Top ten New Year's resolutions

The tradition of making resolutions to celebrate the New Year.

Start the year with a change for the better.

To see in the New Year I thought I would compile a top ten of the most popular New Year’s resolutions that people make each year. Just to clarify though, this isn’t a comprehensive scientific report or survey. I’ve simply looked up a load of top ten charts and tables on the internet and then compiled the results into an overall chart based on which New Year’s resolutions featured the most often.

Before I get to the results though, here are a few amusing New Year’s resolutions I stumbled upon while compiling my statistics:

"I’ll think of new excuses for when I ring in sick."

"On days when I’m ‘working from home’ I will actually work from home."

"Start washing my hands after I use the toilet."

"Put random items in other people’s shopping trolleys while at the supermarket."

That happened to me once when I got back to work and discovered a random half-eaten packet of sweets in my shopping. Presumably the toddler in front of me must have sneakily slipped them into my shopping when my stuff was on the conveyor belt.

"Stop setting two alarms just so that I can ignore the first one."

That's something I can totally relate to.

"When writing the date I will write 2016 rather than 2015."

That gets me every year.

To travel and visit new countries
is a popular New Year's resolution.

Anyway, now for the top ten most popular New Year’s Resolutions. I’ve grouped similar resolutions together, e.g. exercise, get fit, etc., and as you can see there aren't too many surprises in the results…

1) Lose weight
2) Exercise / get fit
3) Quit smoking
4) Save money / get out of debt
5) Quit drinking / drink less
6) Get a new job / get a job
7) Eat healthier
8) Spend more time with family / friends / people I care about
9) Travel / visit a new country
10) Get a better education / exam success / learn something new

Overall, the top ten most popular New Year's Resolutions are a bit more predictable than ‘think of new excuses for when I ring in sick’, but I think it’s safe to say they're definitely more worthy and commendable.

Some of the resolutions which narrowly missed out on making it into the top ten included try new experiences, find love, read more, be less stressed and appreciate life more. Help other people and do charity work also got the occasional mention but these ranked quite far down the results so it seems as if most people added them to their list almost as an after-thought.

Just as a closing note, apparently most resolutions will be broken within a month, so if you last for more than a month with your own New Year’s Resolutions then you haven’t done too badly.

Related posts:
Ten less common New Year's resolutions
A New Year themed 'true or false' quiz