With January upon us, you may be writing yet another list of goals, while simultaneously asking yourself, “why do my New Year’s resolutions fail?” Optimism and a sense of doom often go together at this time of year, especially when you’ve ended the previous year noticing that your goals went unaccomplished.
It’s an all-too-common experience. The second Friday in January is even informally designated “Quitter’s Day”, while one poll suggests that the average resolution in America lasts 3.74 months.
The good news is that you can learn a lot by analysing why those past goals have been unsuccessful. If you can transform that knowledge into practical strategies for change, you could well be on track to turn the latest list of New Year’s resolutions into lived reality.
4 Common Reasons Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail: A psychological explanation
We all joke about making “excuses” for why we do not achieve our goals. However, it’s often not for a lack of trying that our New Year’s resolutions remain unrealised. As a clinical psychologist, I’ve helped many clients analyse and problem-solve in these scenarios. Most of the causes behind unsuccessful goals relate to the following:
1) They’re the wrong goals for you at this moment
We all have a certain picture in our heads of our ideal lives and ideal selves. That doesn’t mean that we should overhaul our lives to realise them.
Sometimes, people even discover that these ideas don’t actually reflect their true values or beliefs. Even when our goals are true to ourselves, they simply may not be realistic – for a variety of reasons.
When people try to achieve a new year’s resolution and then realise it’s not achievable for them – not for lack of effort on their part – it can be very disheartening. That’s why you need to set goals that challenge you but remain realistic.
2) You don’t believe you can achieve them (perhaps because you’ve tried with little or no success)
So many common New Year’s resolutions relate to making physical health changes, like losing weight or eating more healthily. These often come from a place of dissatisfaction with – even dislike for – ourselves.
When mixed with a sense that you’ve already tried and failed to make a change, this negative self-perception can become a big obstacle. You might not enjoy the process of achieving the goal and even resist the changes you’d like to make.
3) The process involved in achieving the goal is too uncomfortable
“Suddenly, it just seemed so clear to me”… “I knew I had to do it”… We’ve all heard of people who suddenly have a realisation that galvanises them to make changes in their lives. But those moments of clarity are rare and even knowing you should do something isn’t always enough to motivate you to actually do it.
Prioritising current or temporary pleasure over future results is another reason why New Year’s resolutions fail. A lot of big goals often demand a prolonged state of discipline. This can cause huge discomfort when you have an intense need for instant gratification – which can be amplified in conditions like ADHD. In these cases, people will often do anything to stop feeling uncomfortable – even if it means undermining a longer-term goal.
4) You don’t have the necessary support systems around you
All too often, we get derailed from our goals because we don’t have supportive systems around us. Well-meaning loved ones may not think your goal is healthy for you; friends and family may have little interest in your goals or limited ability to support you to the finish line.
Beyond friends and families, living within economies or in communities where intergenerational trauma, colonialism and Apartheid have imposed systemic barriers can make personal and collective change very difficult.
Are New Year’s Resolutions Worth Making?
Yes, I still think it’s worth making new year’s resolutions. Having goals improves autonomy, focus and motivation, and monitoring those goals helps towards their achievement. The start of the calendar year offers a sort of clean slate to begin anew. The seasonal buzz of setting goals can also help provide accountability.
The key is to set achievable New Year’s resolutions that really resonate with you and to make sure you have a well-thought out, self-compassionate plan for how you’ll realise them. I encourage clients to invest time into the strategy they’ll follow and also into understanding and valuing the rationale behind their goals.
How to Achieve New Year’s Resolutions
Do you feel like you’ve failed at one or several New Year’s resolutions? I do, too. We all do. And it’s not a bad place to be because now you’ve gone through that experience, you can understand why New Year’s resolutions fail and can analyse what worked and what didn’t work. With fresh self-knowledge and the right support in place, you can grow the tools that will help you try again with better success.
Developing clear, accurate and compassionate insight into ourselves is an enormous part of the psychotherapy process. Equally, it’s important to transform that psychological insight into behaviours that deepen our satisfaction and well-being in life.
With this psychology and coaching in mind, I’ve developed my Achieve Your New Year’s Resolutions course. The course, although not a replacement for therapy or other professional mental health treatment, is part psychology lesson and part coaching session. The workshops offer practical activities to think psychologically about the goals you want to achieve and ensure they are aligned to your values and lived reality. Using that self-knowledge, you’ll be guided to develop a growth mindset, anticipate relevant obstacles and set up strategies that will support you through them.
If we are to reach the year-end without despair, blame, guilt and shame, we need to think differently about our New Year’s resolutions. We need to choose those goals that are truly well-aligned and meaningful enough to motivate us. We must also develop insightful, actionable strategies to nourish the kind of growth mindset and psychological resilience that will carry us through difficulties, towards our goals and ultimately towards satisfaction and well-being in life.
