New Year Resolutions – Harbingers of New Beginnings

The dawn of a new year, 2024, brings new hope as newer aspirations to the population of the world. How people perceive the new year can be observed form the manner they perceive the new year to be. Almost every year people go through the process of making some New Year resolutions based on their experiences of the past year and try really hard to ensure that they follow the resolution tenets to the best of their ability. The resolutions are often for the betterment of the person as an individual, for their relationships with their family and friends as also improvement of their lives overall. Usually, these resolutions are made by an individual in solation or are made in a group. Some schools encourage students to make resolutions to bring about their desired changes which may range from improved handwriting to doing better in their chosen subjects. The resolutions may even focus on improving the

We at Maxpro Gobal wanted to understand how much the sentiment of making resolutions had carried on down the generations. The objective is to try and find out”

1. What do the youth think of making resolutions
2. What meaning does the making of a resolution hold for various age groups
3. What kind of resolutions are being made these days
4. Are the young and old both tuned in alike in the making of resolutions?
5. Do people really stick to their resolutions or do they back down after a few days or weeks into the year?

These and many more answers surfaced when our teams set out to find out the importance of having new year resolutions especially as the first quarter of the 21^st century is nearing its end.  We present here some of the responses of the people who participated in the survey.

We had set out to survey at least 1500 people this new year. However, overall,  we received only 1280 responses that we could use to analyse and interpret for the survey as some of the responses were incomplete and some were written so hurriedly that we could not make out the hand writing. It could probably also be because of the extreme cold that made fingers stiff or it could be because it is difficult to write with finesse when you have your gloves on!

Thus, out of a total of 1500 respondents targeted for the survey the actual responses that have been used are from 1280 respondents. There were 220 responses that were lost. Our survey can be said to have had a more than 85 percent success rate.

The Survey Sample’s Age

We set out to cover a cross section f the population and therefore recorded the ages of the participants in the survey. The results of the survey have been depicted in Table-1 where we have asked our respondents to let us know if they are regulars at making resolutions. The Table-1 gives and idea of the age distribution of those who believe in resolution making every New Year and those who do not. It is interesting to see that 42 per cent of the respondents agreed to the fact that they did indeed believe in making new resolutions and   58 per cent felt that they had out grown the tradition or did not have the time for it or did not have the will to stick to their resolutions and had therefore quit the exercise altogether.

Table 1; Age Distribution

Interestingly it can be seen from the data inputs that the 40 years old and older people seem to enjoy the making of new year resolutions, Closely following their lead were the young ones – all under 20s who confirmed that they enjoyed making their new year resolutions and tried their best to stick to them. They were all quite resolute that they would carry on making new year resolutions well into the century

Then our teams went on to ask about the types of new year resolutions that people really made. Their responses have been shown in Table-2.

Table 2; New Year Resolutions are Usually Made Around

The largest number of people seem to make new year resolutions to make improvements in their behavioural traits. There were also an almost equal proportion of those who wanted to go in for weight loss and spending for time with their family and friends.

There were a significant proportion of people who wanted to make a new year resolution to improve their diet and facial appearance. They were willing to be involved in making a resolution to be more regular in a beauty regime.

After getting to know about the resolutions they make our teams asked the respondents if they were able to keep to their resolutions. There were a large number of people [38 per cent] who reported that they adhered to their new year resolutions strictly but here were 14 per cent who said that they did try their very best to keep to their new year resolutions. Also, there were 48 per cent who confessed that they could not maintain their resolutions throughout the year. The Table -3 shows the number of persons who made resolutions and those who could not keep them. 

Table 3: Always make Resolutions and stuck to them

There were also many of the participants in the survey who were absolutely sure that they made resolutions, stuck to them and even fulfilled them. Table-4 shows that people assuredly like to make new year resolutions and the tradition is alive and flourishing even today.

Table 4: Are you Regular in Maintaining Resolution

There were no doubt a significant number of persons who were also unsure of fulfilling their new year resolutions.  Nevertheless, the survey gave a heartening insight into the mindset of people who make the effort every year to set up some resolutions. They strive hard to make sure that they can adhere to their resolutions and ensure that their resolutions make them better persons to face their entire year and even their life.

Our survey proved a very interesting exercise and we shall try our best to keep our finger on the pulse of the people during these rapidlu racing times.

Maxpro Global wishes a very Happy New Year to all our patrons, well wishers and stakeholders!