3 ways to make your resolutions unbreakable – from a psychologist

For many people, mid-January is the time of year when all motivation for our resolutions goes out the window. In the second week of the year, it starts to sink in: sticking to our resolutions for 365 days is going to be much more challenging than we imagined.

That said, this drop in motivation isn’t entirely surprising—nor is it a unique experience. According to a Forbes 2023 survey, only 8% of individuals stick to their New Year’s resolutions for more than a month. Considering how many people commit to something new every new year, this is a very low statistic.

Many people break their goals for a myriad of reasons, from unrealistic expectations and motivational temptation to social pressure. But what if you could make sure you complete your New Year’s resolution by this time next year? Believe it or not, it is possible to make that bulletproof January 1st promise to yourself. Here are four ways to truly commit to them, according to psychological research.

1. Redefine your Resolution

Let’s be honest—most of us are used to making resolutions as soon as we learn what the new year is. The problem, however, is that they lose all meaning over time. While you may feel committed to your resolution as the clock counts down to December 31st, that motivation eventually wanes as the year progresses. Once we lose track of a resolution, it’s all too easy to tell ourselves, “There’s always next year.”

To break this pattern, you need to redefine your goal to be more than just a list item on paper. Instead, use it as a strategic mechanism to shape the rest of your year. According to the 2021 research by Frontiers in Psychology, you can achieve this by reframing your goal from a personal resolution to an “unbreakable resolution”—a strong personal commitment that helps us change unwanted behaviors.

For this to happen, your goals must create real meaning in your life. According to a 2022 article in Harvard Business Reviewone way to achieve this is to find your “why” for wanting to achieve the goal in the first place. Instead of making a list of goals you want to achieve, try to paint a personal picture of what this resolution really means to you.

How will this goal improve you as a person? What does achieving it mean to you and your future self? These questions should be your focus – not the goal itself.

2. Anticipate the Domino Effect

Redefining your resolution also invites you to see the bigger picture—that is, how that resolution will fit into your life. Our goals do not exist in a vacuum; changing one thing in our life will eventually affect another area of ​​our life. So understanding this can be the difference between sticking to your goals and giving up by the second week of January.

In light of this, you will need to track your progress, as well as celebrate it, in more ways than one. For example, if you’re aiming to get healthy this year, you’ll likely see results in a lot more places than the gym. You may find yourself better able to keep up with your kids, focus better at work, and even sleep better—all because you made a New Year’s resolution.

The book of 2022 The Ripple Effect: How Small Actions Create Big Changes examines this phenomenon on a larger scale. It’s the fact that a small, seemingly insignificant act can have massive implications in your life, as well as the lives of others. Your goals are no different: changing one thing in your life can change your entire worldview. Remembering that your goals have the potential to create a domino effect is the ultimate key to defining your 2025 resolutions.

3. Divide it into 365 days

Bold resolutions can feel overwhelming when we take them at face value, but they’re much less intimidating when we consider them as small, actionable parts of a bigger goal—as small steps we need to take each day. There’s no point in looking at your big picture resolution without a thorough understanding of how it will fit into your daily schedule. Without the basis of planning, scheduling, or breaking it down into smaller parts, your resolution is likely to fail.

Let’s say, for example, that you’re aiming to run a marathon this year. It would be impossible to wake up on race day and start running. Instead, you know you’ll need to build up to the big day by increasing your speed, stamina and endurance during training.

Even if your resolution is more tame than a marathon, the trick is to approach all your goals that way, with the same mindset. You need to create daily routines around your resolutions to achieve them effortlessly. And, according to James Clear 2018 novelAtomic habits“Habit recovery” is the easiest way to achieve this.

Specifically, habit stacking involves pairing your new daily habit with a behavior that is already part of your routine. For example, you might say to yourself, “As soon as I finish my morning coffee, I’m going to go for a 20-minute run.”

This approach transforms your solutions into a regular part of your routine, which makes them much easier to integrate seamlessly into your life. Instead of restructuring everything around a single goal, it will naturally become part of your daily to-do list. Over time and with consistent practice, reaching your goal will feel more and more attainable – as, before you know it, it will have become just another part of your day.

Resolutions are opportunities to shape the life we ​​envision. By realistically redefining them, breaking them down into actionable steps, and making these steps part of your routine, you set yourself up for long-term success. Remember, as you embark on this journey, that decisions are not a race to the finish line of your goal. Rather, it’s about how consistently and willingly you do the work they ask.

Do you keep putting off working on your new year’s resolutions? Take this science-backed test and find out if you have a procrastination problem: General Creep Rate