After a December filled with family, traditions, delicious food, and reflections on the past year, January offers a fresh start – a chance to look ahead to the possibilities of the New Year. It’s also the time when many of us commit to making New Year’s resolutions. But why do we set these goals?
Charlotte Findlay, Head of Psychology, explores the psychology behind making New Year’s resolutions and shares strategies for successfully sticking to them.
The ‘Fresh Start’ effect suggests that we are more likely to tackle a goal following a ‘landmark’ in time, whether that be ‘Monday’, a holiday, birthday or a New Year. This personal timeframe psychologically resets us, giving us optimism, self-efficacy and motivation to maintain our new change by providing a ‘clean slate’ (Dai et al. 2014).
However, sometimes we’re just following the crowd as New Year’s Resolutions are engrained into our culture and social norms. When social media and clever marketing campaigns are telling us we need a goal, there is a pressure to conform. As humans are social creatures, we like to fit in with the majority and share our perspective of events as this fosters community, social support and extrinsically motivates us. Lastly, Hope Theory (Snyder, 2002) proposes that humans are inherently positive and the act of making a goal to better ourselves is hopeful, optimistic and empowering which intrinsically motivates us.
According to YouGov (2023), the most popular resolutions of 2024 were to engage in more exercise or improve fitness, followed by saving money, losing weight, improving diet and spending less time on social media. But with only 31% of Britons keeping their resolution all year, 16% failing within the first few days and 80% failing by February (Norcross et al., 2002), why is it so difficult to stick to them?
It might be that your goals are too ambitious. If you’re not currently active, expecting to run 5km daily is unsustainable, and will likely lead to overtraining and sore muscles, which doesn’t reward or encourage anyone to want to run again. Research has shown that unrealistic goals can reduce willpower and lead to failure (Baumeister and Heatherton, 1996) so ensure your goals are realistic, for you. Resolutions are more likely to stick when they are tied to our identity, and our mindset will slowly change with them. For example, tell yourself that’ ‘you are a runner’, rather than ‘you need to run more’ (Dweck, 2006).
It could be that your goals are vaguely generic (‘eat healthier’ or ‘exercise more’). It helps to set measurable and specific targets, and AI can help with this. There are plenty AI platforms available today, and by telling your chosen platform your overall goal, parameters and requests, it can build you a daily or weekly plan to follow.
It may be that you’re not rewarding yourself enough. In a society that gives us instant ‘dopamine hits’, plan how you will reward short-term achievements and progress for long-term goals such as weight loss or saving money that are harder to see instantaneously. Create accountability and incorporate small rewards into your goals by sharing resolutions with friends, joining a support group, or tracking progress on an app. Accountability increases the likelihood of follow-through and monitoring progress is shown to improve goal attainment (Harkin et al., 2016).
Perhaps your current habits are preventing change; deeply engrained behaviours like smoking may be difficult to change if they are part of your normal lifestyle (smoking at set points in the day). Looking at the bigger picture of your lifestyle and planning for ‘failure’ points and barriers may help you anticipate setbacks and consider solutions. It’s this preparation that healthcare professionals use to identify and support change in patients who need to make changes for their health.
How long does it take for a new habit to form, I hear you ask. Lally (2009) asked participants to form a new eating or drinking habit daily, reporting their behaviour throughout. She found that it took them between 18 to 254 days to perform the task daily, with an average of 66 days. Whereas when participants were asked to form a new exercise habit, researchers found that it took around six weeks, with four sessions a week to establish the routine (Kaushal and Rhodes, 2015). However, Buyalskaya et al., (2023) suggest the behaviour and context can dictate the time with an exercise routine taking months, but a handwashing routine in a hospital taking weeks.
Lastly, if you’re looking for resolution ideas, consider the Delphi Study (2020), where experts statistically analysed and suggested strategies to improve life-satisfaction and happiness based on their effectiveness, feasibility and cost. Top contenders included investing time in friends and family, joining a club, being physically and mentally active, and being generous to others.
Follow @OakhamPsychology for more news and blogs about psychology.
Baumeister, R. F., & Heatherton, T. F. (1996). Self-regulation failure: An overview. Psychological Inquiry, 7 (1), 1-15.
Buettner, D & Nelson, T, & Veenhoven, R. (2020). Ways to Greater Happiness: A Delphi Study. Journal of Happiness Studies. 21. 10.1007/s10902-019-00199-3.
Buyalskaya, H. Ho, K.L. Milkman, X. Li, A.L. Duckworth, C. Camerer, What can machine learning teach us about habit formation? Evidence from exercise and hygiene, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.
Dai, H., Milkman, K. L., & Riis, J. (2014). The fresh start effect: Temporal landmarks motivate aspirational behavior. Management Science, 60(10), 2563-2582.
Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Random House.
Harkin, B, Webb, T,L, Chang, B,P, Prestwich, A, Conner, M, Kellar, I, Benn, Y, Sheeran, P. (2016) Does monitoring goal progress promote goal attainment? A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence. Psychological Bulletin. 142(2):198-229. doi: 10.1037/bul0000025. Epub 2015 Oct 19. PMID: 26479070.
Kaushal, N., & Rhodes, R. E. (2015). Exercise habit formation in new gym members: A longitudinal study. Health Psychology, 34 (11), 1240-1248.
Lally, P., Cornelia, H. Van Jaarsveld, M., Henry, W., Potts, J, W. (2009). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998-1009.
Norcross, J. C., Mrykalo, M. S., & Blagys, M. D. (2002). Auld lang syne: success predictors, change processes, and self-reported outcomes of New Year’s resolvers and non-resolvers. Journal of clinical psychology, 58 (4), 397–405.
YouGov (2023) What New Year’s resolutions are Britons making for 2024? [online]. Available at https://yougov.co.uk/society/articles/48223-what-new-years-resolutions-are-britons-making-for-2024 Accessed December 2024
