Why New Year’s Resolutions Rarely Stick and How to Rethink Them

It’s the time of year when people declare “New Year, New Me,” champagne flutes are raised to “new beginnings,” and over 30% of Americans say they will set a New Year’s resolution for 2026, while roughly 70% of us quietly know our resolutions will fizzle out before February.

It is believed that the tradition of New Year’s resolutions was passed down to us by the Romans, who established January 1st as the start of the year under the Julian calendar, honouring Janus, the two-faced god of beginnings and transitions. Janus was depicted with one face looking back at the past and one looking forward to the future, making him the symbol for the year’s turn.

The days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve can often be a reflective downtime for us. What have I done this year? How has the year gone? With the cultural tradition of resolutions being a global phenomenon we all celebrate, midnight on January 1st can become the starting point for change.

Research suggests only 9% of people achieve their resolutions for the full year.

New Year's resolutions can have such a low success rate for many reasons: they can be unrealistic and vague. For example, the resolution "eat less chocolate this year” can fail for this reason. Resolutions like “I am going to lose weight” or “I am going to spend less time on my phone” can also put immense pressure on us and are often not well planned.

Rather than setting a resolution “to lose weight,” you can reframe it as “I will live healthier this year.” Instead of saying “to spend less time on my phone,” you could say “I will prioritise my time better this year”. These positive reframes can help us feel less overwhelmed when implementing a new habit into our lives.

Despite this, we can still lose motivation if we are too ambitious with goals, such as saving a certain amount of money in a few months or losing a certain amount of weight on an equally unrealistic schedule. It's also important to be realistic with goals to do with fitness and sobriety; having a drink or skipping for a walk a few days in a row, shouldnt make us feel we've failed and that our resolution is gone. Instead, we should see these setbacks and remember that we can always return to our resolution rather than abandoning it.

New Year’s resolutions are often seen as broken because, for most people, they don’t seem to stick. Recent studies show that 80% of them don’t last beyond February. That said, there’s no need to ditch the tradition entirely. Its not about the date being magical, but about harnessing a collective moment where many people are trying to change and grow.

Why wait until January 1st when you could start on December 10th? This ties back to the “fresh start effect,” where milestones like New Year’s create a mental reset, distancing us from past failures and motivating new beginnings.

I don’t believe New Year’s resolutions fail because people lack discipline. I think they fail because we treat change as a single outcome rather than an ongoing goal to pursue. For me, the new year isn’t a promise to become someone else, but a moment to commit more deeply to a direction I’m already moving in. Progress doesn’t reset when we stumble, and growth doesn’t require a perfect starting point. Sometimes, staying on the path matters more than announcing a new one.