It’s okay if this is the first moment you’ve thought about your list of New Year’s resolutions in the last month or so. So many of us hunker down on New Year’s Eve with a pen and a vision, marking down the ideal versions of ourselves and our futures, ready to bring to life everything we’ve ever wanted to do and to be. Around 45% of Americans make New Year’s resolutions but only 8%, if that, achieve them in a given year. “Quitter’s Day” in mid-January is an unofficial but widely recognized holiday, marking the point where nearly half of us have already given up.
The thing with our lists of resolutions is that they’re kind of just lists. They get filed away into “I’ll deal with this later” folders or buried in our Notes apps, hidden away by more relevant matters and tasks that feel more doable.
This is one of the first years I’ve found my resolutions actually sticking. To be fair, only a few weeks have passed and I still have around 330 days left to prove myself wrong, but here are a few ideas on how to avoid another year of the Unresolved Resolutions cycle.
Don’t Just Make a Resolutions List
I’ve started to think that all along, the problem has quite possibly been the list itself. The list is nice. It’s an activity. It’s a tradition. But it is also just so removed, daunting, and impractical.
I’ve never once woken up with the urge to glance through the to-do list of New Year’s resolutions I’ve set. On late nights where my sleep schedule is tragic and weeks when my water intake is not ideal, I don’t think to return to my trusty, demanding, perhaps judgmental guide to being a better, more healthy person. It takes a random train of thought to remind me to check that list on rare occasions, and that inconsistency doesn’t allow for change. The list is organized but it’s isolated and so easy to forget about until it's too late.
So this year, I did make the list. And then I took it apart and integrated it into parts of my life that I actually regularly visit. My academic goals are in the margins of my daily homework list, and now I’m reminded that I want to finish my homework before 8PM at a time when that reminder is actually relevant. I used to never drink water despite “be more hydrated” being scrawled at the top of my list every year, but with the post-it note by the water jug I see multiple times a day, my hydration is wildly respectable.
Consider Who You Want to Be
I want to be the kind of person who talks to strangers when I like their outfits or am completely lost in the street. I want to be the kind of person who surprises her friends with little gifts on random Tuesdays.
I love lists—I love writing out everything that comes to mind and organizing my dreams on paper. So this year on New Year’s Eve, I still made a list, but it was a selection of things that feel intrinsically joyful, a short enough list that when I find myself at Target, I remember that I want to be the kind of person who buys her friends flowers. And so I buy the flowers. When I’m waiting for the walk-sign, I remember that I want to be someone who makes strangers feel special. And so I compliment a scarf or hat. Instead of cultivating a massive amount of tasks to achieve, I tried to note who I am and who I really want to become, and these things have been easier to implement.
Are You Just… Listing Things?
I would always get so excited on New Year’s Eve and make a checklist with 45 resolutions, jotting down everything that even remotely sounded like a goal. And then no matter how successful I’d be that year, I most certainly would not achieve 45 random goals and I would be disappointed, even if just slightly, at the end of the year.
I think the key is intentionality. Instead of “make sure my closet is always in rainbow order because why not write this one down,” I thought about why that idea sounded appealing to begin with. I really just wanted to have a functionally organized closet so that I could always know what sweater options were in the cards, and so I spent the year making an effort to make the most of my closet instead. Instead of just writing “wake up earlier,” I acknowledged that I wanted to have more time to move slowly in the morning, time to make tea and actually pick out one of those sweaters, and that intentionality made change so much easier.
It Can Be Easier to Add
A main reason New Year’s Resolutions tend to fail is because they can be very demanding. By trying to deprive ourselves of so many big or little things that we rely on already, we’re bound to feel drained if it’s all snatched away.
I’ve found that creating positive change is easier to implement and maintain. “Stop scrolling before bed” has never worked quite as well for me as “start reading a few pages of a book right before bed” has. Eventually, the impact can be the same, but by not framing change as deprivation, we can have a more positive association with this growth. Enjoying the change will help maintain the change.
Ditch the In-the-Moment Choice
Decision fatigue and resistance to change are already hurdles in our daily lives. If, on top of that, every day starts with either forcing ourselves to decide that it’s time to change or else maintaining the not-ideal status quo, things might not change.
My main advice for writing has always been to write when you feel inspired to: clinging to a random jolt of excitement to work on your college essays makes the process, and your writing, so much better. The same concept works here: if, right now, you’re excited to wake up early tomorrow and go for a run, take every possible step to help the morning version of you. Pick your outfit. Put your shoes by the door. Set your alarm just far enough away that you have to get out of bed anyways, and make it easy enough that the very-sleepy-not-interested-in-running version of you doesn’t have to make every ideal decision.
Ditch the Pressure
The long list you made at the beginning of January, the one filled with countless things to change about yourself and your life, isn’t there to haunt you. It sometimes seems to, embedded with implicit criticisms of the person you are right now and . Your list isn’t eying you judgmentally. Your list isn’t eying you at all.
If December 31st comes around and you’ve achieved nothing on that list, it’s not going to come and get you. If we’ve decided that you must “succeed” and then we “fail,” it’ll just be the pressure that holds us back. The mindset is the cause and the consequence.
Try Not to Follow the Crowd
I’m not advising this necessarily, but I think TikTok actually helped cure my insomnia a few years ago. As much as it’s just objectively healthier to not doomscroll, it helped me foster an association with bedtime of relaxation and complete positivity which, in turn, made falling asleep much easier.
If I’d simply forced myself to stick with a “no scrolling” resolution entirely because that’s always everyone’s resolution, my screentime definitely would’ve decreased but my sleep schedule might have still been in shambles even all these years later. I’ve learned to cater my goals towards my needs and wants instead of adding three or four goals that all my friends happen to have. Also, sharing your resolutions and goals aloud can actually make you less likely to complete them, so maybe that’s another reminder that comparison is the thief of joy.
Let Yourself “Fail”
Quitter’s Day, while amusing, is kind of a crazy concept. A holiday designed just to say, “I told you that you wouldn’t get even this far” often just reinforces our lack of faith in ourselves. Quitter’s Day, and every statistic saying that even if you’ve made it this far you’re bound to fail soon, completely write off the idea of starting now. The tradition of January 1st marking a fresh start can be powerful, but the idea that you can dig up that list months later and start in May is even more so. New Year’s Day isn’t the only chance we have to change our lives.
That’s the point of all these ideas. You don’t have to wait 11 months to embed your resolutions into your daily to-do list, or to add three new goals, or to decide it’s time to just try again.
