Search Here

Before the New Year rolls around, one the most common practices that people do is write down their list of resolutions. For this year's list, according to a survey conducted by GoBankingRates, the most popular one is "enjoying life to the fullest."

For this survey, the researchers provided six resolutions for the respondents to choose from. These options were: "Enjoy life to the fullest," "Live a healthier lifestyle," "Lose weight," "Save more, spend less," "Spend more time with family and friends" and "Pay down debt." There was also a "none of the above" option.

"Enjoy life to the fullest" was the heavy favorite with 45.7 percent of surveyed people choosing that option.

"Who wouldn't want to live life to the fullest?" said Cameron Huddleston, GOBankingRates' Life + Money columnist, reported by TIME. "Unfortunately, the small things in life can get in the way of actually enjoying life. Perhaps that's why so many people are resolving to live life to the fullest - as a reminder to take advantage of the time they have."

The resolution that had the second highest percentage, at 39.6 percent, was "lose weight," followed by "spend more time with family and friends" at 33.2 percent. The least popular resolution was "pay down debt" at 27.5 percent. Even though the financial resolutions received the lowest percentages, the team did find that 57.6 percent of Americans included either one or both of them on their 2016 list.

The team found that people were pretty realistic when it came to making goals with 55.3 percent of them stating that they will only tackle one goal this upcoming year. 23.7 percent of the people said they will have two to three resolutions and 21 percent are hoping to accomplish at least four. Younger people were more likely to choose more goals than older people.

Women were also more likely than men to set more resolutions with an average of 2.2 resolutions for the New Year. Women were less likely than men to select "pay down debt" as a goal. For "live a healthier lifestyle," the percentages between both sexes were almost the same. For the remaining four resolutions, women were more likely than men to add them to their list.

Aside from gender, the survey also examined the differences between Millenials (18-34) and Generation Xers (35-54).

Younger millenials (18-24) were more likely to set "spend more time with family and friends" as their main resolution. Millenials in general are most concerned about saving money and spending less of it. For Gen Xers, the younger portion of the group (35-44) was more likely to pick "live a healthier lifestyle" as their top resolution. For older Gen Xers, the most important resolution is to pay down debts.

The more popular resolution options for the elderly were "enjoy life to the fullest" and "live a healthier lifestyle."

For more information on the survey results, click here.