Introduction
Journaling about what happened over the past year and what you would like to achieve in the upcoming year can be not only very revealing but also useful.
How do you go about it though?
Journaling prompts are quite handy to get you started. I recently used a couple of them and I selected the three most effective ones to share with you. Before you get to those, you might like to learn a little bit more about why New Year’s eve feels so special and how to make resolutions work for you.
On this post:
Why does New Year’s eve feel so special?
New Year’s eve is usually a time to celebrate the end of a cycle and the beginning of a new one. This is an ancient tradition that goes back to Babylon, 4.000 years ago.
More recently in History, Julius Caesar set January 1 as the first day of the year as a way to pay homage to Janus, the Roman God of new beginnings.
Janus is said to have two faces. One is able to look into the past while the other is into the future. The celebration was marked by gift-giving, house decorations and parties.
Astrologically speaking, New Year’s eve falls somewhere in the middle of Capricorn’s season. As a result, the season brings us the energy of goal setting, hard work and focused attention on what matters the most from a down-to-earth perspective.
Capricorn is an Earth sign after all.
Are new year’s resolutions a waste of time?
Yes and no
It all comes down to the quality of the questions you ask yourself before you decide to scribble down your new year’s resolutions.
The wrong questions will likely lead you to nowhere and fail to inspire you to keep steady on your goals. The right questions can make you fly.
Are new year’s resolutions effective?
New Year’s resolutions are only effective to the extent they are fully aligned with who you are and what your goals need to be.
They need to be brought forward as a result of a good reflection about what happened for you over the past year and what you would wholeheartedly like to achieve in the next one.
Your New Year’s resolutions need to be meaningful and serve a purpose. Your purpose. Not society’s, not your parents, not your girlfriend’s or boyfriend’s.
Are new year’s resolutions a good idea?
Yes, I believe they are.
By writing down your new year’s resolutions and doing the proper preparation to make sure they are a true expression of what you desire to accomplish, it can be a great idea.
Moreover, you will be writing down your thoughts and feelings. Expressive writing can be quite therapeutic and revealing so there is more to new year’s resolutions than just a couple of bullet points on a piece of paper.
Final Thoughts
Whether you have the habit of reflecting on the year that has passed and writing down your New Year’s resolutions, you can benefit from downloading this free workbook and using its journaling prompts.
Reflecting through journaling can bring new information to light and inspire you to explore new directions or different ways to lead your life. When we sit down to write and invest that time in ourselves, we gain newfound wisdom.
Give the exercise a try. You may also like to read more about the benefits of writing and its impact on well-being. You can find an article on that here and read about my own experience with it here.
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The Wellbeing Blogger 
That’s really cool to learn about some New Year’s history. I hadn’t thought about it before. I’m in the middle on whether I like or dislike new year’s resolutions. I agree that it depends on the quality of the reflection and the decisions I’d be making. Journalling prompts sound like a great way to reflect and dig into what needs (or doesn’t need) to change.
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