Psychological Perks

We all do it. When a new year draws near, we vow we're going to lose weight, stop smoking, drink less, exercise more, be nicer to other people, look for a new job, do good deeds, call our mothers more often, say "I love you" to those who matter.

Robert Tyminski, a San Francisco-based psychologist, said all those New Year's resolutions have to do with seasonal changes and their effects on our psyches.

"We've entered a period characterized by less daylight and more darkness, and this change serves to remind us that life is a cycle with beginnings and endings," he said.

"The new year often makes us believe we can put the troubling aspects of our lives behind us and begin anew."

Resolution tips

The Internet is full of sites that offer advice on keeping those resolutions. Most of them tell people to keep their feet firmly on the ground when making the goals. Winning the lottery, says ehow.com, is "out of your grasp."

Instead of shooting for the near unattainable or resolving to change a major behavior pattern overnight, come up with a strategy that stays specific. Instead of resolving to "not be lazy," something like "I want to exercise more" has a better chance of success.

Even better: Name three days a week on which you will exercise for one hour, the site recommends.

Another positive "ehow" tip: "Find alternatives to a behavior you want to change and make it part of your resolution plan." If smoking helped you to relax in the past, and you want to quit smoking, find another way to relax and practice that regularly.

Unrealistic expectations

But making resolutions is a tricky business. For all the promise of a new beginning with the new year, many psychologists say that setting goals too high is the surest way to fall short.

"When resolutions are out of proportion to what is realistic for our circumstances, they can set someone up for a fall," said Tyminski.

He generally gets a flood of calls around late January and early February from people seeking help because they have been let down by resolutions made but not kept.

The blues can even set in on New Year's Eve since it's a time people tend to take stock of the year just passed -- at least before the champagne really starts to flow. Many people looking back realize that despite the best intentions, those resolutions fell by the wayside.

"Empirical studies show that New Year's resolutions generally do not stick," Jörg Fengler, a psychology professor at the University of Cologne, told the dpa news agency. "Most of time, we shamelessly abandon them after just a few days."

Idiosyncrasies

Cultural differences could play a role as to how people go about resolutions.

Looking at popular New Year's resolutions listed on the US government's portal FirstGov.gov, you can glean how major problems affecting American society -- obesity and debt -- detemine how some people define good intentions for the New Year. The top resolutions posted: to "lose weight, pay off debt and save money."

Tyminski's own grandparents were immigrants from Europe, and often encouraged a focus on improving the family's material status.

"I think prosperity may be a central point of resolutions for those in the US," he said. "I remember when I lived in Germany that I was struck by how understated the resolutions were there."

Pointing the way -- with lead

While resolution-making in Germany might not have the sheer amplitude it does in the US, Germans do like to think about the future, and many go about trying to divine it. They do this by "pouring lead," or Bleigiessen. It's somewhat similar to reading tea leaves, or maybe studying animal entrails, like the ancient Romans enjoyed, but considerably less messy.

After a festive dinner, people sit in a circle and alternately melt chunks of lead (or sometimes wax) on a spoon as they hold it over a lit candle. The molten lead is then poured from the spoon into a bucket of cold water, where it hardens immediately.

The shape of the hardened lead is then interpreted by the group, and is said to reflect what the future has in store for the one who poured the lead.

An egg shape could imply an addition to the family; a tree could mean growth in one's capabilities; an angel could mean goodwill.

With this tradition, if the thing promised does not come true, at least there's something else to pin the blame on besides your own lack of discipline or personal shortcoming -- it's the lead's fault.