In defense of New Year's resolutions
WE BELIEVE IN YOU
Welcome to Techno Sapiens! I’m Jacqueline Nesi, a psychologist and professor at Brown University, co-founder of Tech Without Stress, and mom of two young kids. If you like Techno Sapiens, please consider sharing it with a friend today. Thanks for your support!
7 min read
My family spent our New Year’s Eve at a friend’s house. The evening was low-key, spent mostly eating dinner, chatting, and boxing out my toddling one-year-old as he beelined for nearby electrical sockets.
For my three-year-old, however, the night was a revelation. He discovered, for the first time, party horns—those paper tubes that unroll and make a noise when you blow into them—and he will never be the same.
After a full evening of enthusiastic horn-blowing, the 30-minute car ride home unfolded as follows:
Him: Mom! Want me to do TEN “Happy New Year’s”?
Me: Sure
Him: HAPPY NEW YEAR [honk]! HAPPY NEW YEAR [honk]! HAPPY NEW YEAR [honk]!
[pause]
Him [remembers he does not know how to count]: Mom, how many was that?1
Me [ears ringing]: Oh, I, uh, wasn’t counting.
Him: Okay, mom, this time I’m going to do a hundred “Happy New Year’s.” You count.
Me:
Him: HAPPY NEW YEAR [honk]! HAPPY NEW YEAR [honk]!...
Every party has a pooper, and it’s us
I’ve noticed something strange happening in recent years. At the start of January, a slew of articles and social media posts come out with similar headlines.
Here’s why resolutions don’t work.
Ditch your New Year’s resolution and focus on THIS instead.
The reason 99% of New Year’s resolutions fail.
Among a certain demographic of New York Times-subscribing, wellness-focused, social science-curious individuals (ahem), it seems our attitude toward New Year’s—and resolutions, in particular—has soured.
But when did resolutions get such a bad rap? Are they really so terrible?
I think not.
So today, sapiens, in this first post of 2025, I’d like to channel some of my 3-year-old’s New Year’s enthusiasm, and make the case for New Year’s resolutions. [honk!]2
There are many arguments against New Year’s resolutions, but they seem to boil down to two main gripes:
The timing is arbitrary, and
They don’t work.
Let’s take each of these in turn.
Why wait until January 1st?
The first, common argument against New Year’s resolutions is that the timing is arbitrary. Why wait? Anti-resolutionists3 will ask. If a goal is so important to you, you should do it right away. Are you *really* more likely to tackle it next year?
The answer, it turns out, is probably yes.
Allow me to introduce you to something called the “fresh start effect.” In short: certain calendar events (e.g., birthdays, beginnings of the week or month, New Years) represent “temporal landmarks” that increase motivation to achieve our goals.
Researchers have tested this in various ways, showing, for example, that Google searches for “diet” and actual gym attendance4 increase at the start of new weeks, months, and years.
In one study, researchers had participants set a personal goal, then offered to send them an email reminder about that goal. Participants could choose the date the reminder was sent from a list of choices (March 18 to March 24). In the control condition, March 20 was described as “the third Thursday in March.” In the experimental condition, it was described as “the first day of spring.” More than 3.5 times as many participants chose to get the reminder on March 20th when it was described as the first day of spring.
In a follow-up study, participants who were asked to think about New Years as a new beginning (vs. just another ordinary day) were more likely to take steps toward achieving a goal.
In other words: when we view a certain date as a fresh start—even if, ultimately, it’s totally arbitrary—we’re more likely to see it as conducive to pursuing our goals.5
But can we stick with it?
So, buoyed by the fresh start effect, we’re more likely to take those first steps toward change. We’re excited, we’re motivated, we’re tooting our party horns.
Now, can we actually stick with our New Year’s resolutions? Or are they doomed to fail? I often come across wild statistics about resolutions, with articles claiming that, like, 99% of resolutions fail after a week.
This just doesn’t seem to be true.
Generally, studies have found that between 40% and 50% of people maintain their resolutions up to 6 months. In one recent, large-scale study with over 1,000 participants, 55% of resolution-setters were successful in sustaining their goal one year later.
Honestly, this is not bad! This is roughly the same percentage of U.S. adults (54%) who read a single book last year, so we’re not talking about super low numbers here.
Of course, we can’t dismiss the fact that sticking to goals is notoriously difficult, and New Year’s resolutions are no exception. This is why there is an entire field of science devoted to behavior change.
There’s no one strategy that will guarantee a successful resolution, but here are a few science-backed strategies to craft a good one:
1. Set both “superordinate” and “subordinate” goals
A “superordinate” goal is higher-level and more abstract (I want to be a healthier person). A “subordinate” goal is more concrete and specific (I want to do yoga twice per week). We often hear of the benefits of setting specific goals, but recent research suggests that both types are important, especially for setting long-term goals (as we tend to do at New Year’s).
2. Make goals attainable
Setting unrealistic goals is often the kiss of death for New Year’s resolutions. If you, like me, are a shell of a human prior to 9am and a very large coffee, do not set a goal to exercise everyday at 4am. If you’re not sure what’s attainable for you, try it out for a week or two and then adjust. Not many people know this, but you are allowed to modify your resolution at any time.
3. Prioritize “approach” goals
“Approach” goals involve striving for a positive outcome (I want to spend more time with my kids). “Avoidance goals” involve trying to avoid a negative outcome (I want to stop losing patience with my kids). Approach goals tend to be more effective, and, generally, to make us feel better when we’re striving for them.
4. Make an action plan
There are many steps involved in sticking to a resolution. We need motivation, but we also need to continue taking steps toward our goals and avoid temptations and distractions. One way to make this easier is to set up systems or habits that automate things as much as possible. If you want to exercise more, make a specific plan for when (Tuesdays after work), where (at the gym), and how (bring sneakers with you, meet up with a friend, etc.) you’ll make it happen.
Once you have your resolution set, there are a number of evidence-based techniques you can use to increase the likelihood you stick to it (see this post on “behavior change techniques”). For example, you might enlist social support to provide assistance or accountability toward your goal. You might self-monitor your progress. Or (my personal favorite) you might reward yourself for taking steps in the right direction.
New year, new us
I feel a bit bad for the lowly New Year’s resolution. Once a shining beacon of hope, the sparkly star of new beginnings and second chances—reduced to a shameful poser, buried under the weight of a thousand New York Times Well section takedowns.
So, New Year’s resolutions: if you’re out there, please know that we see you. We believe in you. We know you’ve been unfairly maligned, and with the science on our side, we know you can still help us. We’re ready to take on 2025 with you.
Just please, for the love of God, let’s leave the party horns behind.
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A bold strategy for my three-year-old to suggest doing something a specific number of times when he does not yet know how to count! Not knowing which numbers are bigger also does not stop him from negotiating, i.e., Him: Can I have 2 more minutes? Me: No. Him: How about 10 more minutes? Me: Wait, what? No.
In case you need some audio to jog your memory on party horns, I give you:
As far as I know, “anti-resolutionists” is not a real term for people who dislike New Year’s resolutions. I do like that it sounds like some sort of Colonial-era political faction, though.
A fact I enjoyed about this study is that they found U.S. college students’ gym attendance consistently increased following their birthdays (i.e., a “fresh start”), except when students turned 21. Gee, I wonder why.
But why do we do this? Why do arbitrary days on the calendar (like New Years) motivate us to finally take a vacuum to the cheerio dust-littered seats of our car? [Is that just me?]
Researchers propose two possible reasons for the fresh start effect: (1) At the start of the new year, we feel more “psychological distance” from our past, flawed selves. Generally, we do not experience time as one, linear track. Instead, we create “mental accounting periods” in between temporal landmarks (semesters, weeks, before and after major life transitions, seasons, etc). After any such temporal landmark, we feel like a new, better person, totally different than the one we were before. (2) Temporal landmarks also create disruptions in our sense of time. We’re forced to take a step back and think at a higher level. When people turn milestone ages (e.g., 30, 40), for example, they’re more likely to judge their life satisfaction based on overall achievements, rather than daily emotions. Similarly, the start of a new year may prompt big-picture thinking, which motivates us to achieve our goals.