New Year, Same Struggle: Why New Year Resolutions Fail
Creating a lasting change is a topic that is very close to my heart.
This article is a bit of a re-work from a similar blog post about new year’s resolutions I penned last year. It morphs from writing a short form piece for my Instagram and in the process of writing, I had a robust flow of idea, and I felt that it became too long of an article to sit on my social media.
So, here goes a 2 part series on why I think new year's resolutions tend to fail and what to do instead.
Check out the other article in the “New Year’s Resolution, End of the Year Reflection” series:
End of the year reflection: Crafting your narrative in the year’s final chapter
Intentional Life 101: Live life in your own terms
For many of us, a new year represents a fresh start, which typically signal a new beginning, a clean slate.
When something comes to an end, we will gravitate towards a new beginning.
The reality of new year’s resolutions for many of us, including myself, is that we want a big, spectacular, revolutionary restart. And we also regularly fail to keep them.
Why do we make New Year Resolutions (to start with)?!?
Hate to admit, though this is true that optimism alone will not translate a list into actions. Here’s why:
In order to make big, lasting changes, we need to be comfortable with being uncomfortable!
A lot of New Year’s resolutions has something to do with settling with a new habit or drastically changing an existing one. Habits are automatic and conditioned responses. It is the routine and activities you do day in day out without blinking an eye. You get up in the morning, make coffee, and get ready for work. You make a quick stop at Whole Food after work to grab your favourite Tomato and Pepperoni Pizza every Friday. That’s habit.
Contrary to some opinion, undoing an old habit and creating new ones take time and repetition.
“A habit is a routine or behaviour that is performed regularly and, in many cases, automatically…Changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound and turn into remarkable results if you are willing to stick with them for years.” -Atomic Habit-
Our self story
Well, we all have stories and perceptions about ourselves. We have some idea of who we are as a person and what we deem as important. These self-stories or, dare I claim, self-perception have great influence over our decisions and actions. Whether you realize it or not, we tend to make a decision or act in a way that is consistent with our self-perception.
If you ever want to change your behaviour, or create a new habit, you have to start with evaluating your self-perception. What prompted you to do some of the things that you do? What are you getting out of those actions? If there is something you wish to change about that behaviour, what motivated you to change?
The most commonly cited reasons on why new year resolutions fail:
In many cases, new year resolutions revolve around optional things that we don’t think through far enough how it would look like implementing it day in day out.
It is not a question of enduring it for several weeks or months. One example that came to mind is intending to go to the gym 4 times a week, all the while someone hates weightlifting or an overly prescriptive routine.
Hey, full disclosure here, this was me a few years ago, so I am not highlighting an example because I think it is silly. I slipped into this slippery slope before, and after enduring many years of feeling bad for not keeping up with my new year resolutions, I felt motivated to come up with something that is more long-term and sustainable.
Things shifted for me when I asked myself a deeper WHY behind certain things.
I ended up sticking with doing Pilates after a run because I want to develop a toned body by relying on my own weight. I also want to be able to exercise at a time that works best for me as I felt that a scheduled class felt overly restrictive for me. Though, in my personal life I know a handful of people who mentioned to me that this system will not work for them as having a set time motivated them to do it. So, it all boils down to knowing yourself and the reasons why you want to do certain things your way.
The thing with New Year Resolutions is that most people force themselves to move from the precontemplation to the action and maintenance stage instantly.
There goes another point on why most new year resolution fail.
There has to be a certain amount of intentionality to make any changes sustainable.
At glance it might seem like I hate new year’s resolutions,.. Though all in all, I would not say that I hate it as much as over time my perspective on it shifted and it’s just not working the best for me.
I am a firm believer of defining life on your own terms, so if doing resolutions happen to work for you, I would actually love to hear from you. In what way does it work for you?
For those of you who are like me, feeling a mixture of terrified yet excited at the same time when we think about ushering in the new year, I would love to hear your thoughts on what I shared above.
If you feel you would benefit from having a sounding board to make those thoughts come into fruition, I welcome you to book a time for us to get chatting :)
Throughout this pandemic, I witnessed telehealth virtual sessions become more of a norm, and it has been super transformative seeing clients can access mental health services from the comfort of their home.
There are lots of different stereotypes out there, and society tells us who we are supposed to be and what we are supposed to do in the world. It can feel very overwhelming and confusing to compare our personal experience against those ideas. The thing is, you no longer have to be defined by what society tells you. It is your life to live, and you get to decide who get a say about your life.