New Year's Resolutions… YAY or NAY?
Epsiode 44
If you thought influencers was a new thing then you'd be mistaken. If it wasn't for centuries of them we wouldn't have what we now know of as New Year's Resolutions. In fact, making promises to do better dates back to 4,000 years ago and ancient Babylon.
Julius Ceasar is the one who declared January 1st as the start of the new calendar in 46BC and used it to honour the two faced god Janus who symbolically looks back into the previous year and forwards to the new one (something we encouraging you to keep in mind when setting your own resolutions this year).
We were also far too entertained by the knights of the middle ages renewing their vows to chivalry in the Annual Peacock Vow, which involved laying their hands on a peacock. Considering New Year is Coach Sall's favourite, that she is big of fan resolutions AND that her surname is Peacock, it seems like it all fits together nicely 😁
The other things we discovered is not new is people using using resolutions as an excuse to over indulge in December and also for resolutions to have fallen by the wayside within weeks. One of the earliest references to actual New Year's Resolutions was in a Boston newspaper of 1813; “And yet, I believe there are multitudes of people, accustomed to receive injunctions of new year resolutions, who will sin all the month of December, with a serious determination of beginning the new year with new resolutions and new behaviour, and with the full belief that they shall thus expiate and wipe away all their former faults.” (https://www.trafalgar.com/real-word/history-new-years-resolutions/)
We do have some encouraging words and advise though to make resolutions a beneficial practice and that's why we chose to do this episode at the beginning of November. It's time to reflect on the year NOW, to decide what you would like 2022 to look like and make a plan of the actions you need to take over the next 14 months. It's a great time to put your stake in the ground. Making some plans and commitments to yourself now will mean you have time to prepare and possibly most importantly, you can get started, even tentatively. Doing some work now may well have the added benefit of meaning December won't be one huge "I'll fix it in January" blow out.
New Year's Resolutions? It's a YAY from us, and we're starting them now!
If you're interested in Coach Sall's reference to "runway tasks" we spoke about them in our Starting Simply episode which you can listen to HERE.