Why New Year’s resolutions fail (and how to do them differently)

There is something special about the feeling of a New Year. All those calendar months ahead of you, where you can imagine yourself succeeding in ways you didn’t last year. It’s a natural time to think about fresh starts and new goals. 

But New Year’s resolutions have a bit of a bad rep. Once you’ve done it a few times, you realize that they are much harder than they seem in the glow of a brand new year.

I think that’s because after the initial excitement and motivation fades away,  your day-to-day gets in the way, and you fall back into old patterns and habits. This is why resolutions fail. And it makes you feel “weak”, or “lazy” or like “a failure”. 

I don’t think we are any of those things when we fail to meet our goals. One challenge for me is that my goals are sometimes just loose intentions, or unrealistic promises I have made to myself. I want to grow my business. I want to exercise more. It’s hard to make a solid plan from this kind of resolution, and harder still to know if I am succeeding. 

Clarity changes that. When you can make a statement that reflects your intention in a thoughtful, actionable way, you have a much better chance of achieving your goals. It’s the difference between goals that shape your days, and goals that just fade away. 

So how can you address this? First of all, make sure you look at what happened in your previous year. And then try a new approach, that drives more clarity into your goals and makes them more actionable.

I wish you all the best in the upcoming year, and if there is anything I can do to help you meet your goals, please reach out!

← Back to Notes