New Year's resolution

A New Year's resolution is a tradition, most common in the Western World[1] but also found in the Eastern World, in which a person resolves to continue good practices, change an undesired trait or behavior, accomplish a personal goal, or otherwise improve their behaviour at the beginning of a calendar year.

[4] In the medieval era, the knights took the "peacock vow" at the end of the Christmas season each year to re-affirm their commitment to chivalry.

People can act similarly during the Christian liturgical season of Lent, although the motive behind this holiday is more of sacrifice than of responsibility.

The 1671 diary of Anne Halkett includes an entry on January 2 titled "Resolutions", which contained a number of religious pledges taken primarily from bible verses, such as “I will not offend any more.”[8] By the beginning of the 19th century, the tendency of people to make (and fail to keep) resolutions was commonly known and satirized.

[8] Walker’s Hibernian Magazine in 1802 contained an article stating that “the following personages have begun the year with a strong of resolutions, which they all solemnly pledged to keep”, then listing a series of obviously fictitious resolutions (“Statesmen have resolved to have no other object in view than the good of their country…the physicians have determined to follow nature in her operations, and to prescribe no more than is necessary, and to be very moderate in their fees.”)[8]