With the start of a new year, many people engage in the traditional practice of making New Year’s resolutions to attempt to change their old habits or create new ones.

New Year’s resolutions have been a tradition for generations. According to gulfnews.com, New Year’s resolutions date back nearly 4,000 years ago to ancient Mesopotamia. At the beginning of each year, the Babylonians would make promises to their deities, but their resolutions were mainly minor tasks such as returning borrowed farming equipment.

According to the University of Scranton’s Journal of Clinical Psychology, around 45% of Americans make New Year’s resolutions, but only 8% of Americans accomplish them. According to hmcurrentevents.com, our willpower muscle is just not strong enough. The prefrontal cortex in the brain controls not only willpower but also short-term goals, making maintaining willpower for long periods very difficult.

Then, is it impossible to achieve New Year’s resolutions?

Last year, the Lantern staff created a list of eighteen resolutions that ranged from when we would conduct interviews to how we would increase reader participation. Of those eighteen resolutions, we achieved about six. We were too ambitious by listing eighteen resolutions all at once because once the year was no longer new, the appeal of a new start wore off. It was simply easier to continue doing what we had already been doing for months.

It is possible to accomplish New Year’s resolutions. They have been around for thousands of years, so it is doubtful that all those failed. Given the prefrontal cortex’s limitations, the key to achieving New Year’s resolutions is making a few specific resolutions throughout the year to avoid feeling overwhelmed.