New Year’s resolutions are the firm decisions one makes on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day to do or refrain from doing something over the course of the upcoming year. They keep us focused on our goals. However, some people struggle to stick to the list, especially when life throws unexpected challenges at them.
Why Sticking to New Year’s Resolutions Is Hard
Have you heard of overcommitting and underdelivering? That is a term used when a person commits to more responsibilities than they can fulfill. This is one of the reasons people struggle to stick to their New Year’s resolutions.
According to VeryWellMind.com, we aren’t successful in achieving our New Year’s resolutions because we think too big. Additionally, we don’t consider the “why” behind our resolutions, and sometimes we aren’t ready for change.
A new Forbes Health/OnePoll study of 1,000 U.S. people (conducted on Oct. 23, 2023) examined Americans’ attitudes about resolution setting and the types of goals they prioritized. The survey found that 62% say they feel pressured to set a New Year’s resolution. Women (64%) feel slightly more pressured to set a resolution than men (60%).
How to Maintain Your New Year’s Resolutions
Maintaining your resolutions requires personal discipline, willpower, patience, and self-control. These are personality traits that can be honed, expanded, and developed. A little knowledge will help them improve significantly.
A University of York study reveals that self-control emerged as a crucial human characteristic for this goal. Researchers discovered the importance of deliberate action, planning, prioritization, and tolerance for discomfort in effort-related tasks.
We acknowledge you might start out with optimism to keep up with your New Year’s resolutions, but life challenges might demotivate you, so we’ve come up with life hacks to help you.
Motivation for Daily Tasks
- Focus on a long-term vision for motivation.
- Link new habits with existing ones.
- Take an incremental approach to maintain motivation.
- Track progress using apps or calendars for tangible evidence.
- Reward yourself, as long as it doesn’t undermine the goal.
If you find yourself falling off the wagon, don’t despair. The Forbes Health/One Poll survey also found that the average resolution lasts just 3.74 months. Only 8% of respondents tend to stick with their goals for one month, while 22% last two months, 22% last three months, and 13% last up to four months.
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