Why Do New Year’s Resolutions Fail? My Honest Take as a Serial Goal Quitter

Every year on January 1st, I sit down with a burst of optimism and write out a list of New Year’s resolutions. This will be the year, I tell myself. I’ll finally lose those 20 pounds, read a book every week, wake up at 5 AM to jog, grow my business, and become a zen master by December. If enthusiasm alone could do it, I’d be ultra-successful by now. But if you fast forward a few weeks to mid-January, you’d find me slipping back into my old habits – the gym shoes gathering dust, the books unopened, and my resolve fading with each snooze of the alarm. By February, most of those goals have quietly been abandoned. And I know I’m not alone in this pattern. Researchers suggest that only about 8–9% of people actually keep their New Year’s resolutions for the whole year. In fact, up to 88% of people who set New Year’s goals fail at them within the first two weeks. Ouch. So much for “New Year, New Me.”

I’m Omar, the founder of Tutorlyft, and I’ll be honest: even as someone who works with students to reach their academic goals, I struggle to stick to my own resolutions. Every January, I fall into the same trap. And every time I break another promise to myself, it stings. It’s almost become a running joke in society – we all know how it goes. The gym is packed the first week of January and then miraculously empty by February. There’s even a term for it: according to the fitness app Strava, the second Friday of January is nicknamed “Quitter’s Day” – when most people have officially given up on their new goals. It’s comforting in a way to know I’m not the only one who fails, but it also makes me wonder: why do New Year’s resolutions fail so often, even when we genuinely want to change?

Why We Fail at New Year’s Resolutions (The Usual Suspects)

First, let’s unpack the why. Why do I – and so many others – struggle to keep those January promises? It turns out there are some very common, very human reasons. Over the years (and with some hard self-reflection), I’ve realized my mistakes are pretty universal. Here are a few big reasons New Year’s resolutions tend to fail, backed by research and a bit of my own experience:

Doing it because “everyone else is doing it”

January 1st feels like a fresh start, and it’s almost tradition to set resolutions. But setting a goal just because it’s New Year’s (and not because you genuinely feel ready for change) means your heart might not truly be in it. Psychologists note that we often make resolutions to impress others or follow the crowd, rather than from deep personal motivation. I hate to admit it, but I’ve definitely set flashy goals just to feel like I’m keeping up – only to find my motivation was paper-thin.

Unrealistic and overnight change

‍Another professor put it bluntly: many resolutions fail because the goals are unachievable or idealistic. We pledge to completely overhaul our lives overnight – go from couch potato to marathoner, or from spendthrift to super-saver, in one leap. I’m guilty of this. Last year, I decided I’d hit the gym every single day (from zero days…) and nearly fainted by day 4. Not surprisingly, I quit by week 2. Going “too hard, too quickly,” as Dr. Asim Shah of Baylor College of Medicine observes, sets us up for burnout. Change sounds exciting when we plan it, but our bodies and minds need time to adjust.

No game plan for obstacles

‍We charge into January high on motivation, but we often ignore the hurdles that will inevitably pop up. Life happens – work deadlines, family responsibilities, winter colds. When an obstacle hits, it’s easy to miss a day or two and then abandon the goal entirely. Research suggests that one key to success is anticipating obstacles and having a plan to deal with them. In the past, I never did this. I assumed sheer willpower would carry me through, and I had no strategy for, say, what to do on days I was swamped with work or not feeling it. As a result, the first roadblock would throw me off track.

Relying on willpower alone

‍This one is huge. I’d set a goal and think “I just have to discipline myself harder.” But psychologists who study self-control have found that white-knuckling our way through temptation (“just use willpower!”) is actually one of the least effective strategies. Willpower is like a muscle – it gets tired. By 9pm when I’m exhausted, that pint of ice cream becomes harder to resist if it’s sitting in my freezer. The truth is, environment trumps willpower. It’s far more effective to change your situation so you’re not constantly battling temptation. (These days, I try not to keep junk food at home – if it’s not within easy reach, I don’t have to fight myself not to eat it.)

No tracking or accountability

‍Have you ever made a resolution and told no one about it? That was me: I kept my goals a secret so that if I failed, at least I’d only disappoint myself. Ironically, that secrecy made it even easier to quit. Studies show that if you write down your goals and have some form of accountability, you’re much more likely to achieve them – possibly twice as likely. Without any accountability, I could fudge on my diet or skip the gym with no one knowing. There was no little voice saying “Hey, didn’t you promise to do this?” except my own, which I could easily ignore. It turns out human beings perform better when we know someone else is cheering us on or expecting results.

Underlying mindset issues

‍This one’s a bit deeper. Often, the way we set resolutions is flawed. We treat them like a checklist (“Lose weight: check. Save money: check.”) rather than addressing the bigger picture of our habits and mindset. If I’m honest, sometimes I’ve set goals that weren’t truly mine — they were things I felt I should do, or they were superficial (“get beach-body abs”) and not tied to a meaningful purpose. When you aim for a “new you” but carry all your old beliefs and habits into the new year, it’s like dragging heavy luggage on a marathon. For example, I once vowed to wake up at dawn daily, even though I’m a night owl. I ignored my natural tendencies and had no plan to reshape my sleeping habits. Predictably, that resolution crashed and burned. Real change requires looking inward at who you are and why you do what you do, not just writing a wish list on paper.

Whew, that’s quite a list of mistakes. If it sounds familiar, don’t worry – it’s supposed to. These pitfalls are incredibly common. One survey even found 43% of people expect to give up on their goals by February. Imagine that! Nearly half of us are going into this whole ritual assuming we’ll fail within a month. With that kind of mindset, it’s almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. No wonder our resolutions don’t stand a chance.

By mid-January, when I realize I’m on the verge of becoming another statistic, I start feeling that creeping disappointment. There’s a distinct moment every year where I break a promise to myself – skip a workout, order junk food on ubereats, spend an afternoon doomscrolling – and a voice in my head goes: “Here we go again… you couldn’t stick with it, huh?” The worst feeling is when you make a promise to yourself and then you break it. You start to feel helpless, like maybe you’re just incapable of change. I know that feeling all too well, and it sucks. It can kick off a vicious cycle: you fail, you feel bad about failing, and to cope with that, you go back to the very habits you wanted to change (hello, comfort food and Netflix binge). Human nature can be brutal like that.

So, by February I’m often sitting amidst a pile of failed resolutions, wondering what went wrong. But this year, something different happened. Instead of immediately pushing the thought of self-improvement aside until next January, I decided to face the music and dig a little deeper. I asked myself: Okay, why do I keep failing, and what can I do differently so this doesn’t keep happening every year?

Finding Inspiration in Unlikely Places (Yes, Even Self-Help Articles)

If you know me, you know I’m a bit skeptical of the typical self-help rah-rah advice. As a someone trying to build a business, I lean towards practical strategies over feel-good mantras. But while mindlessly scrolling social media, I stumbled on an article that actually resonated with me. It was titled “How to Fix Your Entire Life in 1 Day” by Dan Koe (quite the dramatic title, I know). At first, I rolled my eyes – fix your entire life in a day? Sounds like clickbait or wishful thinking. But as I read it, I found myself nodding along more than I expected.

Koe acknowledged right off the bat that most of us will quit our New Year’s resolutions (citing the same bleak ~80% failure rate) and that’s OK. He wasn’t being snarky; his point was that the typical way we go about resolutions is flawed. We say we want change, but we don’t approach it at a deep enough level. One line that hit me was his idea that people often “create a New Year’s resolution because everyone else does” – basically, we jump on the bandwagon, focusing on some external goal without doing the internal work needed to truly change our behavior. That struck a nerve. How many times have I resolved to get fit because, well, everyone is posting their new workout routine, or quit social media because all the tech gurus say you should? There’s a kind of superficiality there – I was chasing goals that sounded good, rather than ones rooted in my own values.

The article went on to outline a bunch of ideas from psychology and behavior change research, but I’ll share the two that were most powerful for me personally:

1. Change who you are, not just what you do

‍This sounds abstract, but bear with me. Koe broke down the difference between changing your actions and changing your identity. Most resolutions (mine included) only focus on the action: go to the gym, stop eating junk food, find a new job, etc. But we ignore the identity piece – the internal shift. He gave an example: Think of someone who’s really successful at the thing you want to do – say a fit athlete or a successful entrepreneur. To that athlete, working out and eating healthy isn’t some grueling chore; it’s just part of who they are. They don’t have to drag themselves to the gym; if anything, NOT going to the gym would feel weird to them. Meanwhile, if I still identify internally as a couch-loving, pizza-eating night owl, I might force myself to behave like a health nut for a few weeks, but it’s only a matter of time before my true identity reasserts itself. Koe put it like this: ‍

If you want a specific outcome in life, you must have the lifestyle (and mindset) that produces that outcome, long before you actually reach it. In other words, I have to become the kind of person who values and enjoys the habits that lead to my goal.

This was a lightbulb moment for me. I realized I’ve been trying to copy-paste new habits onto the same old me, instead of gradually transforming into a person who naturally lives those habits.

One practical example: I always said I wanted to lose weight, but secretly I viewed the diet and exercise as a temporary hell I had to endure before I could “enjoy life” again. According to Koe, that’s a common red flag. He noted that if you’re just grinding through a diet waiting for the day you can stop and go back to eating pizza, you haven’t really changed your lifestyle at all – and you’ll inevitably revert back. Guilty as charged. I used to slog through January on salads and protein shakes, counting down to the cheat day that became a cheat week and then… well, then it was over. This insight – that I need to find a way to actually enjoy the new lifestyle (at least more than I enjoy the old one) – was huge for me.

2. Find your “why” and make it stronger than your excuses

‍This wasn’t stated in exactly those words, but it’s my takeaway from his message. We all have a reason we decide to change – but often it’s vague or external. (“I want to get fit to look good,” “I want to make more money to impress people,” etc.) Those reasons can fade or get overpowered by the comfort of old habits. Koe suggested that if you don’t find a reason with a “higher gravitational pull” than the inertia of your current way of life, you’ll snap back to where you started. That means the motivation to change has to be deeply meaningful to you. I started asking myself why I wanted my goals. Why lose weight? For me, it’s not really about abs or a number on a scale – it’s about health and confidence. I want to feel good in my own skin and have the energy to keep up with my business and family as I get older. That matters to me way more than looking good in an Instagram post. And you know what? When I frame it that way, skipping a workout feels like I’m giving up something bigger than just “I failed a goal” – it feels like I’m giving up on being the energetic, present person I want to be. That mindset shift makes it harder to quit, because the stakes are higher than just a checkbox on a resolution list.

The article had a bunch more (including a one-day exercise of deep self-reflection that I actually plan to try – basically a day of journaling and mapping out what I really want from life and what needs to change to get there). But those two points above were game-changers for me: focus on identity, and anchor my goals to a deeper purpose. It’s admittedly more work than just writing a quick list of goals, but it feels more real. It means my New Year’s “resolutions” might turn into something more like ongoing commitments to myself, rather than a January wish list that expires.

Breaking the Cycle: How I’m Approaching My Goals Differently

Armed with some brutal self-awareness and these insights, I’m determined to break my cycle of failed resolutions. Here’s my game plan going forward – I’m sharing it in hopes that it might help you too (and also, hey, now you can hold me accountable!):

Start when I am ready, not just on Jan 1

‍One thing I realized is that the timing of a goal matters. Research from Ohio State University noted that goals should start at a time of genuine need or readiness, not just because the calendar says so. If I’m setting a resolution purely out of New Year’s peer pressure, my motivation will be weaker than if I start when I truly feel a need for change. So, I’m cutting myself some slack: if January 1st isn’t the magical day, that’s fine. Better to start a resolution on February 1st or June 1st and actually stick to it, than force myself on Jan 1 when my head isn’t in the game. The New Year can be a great motivator, but I’m treating any day as a good day to start fresh.

Set SMART-er goals (and smaller ones)

‍We’ve all heard of setting “SMART” goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) – and there’s a reason that advice persists. In the past, my goals were more like vague wishes (“get in shape” isn’t exactly specific or immediately achievable). Now I’m breaking goals into smaller, realistic chunks. Instead of “lose 20 pounds this year,” my goal this month is “lose 5 pounds by adopting a habit of walking 30 minutes a day and swapping soda for water.” Smaller goals feel more attainable, and every time I hit one, I get a little victory boost. Data shows that setting challenging but bite-sized goals – and tracking your progress – helps keep you motivated. I even plan to celebrate those small wins (when I lose that first 5 pounds, you bet I’ll treat myself – maybe not with cake, but perhaps with a new workout outfit or a night out with friends). Celebrating progress, however minor, keeps me energized to continue.

Expect and plan for setbacks

‍This time, I’m going in with eyes wide open: obstacles will happen. There will be days I mess up. Rather than let that completely derail me, I’m creating if-then plans. For example: If I miss a workout because of a busy workday, then I’ll fit in a short 10-minute exercise at home before bed – something is better than nothing. If I eat junk at a weekend party, I won’t say “diet ruined, might as well give up”; instead I’ll reset the next day and perhaps prepare a healthy meal in advance. By identifying potential obstacles and having a game plan, I’m less likely to be thrown off course. And I’m reminding myself that one slip-up does not equal failure. In fact, habit research has found that missing one opportunity to perform a new habit doesn’t significantly hurt the habit formation process – as long as you get back on track. Consistency is key, but perfection is not required (phew!).

Change my environment to support my goals

Like I said earlier, willpower isn’t something I trust very much. So instead of trying to “be more disciplined,” I’ve been making small changes to my environment that nudge me in the right direction. If I want to read more, I leave a book where I’ll actually see it at night and put my phone out of reach so I’m not mindlessly scrolling. If I want to eat better, I try to keep decent food around and stop pretending I’ll resist junk if it’s sitting right there. And on the days I plan to work out, I lay out my clothes the night before because I know that if I have to think about it in the morning, it probably won’t happen. None of this is revolutionary. It’s just me accepting that future-me is lazy, distracted, and easily tempted. The less effort it takes to do the right thing, the more likely I am to actually do it.

Accountability and support

This is the part where most advice says, “Just tell other people your goals.” And honestly, I don’t really do that. I tend to keep things to myself, partly because I don’t want the pressure, and partly because I know how awkward it feels to explain later why I didn’t follow through.

What I have noticed, though, is that the moments I make even a small commitment outside my own head — a deadline, a promise, a quiet expectation — things suddenly feel more real. Not magically easier, just harder to ignore. When everything stays private, it’s way too easy to quietly move the goalposts and pretend I was “never that serious” to begin with.

I don’t have a system for this. No goal buddies. No habit apps chirping at me. If anything, this is still a gap for me. But it’s becoming clear that isolation makes it easier to quit, and friction — even a little bit of social friction — makes it harder to walk away.

I’m not great at this yet. I’m just noticing that the more invisible a goal is, the faster it disappears.

Be kind to myself and focus on growth

‍In the past, the moment I fell off, I’d beat myself up mentally. Not this time. I’m treating these goals as experiments in improving my life, not all-or-nothing verdicts on my character. If I fail, I’ll ask why and learn from it, rather than conclude “I suck.” Psychologist Dr. Caroline Leaf says one reason we keep making the same mistakes is we’re not intentional about learning from them. So, when I inevitably stumble, I plan to reflect, adjust, and keep going – instead of quitting. Progress over perfection, as the cliché goes. And I’ll remind myself of one encouraging fact: I don’t actually need a calendar date to decide to try again. Any day can be Day One.

Lastly, I’m keeping in mind that real change is slow. The science backs this up: One famous study found it takes an average of 66 days to form a new habit until it becomes almost second-nature. Some habits take even longer. This tells me I need patience. My January resolutions might not bear fruit until March or April – and that’s normal. I’m in this for the long haul now. If I can keep even one or two habits going for 66 days, I’ll consider that a huge win, because it means I’ve likely made a lasting change.

To wrap up, I want to say to anyone who’s struggled with keeping New Year’s resolutions: you’re not alone, and it’s not because you’re lazy or “bad at change.” Changing our habits and ourselves is hard. The deck is a bit stacked against us (remember, 80%+ of people are right there with us, giving up by February). But it is possible to beat those odds by approaching things a little differently – more honestly, more strategically, and with more self-compassion. I’m done with the all-or-nothing January pressure. This year, and beyond, I’m focusing on real, sustainable change – even if it’s not tied to a perfect New Year narrative.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading my story. I hope my struggles and epiphanies resonated with you. Maybe you saw a bit of yourself in my cycle of grand resolutions and early fizzling out. If so, I invite you to also take a step back and rewrite your approach. It’s never too late in the year (or in life) to become the person you want to be, one small step at a time.