The Smart Way of Making New Year’s Resolutions You Can Actually Keep

Well, it’s almost New Year’s Eve and, if you’re like many Americans, you’ll put pressure on yourself to whip up some resolutions for 2026 by the time the ball drops in Times Square. And, if you’re like most of those same Americans, you’ll probably have broken them all by Martin Luther King’s birthday. So what is it about New Year’s resolutions that makes them so hard to keep?

Timothy Pychyl, a professor of psychology at Carleton University in Canada, says that resolutions are a form of "cultural procrastination”. People make resolutions as a way of motivating themselves; however, Pychyl argues that people aren’t really ready to change their habits – particularly bad habits – and that accounts for the high failure rate. In addition, people set unrealistic goals and expectations in their resolutions.

Making New Year’s resolutions work involves changing behaviors. And, in order to change a behavior, you have to change your thinking, or literally, “rewire” your brain.

Brain scientists such as Antonio Damasio, Joseph LeDoux, and psychotherapist Stephen Hayes have discovered, through MRIs, that habitual behavior begins with thinking patterns that create neural pathways and memories. These pathways become the default basis for your behavior when facing a choice or decision. Trying to change that default thinking by trying not to do it usually strengthens the behavior. 

Real change requires new thinking, which physically creates new neural pathways in the brain.

Make your resolutions “keepable”

When we set goals, we’re taught to make them specific, measurable and time-bound. But it turns out that those characteristics are precisely why resolutions can backfire for some people. The problem for these people is that their goal was too big or they had too many. If this is you, don’t beat yourself up. A lot of people experience the same issues.

If you always blow your resolutions, make one or two maximum. And try not to make it physical or financial. These two are, by far, the most challenging and the easiest to cheat on. If your health is poor, pick that one because none of the others will matter if you're not healthy. On the other hand, if your finances are in a shambles, you may want to work on that because the stress will eventually affect your health.

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Tips to help you make your New Year's resolutions work:

• Focus on one resolution rather than several. 

  Nothing says you can't have multiple goals throughout the year. So make it easier to succeed by choosing one key thing you want to do or change. 

• Set realistic and specific goals. 

  Losing weight is not a specific goal. Losing 10 pounds in 90 days is.

• Make resolutions a year-long process every day. 

  Don’t wait until New Year’s Eve to make resolutions because your resolution will be based on how you’re feeling. 

• Take small steps. 

  Many people quit because the goal is too big, requiring too much effort and action. For instance, if you think you need to lose 70 pounds, break it out into 10-pound increments. When you hit that first 10 pounds, create a new goal of another 10 pounds in X amount of days. DON’T try to lose 20 pounds in the same amount of days. Keep losing 10 pounds at a time, as maintaining consistent increments will make the goal more achievable.

• Have an “accountability buddy.” 

  Choose someone close to you to whom you have to report and help keep you focused on your goal.

• Celebrate your success with milestones. 

  Every goal completed means many smaller milestones were accomplished along the way.

And finally, don’t take yourself too seriously. Have fun and laugh when you slip up, but don’t let the slip hold you back from your goal. Better yet, come up with one or two resolutions that would be almost impossible for you to break. That way, you can tell yourself honestly that you haven’t broken ALL of them.

May all your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolutions USED to last. See you in 2026!