The Familiar Resolution Cycle
It’s New Year’s Day, and you’re excited because it brings a feeling of a fresh start.
This past year you haven’t exercised much, and you’re feeling out of shape and unfit. It’s time for a change.
You make a New Year’s resolution to “get fit.”
For the first week, you hit the gym every morning at 6 a.m. before going to work. The second week, you make the first couple of mornings, then fail to go in on Wednesday through Friday because you’re “feeling tired.”
Then, feeling like a failure, you never go back to the gym for the next 11 months.
Another failed New Year’s resolution.
Another reason to beat yourself up.
And now the story isn’t about fitness anymore—it’s about failure.
Sound familiar?
It doesn’t have to be this way. The problem isn’t a lack of willpower. It’s how we approach change in the first place.
There are ways to make changes in your life that stick.
Why January 1st Feels So Powerful
The beginning of the New Year naturally prompts us to reflect on the past year and think about who we’d like to be in the future.
As Daniel Pink highlights in his book, When,
“New Year’s Day has long held a special power over our behavior. We turn the page on the calendar, glimpse all those beautiful empty squares, and open a new account book on our lives.”
That sense of a “fresh account” feels powerful—but it also tempts us to make sweeping, unrealistic promises to ourselves.
Why Most Resolutions Don’t Stick
Many make New Year’s resolutions, but they are mainly short-lived and ineffective.
As Anne-Laure Le Cunff notes in her Tiny Experiments book,
“There is overwhelming evidence that New Year’s resolutions don’t work”
And there’s a reason this pattern repeats every year.
They’re rushed. Too vague. And unsupported by any real structure.
A Better Way to Change
1. Plan Ahead
Start thinking about the New Year in advance. This avoids the pitfalls of rushed New Year’s resolutions and gives you time to start planning.
I recently attended an online 2025 review workshop sponsored by Anne-Laure Le Cunff of Ness Labs. She used her “plus-minus-next” system to review the different areas of life over the past year.
“Plus” means the things that went well. “Minus” means the things that didn’t go so well. And “next” is what you plan to do about it.
You can use those “next” points as a beginning point for thinking about what you’d like to do in the next year in general, or the next quarter.
2. Get Specific
Most New Year’s resolutions are too vague. They need to be specific.
An example: We say our goal is to “Get fit.” What exactly are we committing to? Nothing specific.
A better approach (and more functional and measurable) would be, “To work out at the gym for an hour every workday morning starting at 6 a.m.”
Positive resolutions are usually more effective than negative ones.
So instead of “don’t eat junk food,” it’s better to say “I will eat foods that have reduced salt, low calories, and are good for me.”
3. Don’t Count on Motivation
We can’t reliably depend on our motivation to change our lives.
It’s just not going to happen. While you may have strong motivation initially, it won’t last.
As Gretchen Rubin says in her book, Secrets of Adulthood,
“Don’t expect to be motivated by motivation.”
You’re going to need some other type of structure to support your good intentions to change.
4. Start Small
The best way to succeed in a new habit is to start out very small.
As the author of Tiny Habits, B.J. Fogg, says,
“Take a behavior you want, make it tiny, find where it fits naturally in your life, and nurture its growth. If you want to create long-term change, it’s best to start small.”
Chris Bailey in The Productivity Project also gives this same advice. He says you need to make small changes to your habits so they don’t intimidate you when your initial motivation wears off.
You’ll notice a common thread here: small beats ambitious every time.
5. Anchor the Habit
Use an “after I X, I will Y” plan.
An example of this would be to say, “After I brush my teeth, I will take my medication.”
You already have one habit, and you use that habit to prompt the next habit. It makes it much easier to remember to do the new habit.
6. Reduce Friction
Make the new behavior easier. You can make it shorter, simpler, or right after an existing routine.
You can also adjust the environment.
Lay out your gym clothes and shoes the night before.
Place a medication dispenser box next to your toothbrush.
7. Commit to Consistency, Not Perfection
Sometimes people have great intentions to adopt a new behavior, but if they don’t do it one time, they give up entirely. They reason, “I’ve blown it now, I might as well just forget about it.”
Don’t commit to perfection. Instead, commit to consistency.
If you don’t do it once, no big deal.
Just do it the next time.
8. Review Often, Plan in Short Cycles
At New Year’s, I tend to think about the whole year. Not from the standpoint of making detailed plans about when I’m going to do things, but from the general perspective of what I’d like to do during the upcoming year.
I find quarterly planning to be much more practical and functional than annual planning. Quarterly/12‑week planning is a way to (1) create frequent checkpoints, (2) add urgency, (3) convert vision into specific actions, and (4) regularly review and adjust your direction. See The 12 Week Year by Brian P. Moran & Michael Lennington.
I do weekly, monthly, and quarterly reviews, looking back on the past period and planning what I’d like to accomplish in the next week, month, or quarter.
The system I use is based on the Productivity Field Guide by David Sparks. I evaluate and monitor my behavior in each of my life roles and what I’ve said I want to accomplish during that particular quarter.
Habit trackers work well for many people—but they don’t work for me.
I don’t like being judged for missing a day and “breaking a streak,” which makes me feel like a total failure instead of a single lapse. Using the streak function is not motivating for me, just aggravating.
Instead of habit trackers, I set up reminders for habits that aren’t daily and anchor daily habits into existing habits.
Choose One Thing
I’ve learned that lasting change rarely comes from bold declarations on January 1st.
It comes from thoughtful planning, small experiments, and regular reflection.
If you want this year to be different, don’t resolve to change everything.
Choose one thing—and design it to succeed.
AI Note: I wrote this blog post myself, using my own words and thoughts for the initial draft. I used AI only to suggest headlines, section headings, images, and text improvements.
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