The Book

"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Oppotunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day."

- Edith Lovejoy Pierce

New Year's Day. A fresh start. Or is that just what we feel we ought to be thinking? How many of you have made resolutions? Aaaand how many of you can say you've kept them...? Thought so.

Making resolutions can be a hugely positive thing, inspiring you to make those crucial changes in your life. Cut all the c*** and make yourself proud. Unfortunately, for most of us, it's just depressing. We say that this is the year we're going figure it out and get ourselves on track. But the reality is that, normally early on in the year, we give up and resign ourselves to making the exact same resolutions at the end of whichever year we just saw in.

Call me cynical if you wish, but it's actually been studied. According to one study, 88% of people taking part failed. Come on people?! Only 12% of people actually felt they achieved their goal. Surely we can do a bit better than that. SURELY.

Let's take a brief detour and look at where this whole resolution thing began. Research suggests it all started in Babylon and occurred in March until the Romans got involved and moved it to what we know as January.

The month is named for the Roman god Janus who was two-faced (not in the way most of us think of when we think "two-faced"). One face looked back into the past year and the other looks forward into the new year. The Romans used to make some form of moral resolution, that is until the Roman Empire adopted Christianity as their main religion and New Year became nice and religious with prayers & fasting.

They celebrated the Feast of the Circumcision on January 1st, actually. Something tells me that, these days, if circumcision features on January 1st, you've had a really great night that ended reeeeeally badly. REALLY badly. Janus was a bit too pagan for the Christians, so they decided that a party would be too un-Christian.

Puritans in the US totally avoided frivolities, even refusing to call January, well, January... because of its links to Janus - shock! horror!

They called it "First Month" instead, but apparently that never caught on.

Back to the whole keeping resolutions thing. I'm still reeling. 88% fail? Gosh, that makes me think seriously about whether I can really be bothered to make a resolution at all if I'm so destined to fail.

But, wait, there's hope. According to the same study (Wiseman, University of Bristol, 2007) men achieved their goal 22% more often when they used "goal-setting" - setting small, manageable targets rather than daunting unattainable goals (1lb a week vs. LOSE WEIGHT).

COME ON BOYS. Get your game on.

Girls: you succeeded 10% more often when you made your goals public and got support from friends. So, what are you waiting for, get your gals involved. If you pick the right ones, they'll really help you. When you want that piece of New York Cheesecake, they'll slap your hand away dramatically.

"Is butter a carb?"

Frank Ra, author of A course in happiness has this to say on resolutions:

"Resolutions are more sustainable when shared."

So get sharing. These days there must be an app for this kind of thing?!

Still struggling... okay... let's look at what Lyndsey Oliver had to say in The Guardian yesterday.

Oliver's statistics come from Psychologies Magazine and, interestingly, suggest that 71% of us had already decided what our New Year's resolutions were going to be by the first week of November... but ony 11% believed they'd manage to stick to them. Nearly a 3rd of those surveyed said that they'd made resolutions before but 68% of said people admitted to abandoning their resolutions at some point in January.

Janus is frowning at you, people. This isn't looking particularly good.

So if we're so bad at keeping our resolutions, why the hell do we still make them? That's a genuine question. How many of you have made a resolution, only to give up on it. And how many of those who nodded to the last question has done this on multiple occasions? Thought so.

So why should 2014 be your year? If you're reading this and it's not January 1st anymore, that's okay. Frankly, a resolution can start whenever YOU'RE ready. Take the Babylonian approach and make it March.

We pick January because we always have. It makes sense as we morph into Janus and look half backwards and half forwards, stuck temporarily in this trippy purgatory caused by New Year Fever, as I like to call it.

A few more statistics for you:

• Close to 360 million glasses of champagne/sparkling wine are consumed by Americans to celebrate New Year.

• Around 1 million people congregate in Times Square NYC to watch the famous ball drop. So part of me wishes I'd been there, rather than in cool little spot in the LES that's a bit too cool for New Year. But the rest of me is grateful not to have been in that melee... Approximately 1 billion watch the broadcast across the globe. The first ball drop occurred in 1907 and weighed 700 lbs, lit with 100 25-watt lights. There have been 6 iterations of the Times Square Ball. Currently, the ball boats 2,688 crystals, is lit by 32,000 LEDs, weighs 11,875 lbs, and is 12 feet in diameter. 1 tonne of confetti gets dropped at midnight. 50 tonnes of "trash" get left behind, taking days to clear up.

• The coldest ball drop was 1917 with a temperature of 1 Fahrenheit and a wind chill of -18. That's pretty chilly.

• 34% of resolutions relate to money 38% to weight 47% to self-improvement or education 31% relationships 39% of those in their 20s managed to achieve their resolutions either every year or every other year.

• This contrasts with less than 15% of those over 50.

• The less happy you are, the MORE likely you are to set New Year's Resolutions, especially for those whose resolutions related to money.

• RELIEVINGLY there's no correlation between happiness and success. Perhaps that's why we try every year, regardless of failure last year.

Allegedly, 75% of us make it through week 1, 71% through week 2, 64% are still going strong after a month and, surprisingly, 46% after six months. On the basis that ony 12% could say they stuck to their resolution for the whole year, what happened in those 6 months. I mean I know that less than 50% of people stuck it out to the 6 month mark but, guys, you made it to 6 months... why the hell did you give up!

In case you're wondering, I really fail at keeping resolutions too... but I'm not sure I ever actually make any.

SO this year I will... but they're not "stop this right now" .. they're going to be constructive.

Here's my list:

1. Lose a bit of weight - yup. it's on there. Ideally I'll get my ass into gear and shed a stone. But even a little bit's okay.......

2. Tone up. MORE important than No.1 ... and emphasis on Pilates. I've missed it so much in the last year.

3. Appreciate the people in my life more fully. Previously, I've taken some stuff for granted when investing myself fully into a relationship. Losing that relationship, I've realised just how lucky I am that the coolest people I know never ditched me. Even with my tunnel vision. Now, I've got a bit of tunnel vision again BUT there's perspective too. I've grown up. This time, friends and work are as important as love.

4. Eat a bit more healthily. I've got an addicton to kale and quinoa lately, so that shouldn't be too tricky. I'm not saying I'm going mental on the healthy food thing. Just improving bit by bit.

5. Learn to make sushi. My favourite food, might as well try.

6. Never let someone I love out of my sight without them knowing how I feel. Unless you feel yourself losing the love for that special person, you're better off telling them before you go to sleep that you adore them. It makes your relationship stronger.

7. Being more openminded. Definitely a good idea.

8. Letting someone I trust lead me. Why not?

9. Saying YES more often. I know it sounds the same as No.7 but it isn't.

10. Keeping a blog. So far so good?!

I'll keep you all posted on how I'm doing - at least that way I'll at least be keeping No.10 !!!

If you haven't made your New Year's resolutions yet, you still can. If you're bad at motivating yourself, it's worth doing - even better if you tell a few friends what you're up to. That way, you'll really have to try this year. Make 2014 the one that counts. There are so many new leaves for me this year that I might as well have a whole tree. But that's okay. And I'm excited.

Happy New Year!

O x