It’s a new year, which means millions of people are setting resolutions they genuinely want to keep.
We want to eat better. Move more. Make more money. Finally get control of our time. We’re taking advantage of the Fresh Start Effect, a principle rooted in the idea that people often view new beginnings as an opportunity to distance themselves from past failures and shortcomings. This can lead to a psychological reset, where we experience a renewed sense of optimism, self-efficacy, and motivation, common around the New Year.
And yet, by February, most of this motivation will quietly evaporate—not because people don’t care, but because the way we set resolutions is fundamentally flawed.
Why most resolutions fail—even when you really want them to work
As a culture, New Year’s resolutions are tests of your personal discipline. If you stick with them, you’re committed. If you don’t, you “fell off the wagon.” Cue the familiar guilt/shame spiral.
But new behavioral research suggests something very different.
A 2025 multi-country study examining goal persistence found that the strongest predictor of whether someone follows through on a resolution isn’t willpower, discipline, or even how specific the goal is. It’s intrinsic motivation—whether the behavior itself feels personally meaningful and rewarding, rather than externally pressured.
In other words, people don’t abandon resolutions because they lack grit. They abandon them because the goal never fit into their real lives in the first place. That helps explain why the most common resolution formats—rigid, outcome-focused goals set once a year—tend to collapse under pressure.
