New Year’s resolutions, same struggles
New Year’s resolutions, same struggles
While young adults are the most likely to set fresh goals at the start of the year, few last more than three months. How can we get these to stick?
2024 coming to a close means it’s almost that time again; New Year’s resolutions.
Love them or hate them, this yearly goal-setting practice has been around for thousands of years. But while adults ages 18-29 are the most likely to set goals going into the new year, it turns out their chances of actually achieving those goals are low.
According to a survey from Forbes Health and OnePoll, the average New Year’s resolution won’t live much past the three-month mark, yet one third of adults still set a resolution going into 2024. Clearly, the act of setting goals for the new year is important to us – the problem just lies in how, exactly, we can achieve these goals.
But goal-setting is not a practice exclusive to the new year. The tendency to reflect on the kind of person you are versus the kind you’d like to be is ever-present. So what is it about New Year’s that makes people so inclined to set resolutions? And, if they’re doomed to fail, how can we better set ourselves up for success in all facets of goal-setting?
The psychology of resolutions
Syracuse University psychology assistant professor Jessie Joyce said the reason people set resolutions for the new year is simple; temporal landmarks.
“When you’re giving directions, you point to something as a way to help people orient themselves in that physical space,” Joyce said. “We use temporal landmarks, points in time, in the same way – to help us think about the passage of time and where we are to mark place.”
While temporal landmarks are commonly events like holidays or birthdays, they can also be the beginning of any kind of new period or cycle. This tendency to create goals around temporal landmarks is a phenomenon known as the Fresh Start Effect – which can be summed up simply by the often-heard (often-hated) phrase “new year, new me.” When people experience some kind of new beginning, like a new year, they are more likely to start new goals along with it.
“People often will put all of their imperfections, the things they don’t like about their self concept that they want to leave behind, on their past self,” Joyce said.
Joyce suggested that New Year’s, like many other temporal landmarks, allows us a degree of separation from the struggles of our past.
“We say, ‘Well, I used to struggle with this,’ ‘I used to have this problem, but I don’t anymore,’ and that makes us feel more capable,” she said. “It is this process we do often without consciously thinking about it because it’s so useful in our self esteem.”
Though this idea of starting fresh in the new year can create positive feelings, goal-setting actually thrives in times of negativity. Joyce described a concept known as self discrepancy theory, which plays a key role in motivation across the board. By becoming aware of the inconsistencies between our actual selves and our ideal selves, regardless of how it may make us feel, we open the door for change.
“If we’re thinking about that discrepancy, there might be some immediate negative feelings because we’re noticing we’re not where we want to be, but it can also be this really effective source of motivation to start achieving goals,” Joyce said. “Apart from motivation, it plays this nice role in identity because it’s helping people to recognize elements of what they want that ideal self to look like.”
Each year, the most popular New Year’s resolution tends to be fitness based. Joyce said this particular kind of goal might resonate the most with younger adults given the pressures that surround identity and acceptance at this time.
“People are trying to distinguish themselves from others and figure out who they are, and that can involve wanting to find these opportunities to reinvent themselves,” she said.
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Though puberty is typically something we associate with middle school years rather than college, Joyce said there is actually a “second wave” of puberty that happens right around 20 years old – which might explain the increased desire to change one’s identity.
Often, when people are thinking about their ideal self, they’re thinking abstractly about the future. Claims like This year, I’m going to lose weight or In 2025, I’m going to be happy are impossible to achieve because they are just too general. In setting goals with no specific steps, no mention of accountability, and no measurement of success, all we’re doing is setting ourselves up for failure.
Reframing goals
In order to properly set a goal, we have to get more specific. Ashley Leone, SU’s assistant director of nutrition management, recommends creating SMART goals. The acronym SMART refers to any goal that’s specific, measurable, actionable, relevant and time-based.
“If you want to work out, what does your schedule look like? Is it easier to work out at home, or do you feel you would do better at a class? Be specific,” Leone said.
Leone emphasized thinking not only about the specifics of the goal itself, but everything you will need to get there.
“If you want to lose weight, what does that mean?” Leone said. “How much weight? What’s realistic? And what are you going to do to set yourself up for success as far as meal planning and looking at your whole lifestyle?”
Leone said she is a sucker for a fresh start herself. Though she gets excited by the new year, she finds it important to work toward something at all times. She said that setting goals, whether it be weekly, monthly, or yearly, helps in personal growth and improvement.
A common thread Leone observes in failed New Year’s resolutions is their magnitude.
“Oftentimes people have these grandiose goals and it’s very easy to have that motivation in the beginning, but then life sets in – and work, and exhaustion,” she said.
While it’s healthy to have aspirations, it can be discouraging to constantly fall short of a goal that is impossible to reach. Leone said the key is keeping goals small and manageable, or instead, setting “mini-goals.”
“Trying to do too much at once is just impossible because everyone has their habits, their daily lifestyle, and it’s really hard to change a habit,” she said. “If you can meet that goal or continuously try to meet it, that’s where the motivation starts to build and that’s what’s going to keep you on track – then maybe going to the next step.”
Beyond the SMART goal
Though Leone is a proponent of SMART goals, the concept is not without its drawbacks. Richard Batts, instructional design coordinator at Ohio State University, said the SMART acronym forgets to account for two crucial things – the first being obstacles.
“When [people] start identifying obstacles, the likelihood of this goal being met is going to increase significantly,” Batts said.
If you resolve to work out in the new year, Batts said you should recognize potential obstacles and create a plan for overcoming them. If you know you’re going to be exhausted after your classes, hit the gym in the early morning. If you have no patience for sitting in traffic, start lifting weights at home.
The second thing missing from SMART – and something Batts said plays a major role in the failing of New Year’s resolutions – is accountability.
“Accountability gives them somewhat of a purpose, as well as the motivation [of] saying ‘somebody’s watching me, I need to finish this,’” he said.
In fact, a 2023 survey from Forbes Health and OnePoll revealed only 20% of respondents were able to hold themselves accountable for their resolutions. Batts suggested that sharing these goals with friends and family members is a great way to combat this.
“Asking ‘How can I support you? What do you need from me to help you get that goal? Is there anything I can do?’’’ Batts said. “At the very least, knowing that there’s someone there supporting them, willing to help them reach that goal, [it] is going to be that much more achievable.”
Accountability as motivation
For SU finance senior Tess Tanner, accountability has never been an issue. Though she doesn’t believe in setting New Year’s resolutions, eating right and working out are at the top of her priority list. Tanner stays committed to bettering her health largely through her gym membership, which she uses almost daily. Her secret to staying motivated is taking the time to create long-lasting habits.
“You can’t just say, ‘January first it’s a new me.’ It doesn’t work like that,” Tanner said. “If [people] truly wanted to change something, they would have by then. It’s not just magically going to flip a switch in their brain on January first that they love this new thing. It’s something that really does need to be slowly incorporated in order for it to stick.”
When she began her fitness journey years ago, Tanner would go to the gym a couple times a week, increasing the frequency gradually. She then started cutting out the foods she felt didn’t energize or serve her body.
“The emphasis for me is definitely on just feeling good and staying fit, rather than the way that I look,” she said. “Waking up in the morning and going to the gym before I go to class, it just makes me feel better overall and helps me with everything I do in my day to day life.”
Tanner said she notices that when she eats less processed foods and exercises consistently, her brain fog decreases and she’s able to focus more clearly.
When it comes to New Year’s resolutions, goals surrounding exercise are the most common. Perhaps some of Tanner’s success with this can be attributed to the framing of her goals. A 2023 study found that those who set approach-oriented exercise resolutions (or resolutions focusing on positive outcomes like improved health) were more likely to not only maintain a better mental wellbeing, but stick to their resolutions. Those whose resolutions were avoidance-oriented (trying to prevent a negative outcome like weight gain) were less successful.
“A time to dream”
New York life coach Eva Centeno finds this to be the case with her clients as well. Centeno maintains that people thrive in completing their goals only when they are truly motivated.
“It’s important to set your goals according to your own values – not just everybody says we should be losing weight, everybody says we should stop drinking. All those shoulds and all that outside influence is not what is intrinsically valuable to you,” Centeno said. “What is it that you want to do?”
Although Centeno always supports setting healthy goals, she warned that the typical New Year’s resolution timeline isn’t right for everyone.
“I honestly believe that January should be a time to dream, not to necessarily set a resolution,” she said. “I like to follow this concept of using it as a time to plant seeds, to reflect and look back, and just settle in.”
While there is something of a societal pressure to have a goal set going into the new year, especially for younger adults, Centeno said we must let this idea go.
“Everybody’s feeling this push, but I’m just saying pause a little bit, take it in,” Centeno said. “Figure out what goal is going to energize you. If a goal is not working, reframe it, flip it, and look at it in a new way.”
Centeno argued that while setting goals with only yourself in mind may lead to greater success, it’s important to offer yourself kindness and forgiveness regardless of whether you succeed.
“Sometimes you may struggle with some of your goals, but that’s okay. If it’s important to you, you can reset and go back and do it again,” she said. “A lot of times, people lose perspective that 1% towards a goal is really good progress.”
is a digital producer for The NewsHouse.