At the start of each new year, we consider goals that can improve our health and better our lives. Yet, what many of us find is it’s quite difficult to stick true to these changes. In turn, we may question whether or not we can make New Year’s resolutions effective.

What is a New Year’s Resolution?

A New Year’s resolution is when you promise to do something different in the upcoming year. This usually involves a change you’ve wanted to give yourself, but have put off for some time.

Research shows that different parts of the United States change differently. While almost half are concerned with their health, specific regions care more about community and improving mental well-being. For example: ¹

• In the Midwest, people are most concerned about losing weight.

• On the West Coast, more exercise is most important.

• In southern states, many attempt to drink less alcohol.

• In the Northeast, people would like to spend more time volunteering for the community.

Each New Year’s resolution is very personalized. Therefore, yours may differ from someone else’s. If you’re unsure of a New Year’s resolution, we recommend writing a list of changes you’d like to see.

How Successful are New Year’s Resolutions?

The success of a New Year’s resolution ultimately depends on you and your willingness to go through with a change. Naturally, this isn’t an easy process as change requires a lot of discipline and patience.

In fact, most Americans fail their New Year’s resolutions over a year. As recent statistics have shown:

• Within the first week of the New Year, 75% remain successful.
• After two weeks, 71% stuck to their resolution.
• Within 1 month, about 64% continue with their change.
• After 6 months, only 46% are still successful in their resolution.
• By the end of the year, between 9% and 12% of people will feel successful in their resolution.

It’s worth noting that people who desire goals but don’t make resolutions are usually less successful, with 4% sticking to their aim by the end of 6 months.

Are New Year’s Resolutions Effective?

With such a low success rate, you may assume New Year’s resolutions aren’t effective. However, those who can successfully maintain resolutions tend to keep these habits for life. ²

Your success is ultimately determined by your brain. According to a 2018 study, it takes the brain between 18 to 254 days to form a new habit. ³ Therefore, if you can maintain your habit for at least 254 days, it’ll become a lifelong behavior.

This figure varies for several reasons, including:

• The Habit Itself – Naturally, some habits are more intense than others. For example, a 2009 study found that it was easier for participants to drink a glass of water with breakfast every morning rather than doing 50 situps after a morning cup of coffee.

• Your Psychology – Your brain is like a machine that prefers to automate common actions. In turn, it creates habits you don’t think twice about (such as putting on a seatbelt in a car). When you suddenly want to change a habit, you fight your psychology. And your motivation for this fight plays a major role in your success. ⁴

• Bad Habits – Most habits are pleasure-based (i.e. substance use, pornography, etc.). While you technically enjoy these behaviors, you know they damage you in the long run. However, to break such habits, you must fight against dopamine release which can be extremely difficult. ⁵

To follow through with a New Year’s resolution, it’s important to understand habits and the steps you’ll need to take to change them.

Tips for Your New Year’s Resolutions

So, how do you change your habits? Professionals have laid out several techniques to answer this, but whether or not they’ll work for you remains in question. Ultimately, you’ll want to try out a few habit-changing approaches to see the best fit for your needs.

1.) Avoid Places, People, and Situations

Our brain will identify habits with people, places, and situations. For example, if you struggle with a substance use disorder, it’s likely there’s a place you go and people you meet to obtain a drug. Furthermore, you may often find yourself in situations where substance use is prevalent (i.e. parties). ⁶

To break a bad habit, you need to avoid the people, places, and situations associated with that habit. Over time, your brain will promote positive habits and adjust to new people, places, and situations.

2.) Use Positive Habits to Substitute Negative Habits

We can’t expect our brains to suddenly rewire overnight. If you’ve developed a habit over the years, your brain will naturally have urges to continue it. However, there are ways in which we can replace negative habits with positive ones. ⁷

For example, if you’re a cigarette smoker, you’ll likely find yourself wanting the oral fixation of a cigarette even after nicotine withdrawals. You substitute this fixation with chewing gum or flavored hard candy (i.e. lollipops).

As mentioned, most Americans desire to make healthier changes with their New Year’s resolutions. Therefore, you’ll likely still want to snack out at certain times of the day. If so, you can replace unhealthy snacks (i.e. potato chips) with healthier alternatives (i.e. fruits or vegetables).

3.) Make Sure You Get the Right Amount of Sleep

Sleep and mental health go hand-in-hand. If we don’t get the right amount of sleep, our psychological state will suffer. And if so, chances are we’ll have difficulty making changes in our lives.

It’s estimated that 10% to 18% of the U.S. population struggles with a chronic sleep problem, such as insomnia. Of the typical psychiatric practice, that number rises to 50% to 80%. ⁸

If you currently struggle with sleep, there are a few ways to overcome this problem:

• Ensure you’re going to bed and waking up at a reasonable hour. If you find yourself staying up late into the night and waking up later in the day, you may want to work towards rescheduling your sleep.

• If you find it difficult to get to sleep at night, you may want to incorporate sleep supplements into your diet, such as cannabidiol (CBD) and melatonin.

Regardless of your sleep, remember that healthy sleep for an average adult is between 7 and 8 hours every night.

4.) Be Patient With Yourself

Change isn’t easy and you’re likely going to make many mistakes. This is okay! New Year’s resolutions aren’t meant to be overnight successes. They take a lot of time, effort, and patience to overcome.

If you have difficulty following through with your New Year’s resolution, it may help to lower expectations. Admittedly, we can’t always reach our prospects immediately.

It may help to set smaller goals that lead to your bigger goal. For example, if you want to exercise more regularly, it may help to start small (i.e. push-ups in the morning and evening, running a mile, etc.) before jumping into more intensive workouts.

5.) Enroll in Mental Health Services

If you struggle with a mental health condition and aren’t receiving the proper treatment, this may be the first step you need to take to make other changes in your life.

When mental illness isn’t identified by a professional, it has the chance to worsen over time. In fact, some research suggests that lack of access to treatment is the cause of a mental health crisis in America. ⁹

Naturally, a worsened mental state can make it much more difficult to reach your New Year’s resolution. If you’re unsure where to begin, several online resources can help you find the treatment you need.

Final Word

So, are New Year’s resolutions effective? They can be depending on our mindset and expectations for ourselves. Of course, New Year’s resolutions aren’t easy and we may become discouraged when making such a change. However, with the help of habit-changing techniques, it’s possible to overcome bad habits and replace them with good ones.

References

¹ Oscarsson M, Carlbring P, Andersson G, Rozental A. A large-scale experiment on New Year’s resolutions: Approach-oriented goals are more successful than avoidance-oriented goals. PLoS One. 2020 Dec 9;15(12):e0234097. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0234097. PMID: 33296385; PMCID: PMC7725288.

² Norcross JC, Mrykalo MS, Blagys MD. Auld lang syne: success predictors, change processes, and self-reported outcomes of New Year’s resolvers and nonresolvers. J Clin Psychol. 2002 Apr;58(4):397-405. doi: 10.1002/jclp.1151. PMID: 11920693.

³ Judah G, Gardner B, Kenward MG, DeStavola B, Aunger R. Exploratory study of the impact of perceived reward on habit formation. BMC Psychol. 2018 Dec 20;6(1):62. doi: 10.1186/s40359-018-0270-z. PMID: 30572936; PMCID: PMC6302524.

⁴ Gardner B, Lally P, Wardle J. Making health habitual: the psychology of ‘habit-formation’ and general practice. Br J Gen Pract. 2012 Dec;62(605):664-6. doi: 10.3399/bjgp12X659466. PMID: 23211256; PMCID: PMC3505409.

⁵ Bromberg-Martin ES, Matsumoto M, Hikosaka O. Dopamine in motivational control: rewarding, aversive, and alerting. Neuron. 2010 Dec 9;68(5):815-34. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2010.11.022. PMID: 21144997; PMCID: PMC3032992.

⁶ Melemis SM. Relapse Prevention and the Five Rules of Recovery. Yale J Biol Med. 2015 Sep 3;88(3):325-32. PMID: 26339217; PMCID: PMC4553654.

⁷ Kwasnicka D, Dombrowski SU, White M, Sniehotta F. Theoretical explanations for maintenance of behaviour change: a systematic review of behaviour theories. Health Psychol Rev. 2016 Sep;10(3):277-96. doi: 10.1080/17437199.2016.1151372. Epub 2016 Mar 7. PMID: 26854092; PMCID: PMC4975085.

⁸ Scott AJ, Webb TL, Martyn-St James M, Rowse G, Weich S. Improving sleep quality leads to better mental health: A meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. Sleep Med Rev. 2021 Dec;60:101556. doi: 10.1016/j.smrv.2021.101556. Epub 2021 Sep 23. PMID: 34607184; PMCID: PMC8651630.

⁹ Coombs NC, Meriwether WE, Caringi J, Newcomer SR. Barriers to healthcare access among U.S. adults with mental health challenges: A population-based study. SSM Popul Health. 2021 Jun 15;15:100847. doi: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2021.100847. PMID: 34179332; PMCID: PMC8214217.