imagined Janus as a two-faced god: one facing forward and the other facing back, symbolizing his ability to look in both directions at the same time. He became a representation of making resolutions for the new year and forgiving past enemies.

Appreciation for New Year’s resolutions comes from the belief that they will benefit you in the long run. Everyone starts off on January 1st with the offering of a “fresh start” and a clean slate. It’s obviously a good thing that people set goals because it shows the hope they have in themselves to be better. However, most people give up on their resolutions within the first few months of the new year.

Despite urges from others to simply stick with your resolutions when you fall off track, it’s easier to understand why they aren’t effective in the first place. As previously mentioned, most people have given up on their resolutions by now, considering it’s March. The publishing platform, Medium, suggested that most resolutions fail because of the difficulty people have with breaking habits. In the beginning of the new year, people often think achieving the goals they’ve set can be done through simple changes. In reality, the opposite is true.

A simple way to conquer surrendering your resolutions is to turn them into goals. The difference between a resolution and a goal is that goals are more specific. Resolutions include “being a better student,” while goals include “not failing any tests this semester.” People tend to see greater results when setting goals because it gives them a clearer line of focus to accomplish what they want to. These are some things to take into consideration for next year to make your resolutions stick.