New Year’s Resolutions Blog

Why New Year’s resolutions fail

Wednesday, December 27th, 2006

Do you know the number one reason New Year’s resolutions fail? No? Hmm, well, maybe I’ll tell you later… Okay, no, I’ll suck it up and write about it now. The primary reason resolutions fail is, not surprisingly, procrastination. Doing anything later is always easier than doing it now. It’s really easy to adopt the mindset that you have all year to accomplish your goals, and that getting a slow start (or no start) in January won’t affect your progress too much. That’s true–but only if you don’t want to make any progress at all, and we’re all here because we do want to make progress, right? Read on for the rest of the reasons why New Year’s resolutions fail…

• Lack of discipline

I think lack of discipline is fundamentally intertwined with procrastination. Procrastination is essentially the inability to discipline yourself to do something now, so it lines right up discipline problems. Unfortunately, there’s no magical way to combat lack of discipline or procrastination–the only thing that will work is developing some discipline. It can help, however, to think about developing discipline in small chunks.

Make discipline easier by breaking it down into steps. Instead of saying “I want to lose 40 pounds” (a pretty ambitious goal), think “I want to lose 5 pounds first. To do this, I can ignore at least one snack craving per day and walk a mile at lunch instead of sitting at my desk or driving to a fast food joint.” Small behavior changes like these require minimal discipline but will definitely help you keep your resolution. This type of behavior planning and positive habit forming brings us to the #3 culprit for resolution failure…

• No game plan

That’s kind of a big “duh” right there. If you’re really serious about changing an aspect of your life, you need to create and stick to a plan–otherwise you’ll just keep cruising along like you always have. And there’s nothing wrong with that, unless you’re unhappy with the way things are going in your life. If you are dissatisfied with the way things are, get motivated to make a plan for change. A really detailed plan is the only way you’ll get anywhere. You can trust me on this, because I’ve broken more than enough resolutions to make me an expert on the subject. I have thought a lot about my upcoming resolution and I have some ideas about resolution planning, so check back on a regular basis for my solar system-shakingly awesome insights.And the last of the top four reasons for breaking a resolution is…

• Having to do it ALONE

That’s definitely a major obstacle. I’ve failed at making a monthly budget, cutting candy out of my diet (oh M&Ms, how I love you…), attending yoga classes on a regular basis, and much more–all because I was doing it alone. (Read more about my resolution failures! It’s entertaining, I promise.) As we’ve discussed, self-discipline is tough; having someone share in your misery/motivation can be the key to success.

And that’s why I’m here–so you don’t have to do it alone! I really (really really really really… k, ’nuff reallies) want to keep my resolution, and a big part of that is making it public. If I have to report my resolution progress to the whole internet every day, I’ll prolly be a little bit ashamed to tell everyone I sat on my ass watching TV for 3 hours instead of working toward achieving my resolution. I also have a real-life buddy with the same resolution, and he’ll probably be my biggest asset. I already know there are going to be days when I would be tempted to break down on the resolution if not for the Brad factor (Brad’s my resolution buddy, if you didn’t get that).

So what are some things that have made you break resolutions in the past? How do you plan to fight these factors in the future? I’m totally on your side when it comes to helping conquer any resolution you make.

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