The fresh start provided by a new year is an excellent opportunity to resolve to do things differently, to turn over a new leaf. Many of us will subscribe to the idea that a new year is a time for new year’s resolutions; unfortunately, many of us will also fall by the wayside – a recent YouGov poll indicates that only about 33 percent of people adhere to their resolutions.

Resolution Rundown

Many of our seasonal aspirations are the inevitable fallout of the preceding Christmas season. We eat too much, drink too much, sit around doing nothing, and gradually become overcome by feelings of self-reproach. It’s no surprise that the most popular new year’s resolutions are quitting smoking and/or drinking; losing weight; sticking to a healthy diet; exercising regularly; spending less money – a predictable reaction to a season of over-indulgence and lack of self-restraint.

The other factor that links all these resolutions is their intense focus on the individual. January is a very inward-looking month, when people concentrate on their own shortcomings, fashion their own self-improvement plans, and are intensely preoccupied by their own goals and aspirations.

Resolution Fallout

One result of this self-involvement and turning inwards is that people who are intent on their own priorities can be particularly blind or obtuse when it comes to their interactions with other people. The most common pitfalls are as follows:

•Lifestyle Evangelism

Many people who hit the ground running (sometimes literally) in January, and throw themselves into a new healthy living regime, experience encouraging signs of health and wellbeing in the first few weeks of the new year.

Unfortunately, instead of internalising these satisfactory feelings and enjoying the compliments on their ‘healthy glow’, they take it upon themselves to lecture friends and family on the undoubted benefits of their new regime.

While this unfortunate tendency to ‘spread the gospel’ might come from positive roots – a hope that other people will also experience these positive benefits – it demonstrates a disrespect for other people and their ability to make their own lifestyle choices. We must acknowledge that everyone experiences their physical and mental health in their own unique individual ways and, unless they actively seek help and advice, their wellbeing is their own business. Being lectured by new converts (and probably being all too aware that these fresh-faced evangelists are likely to lapse from their own high pedestal before very long) is one of the more tedious aspects of the new year.

•Lifestyle Bores

Even if new converts are not seeking to persuade other people to follow their path, there is still an unfortunate tendency amongst many to feel that their heroic new year efforts give them the right to monologue endlessly about their new diets, health regimes, fitness programmes, financial planning strategies, ad infinitum. As is often the case with people who are somewhat obsessed with, or at least fixated on, their own behaviour, they tend to lose all sense of their audience, and do not appear to notice the fact that they have turned into crashing bores.

If you find yourself embarking on a ‘new leaf’ monologue, which is often characterised by a needlessly detailed breakdown of your regime, stop immediately. Other people may well be interested by your travails (as long as you give a light-hearted account of them), or by amusing observations about the self-improvement phenomenon, but they certainly will not want probing, and deadly serious, insights into the day-to-day grind.

•Lifestyle Braggarts

Perhaps even worse than the bores, are the self-satisfied people who feel an overwhelming urge to boast about their new year achievements. They’re so blinkered by the aspirational messaging, that they feel it is appropriate to show off about their herculean efforts to achieve weight loss, improved fitness, or sobriety.

Boasting is never acceptable: if you deserve praise, it will no doubt be forthcoming but eliciting it will make the people around you feel resentful. They might also find your loudly trumpeted virtues are making them feel miserable about their own meagre, or non-existent, achievements, and you should never behave in a way that makes the people around you feel worse about themselves.

Resolution Revision

One way of ensuring that you won’t be trapped by these pitfalls is to revise and re-think the whole new year’s resolution phenomenon. Instead of turning inwards and focusing on self-improvement, why not think about making some small changes in your behaviour over the coming months that will greatly improve your social relationships and make your interactions with other people much more satisfying? In other words, focus on your manners rather than your mindset by doing the following:

•Improve your interactions with strangers

Resolve to make the world a more friendly place by smiling more frequently and being meticulous about your ‘Good morning’ and ‘Good afternoon’ greetings. In shops, bars and restaurants, offer heartfelt thanks – sometimes adding phrases such as ‘you’re so kind’ or ‘I appreciate it’ or ‘I’m so grateful’ is appropriate. Wherever possible, a miniature small talk exchange should be initiated; observations on the weather (‘there’s a really bitter wind today, isn’t there?”), or the surroundings (“whenever are they going to finish these roadworks?”) will get the ball rolling.

You will soon find that you are repaid in kind, and that every day embraces a series of micro-encounters that will make you feel better about yourself and other people.

•Give other people priority

At its most basic, this is simply being aware of other people and accommodating them. So, it’s always polite to hold open doors, to stand back and let other people off the train or bus first, to usher people in front of you with a gracious gesture (this applies to drivers as well as pedestrians). Once you notice the people around you, you might find yourself embarking on more elaborate courtesies, such as helping a pushchair-wheeling mother up the steps or assisting a passenger with stowing their luggage in an overhead rack.

•Give other people attention

Most of us are in the grips of a major distraction, which is our ever-present mobile phones. We bump into strangers on the street because we are mesmerised by the screen, we play with our phones at mealtimes or when our friends are trying to talk to us, we constantly fiddle with our phones and check our messages, even when there are other more important calls on our attention. If we make one resolution this year, it should be to refocus our attention on other people and away from these highly addictive gadgets, which are having a destructive impact on our social relationships and diminishing our ability to focus and prioritise.

•Give other people consideration

Resolve to exercise your empathy faculty. Try and imagine what other people are feeling in any situation, and amend your behaviour accordingly. If you’re running late, for example, imagine how tedious it must be for your friend to be standing outside the cinema waiting for you; text and apologise, and suggest you meet in a more comfortable place. Or, if you receive a social invitation and prevaricate about replying, imagine how frustrating it must be for your host, who doesn’t know if you’ll be attending. Resolve to stop dithering, send a definitive response immediately (with apologies for the lateness of your reply), and stick to it (imagine how insulting and inconvenient a last-minute change of mind could be).

In most social scenarios, it is possible to work through the consequences of your actions on other people and, if the impact is likely to be negative, to take avoiding action. The main thing is to ensure that you are finely-tuned to your environment and to the people around you and conscious of the impact you have on them, do not charge – heedless and self-preoccupied – into 2025…