How to make sure your New Year’s resolutions don’t fail (again)

Get fit! Exercise! Lose weight and eat healthily, spend less and save more. Those were the intentions topping the list of New Year’s resolutions for 2026, according to a recent YouGov poll of UK adults. A new year is a temporal milestone, signalling a new chapter in the narrative of our lives. Turn the page, begin again. Social scientists refer to this as the fresh start effect.

But as we all know, even the worthiest of resolutions can fall by the wayside. One US study found that 38.5% of people set New Year’s resolutions but only 9% keep them. The running and cycling app Strava went so far as to identify the second Friday in January as “Quitters’ Day” – when people are most likely to abandon their goals and give up with a shrug and a vague sense of guilt.

By the end of the month, two-thirds of us will have ditched the resolutions and returned to the familiar habits we supposedly wanted to change. Often that’s because we don’t realise that habits are contextual. That’s why you might find it relatively easy to be teetotal on a wellness retreat, but then you start drinking again the moment you’re invited to a leaving do.

What can you do to up your chances of being in the glowing one-third of people who have actually managed to make their desirable new behaviours stick? Anyone can take out a gym membership. How do you get to be the person who’s still working out in the spring?

1. Don’t rely on willpower. Willpower doesn’t work. We like to imagine that our past self was out of control, our current self has the right attitude and our future self is going to bring in the discipline that we need. Sadly, we under-appreciate our bias for immediate gratification. So make the good habit easier – put your sneakers by your bed to cue yourself up to go for a run, set up a direct debit. Set up habits that become automatic with repetition instead of trying to be superhumanly strong.

2. Use the power of “yet”. It’s easy to beat yourself up when you miss a day’s exercise, or eat something sugary. But instead of chastising yourself, “I didn’t make it!”, say, “I’m not there yet”. The metaphor of hiking up a mountain is helpful here. Sometimes you’ll go sideways. Sometimes you have to take a step back in order to get your footing to go up again. Expect detours, allow some flexibility, and you won’t feel you’re back at base camp if you slip for a day. Just keep your eyes on where you’re going.

3. Choose small and measurable goals. Chunk up your big intention into small milestones, achievable goals that will accumulate. Have coffee with a friend every week. Exercise for 20 minutes, most days. Rather than, “I need to look like I’m 20”, how about aiming to be a little bit more flexible, a little stronger.Measure your progress, and forgive yourself if you slip for a couple of days – tell yourself, “I’ll get better at it.”

4. Find an accountability partner. Set up weekly check-ins where you share what you did and when. Weight Watchers and Dry January work so well because they are public, and you have deadlines. It’s a step that most people don’t want to take, out of embarrassment – what if I set up accountability and then I don’t actually do it? But if you accept that sometimes you will fail, it can be hugely sustaining to have someone say “Keep going, you can do this!” when your inner critic is telling you you’re a loser.

5. Shift your identity. There’s a reward in seeing yourself as someone who is achieving something. If you start to work out like someone who is athletic, you will begin to feel like an athlete. It’s the principle of our LBS colleague Herminia Ibarra’s book, Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader, applied to other areas. Tell yourself, “I’m someone who enjoys moving my body” or “I’m someone who lives a healthy life.” If you want to read more books, start viewing yourself as a reader.

6. Check why you’re doing it. This one is really essential, because if this goal isn’t really for you, but for someone else, then you’ll find it very challenging to maintain whatever is needed to get there. If it feels punishing and like you’re not good enough, there will be some negative emotion around it, some resistance. You’re more likely to attain your goal if it’s a pull towards something you want, not a push away from something you don’t. Interrogate your why; research shows wants are more effective motivators than shoulds.

7. Gamify the task. As the family movie character Mary Poppins said: “In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun and, snap! The job’s a game.” As she also said, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, so find something to sweeten the task. Wharton professor Katy Milkman, who specialises in science-based motivation strategies, calls this “temptation bundling”. Pair the task you don’t love with a “guilty pleasure” and it becomes more appealing. An hour on the treadmill feels different if you’re binge-watching Netflix at the same time.

8. Realise that present-you is enough. There’s something about life in the modern, high-anxiety, privileged world where we’re always working on a better version of ourselves. Why? Maybe you’re doing great already! Just be you and be happy. In fact: just be. If you enjoy romance novels, commit to reading four this year. If you like watching movies, great. See friends, spend time on your own, veg out. Give yourself permission.

9. Make space. As an alternative to embarking on something new that’s hard for you, consider instead clearing space for the things you really enjoy doing. Learn the skill of subtraction, read Marie Kondo. Declutter everything that doesn’t bring you joy: not just physical belongings but tasks, even ideas. Free up your mental and physical energy and see what difference it makes.

Beyond all of this, there’s a bigger point to consider. Why are you even making these resolutions at all? Who are they serving? The desire to make such commitments may arise from an amorphous feeling of wanting to be happier, but as we know from Ed Diener’s subjective wellbeing research, what tends to make people happier is not losing 10lbs.

We know from large-scale surveys such as Cornell University’s Legacy Project that people tend to get happier as they age, and their ambitions change. To begin with, what matters to individuals, at least in the west, tends to be very you-focused – get in better shape, achieve your material goals. As you get older and wiser it becomes more about others, which is a fundamental shift.

Other research shows people are happier giving than receiving. So if you’re going to focus on bettering yourself, don’t stop at toned muscles. Think about what could bring meaning and satisfaction to your life. How about resolving to become community-focused, and volunteering twice a month; or being more generous, or more available to your friends? That might make you happier than the fact that you can fit into those trousers again.

When you do something that could enrich someone else, that becomes a multiplier. You benefit, and other people benefit. Ultimately that’s way more powerful than “I’m not going to eat doughnuts”. Honestly, just enjoy the doughnut.