My New Year’s resolution is the same as it ever was ...

It’s time for your New Year resolutions.

In the lead-up to the absolution of New Year’s, I asked a friend what his resolution was. Resolution? You know, when you promise yourself that you’re going to do something new or better this year. Pause. Are you still doing that?

I must have missed the message but he wasn’t the only person to baulk at the idea that someone of a certain age was still prepared to enter the new year in the spirit of renewal, even if that renewal reeked of sackcloth and self-flagellation. While I tossed up between a carb-lite or alcohol-lite 2025, it occurred to me he might not share my religious roots, in particular the Catholic tradition of accusing oneself of lapses in behaviour, vowing to do better and doing so in a public way.

Resolutions may be the modern version of going to confession with a list of transgressions for the old guy behind the tiny wooden window and emerging with a decade of the rosary (and it did seem like a decade pawing beads in those church pews).

Concerned that resolutions had been cancelled as useless, self-centred exercises for faux religious devotees, I searched the internet. It didn’t take long. A reliable survey found that while half of young people made resolutions, one in three mid-life people made them but only one in five people over age 50 made those personal promises on December 31.

So, I had missed the message. Resolutions are for young people with hope in their hearts and distant horizons in their vision. But does that mean older people have given up? Or have they accepted themselves as they are? Do they think they’re perfect? Don’t they read self-help books? (Answer is no. Half of all self-help books are bought by under 35-year-olds.)

I refuse to accept that we’re a hopeless generation, so I looked for other explanations.

Perhaps older and wiser people realise resolutions don’t work. And they’re right.

According to surveys, most don’t last beyond the second month of the year and, according to the people who once made them year after year, they don’t work for them.

Many of those resolute are still lounging on the couch with an expired gym pass in their pockets; or they’re carrying the extra kilos from the chocolate they were meant to give up 33 years ago and maybe they’re still being mean to the in-law because, what the hell, he deserves it.

Moreover, they may have concluded that even though they failed in their resolve, they’re still here.

The chocolate hasn’t killed them, the wine may have cratered their nose but their liver is holding up, and the excess weight can be tackled with a script now rather than exercise.

They also may suspect that self-improvement is just another TikTok meme; that self-monitoring is a job for the smartwatch; and the strategy of setting goals is a workplace con and used only to make people work harder for longer and for less. Besides, management gurus now say setting goals just sets you up for failure and what matters is elucidating intentions. (You pay a lot for that advice.)

Regardless of my generation’s scepticism, I’ve still got work to do – on myself. There’s a better me in the coming year, I just have to pick the sin that I’d like to absolve myself of.

Less carbs, no chocolate, more yoga (some yoga), more steps, more compassion, fewer finger gestures in traffic, master the French half tuck, no swearing (less swearing).

Oh, f..k it, I’ll go with the old favourite, less alcohol. We can all toast that.

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