Why You Should STOP Setting New Year’s Resolutions

Hey, happy new year 2023!

Well, it’s a brand-new year. Guess what, this is the best time to start planning your year and your life.

This is the time when most people are inspired to work on their dream life and what they want to accomplish throughout the year.

It’s exciting, I know.

But you know what, setting New Year’s resolutions is NOT going to work.

And you should just STOP making New Year’s resolutions.

Why? Allow me to explain…

According to a study conducted by the University of Scranton, only just 8% of people successfully achieved their New Year’s goals.

In other words, a staggering 92% of people who set a New Year’s resolution failed to accomplish it.

And you know what that means?

Setting New Year’s resolutions, or New Year’s goals DON’T work.

That’s right.

So, you should just stop doing it.

But why? Why is it that New Year’s resolutions fail? Here are the 3 core reasons…

1. Annualize thinking doesn’t work

First and most important of all, annualized thinking doesn’t work. I suggest you read this book to understand better, The 12 Week Year…

In the book, the authors explained why annualized thinking is the main reason New Year’s resolutions fail.

First, setting a goal that is going to happen within a year is too far away. And when something is too far away, it becomes unpredictable, and it will be difficult to plan.

Second, when a goal’s deadline is too far away, it will make you think that you have plenty of time. Hence, it makes your goals lack urgency.

Read: Why Deadlines for Your Goals Are Important

Think about it, if your New Year’s resolution for 2023 is to save $12,000 by year-end, which means you need to save $1,000 per month, and if you miss your target and didn’t save for January and February, guess what will happen?

You’ll tell yourself that it’s okay. You still have March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, and December. You have 10 more months to go!

There’s still plenty of time for you to keep up with your saving goal, right?

And that’s the problem with a New Year’s resolution. It lacks urgency and the timeframe is too far away.

And third, when a goal is a year away from now, it limits improvement through feedback.

You’re only going to get the results at the end of the year, so there’s no way you can pivot through your progress.

Compare this to a monthly goal, where every month you get to know if you hit your target or miss it. You can then assess your progress and results every month. If you fail to hit your goal by the end of the month, you can improve and do better in the following month.

However, you cannot do that for New Year’s resolutions. This is why you should stop making New Year’s resolutions.

2. New Year’s resolutions are vague and general

The second reason New Year’s goals are not empowering is they are vague and general. For instance, think about your 2023 resolutions. Are they revolving around a common theme, and they are general wishes that most people want?

According to Brad Zomick from GoSkills.com, here are the 10 most common New Year’s resolutions most people have…

1. Exercise more
2. Lose weight
3. Get organized
4. Learn a new skill or hobby
5. Live life to the fullest
6. Save more money / spend less money
7. Quit smoking
8. Spend more time with family and friends
9. Travel more
10. Read more

Do you notice something from the list above?

They are the general wishes that most people have. And these are not goals. They are vague wishes and targets that people wanted to achieve.

That’s why most people fail to achieve their New Year’s resolutions. They are not specific, and they lack an actionable plan.

Furthermore, because New Year’s goals are general, they are often influenced by others.

For example, if your new year goal is to lose weight and exercise regularly, think about why. Why do you want to achieve the goal, which is to lose weight, and why do you want to exercise?

Most likely, you set the goal because you are influenced by others. Those are not the goals you truly wanted to achieve. You set those goals because you are influenced by others.

Maybe you saw your friends posted their travel photos on Instagram, and you’d like to do the same. Hence, you make travel more your new year’s resolution.

Do you get that?

This is why New Year’s goals are not going to work. They are too general and vague.

Read: Specific Goal Setting: How to Set Crystal Clear Goals

3. The lack of an actionable plan

And lastly, new year goals are NOT effective because they lack an actionable plan.

Having a goal for yourself is good, but it is not enough.

Achieving success is not just about writing down what you want or identifying your goals for the year. It is about knowing what you want, creating an actionable plan for it, and then working on it diligently and keep improving until you get the results.

Unfortunately, most people fail to understand how goal setting works. They think it is all about finding out what they want to achieve, and things will magically happen.

Nope, that’s not how success happens.

You see, success is no accident. You have to first find out what you want, and then turn it into a goal. You have to write it down, and spend time creating an actionable plan of what you need to do to get there. You must also measure your progress and keep improving your strategy so that you will get your desired results.

It is not a one-time work.

You need to be consistent and work hard from the moment you set it as a goal.

Read: How to Turn Your Goals into Actionable Plans

Too bad that most people fail to understand this. They think that all they need to do is to resolve what they want in the new year, and things will fall into place for them.

This is why New Year’s resolutions don’t work.

Forget about setting New Year’s resolutions and DO THIS instead…

If new year’s goals don’t work, what should you do? Here are my suggestions…

First, ditch the annualized thinking. Don’t set annual goals, instead, set 3-month goals. As I said, a year from now is too far away. When something is too far away, it is difficult to come up with a crystal-clear actionable plan.

Thus, don’t set New Year’s resolutions. Set 3 months’ goals for yourself.

This way, you will have more time and chances to pivot, change according to feedback, and make improvements faster.

Second, don’t set new year goals for the sake of it because it is a new year. You should consider what you truly want out of your life.

It is not about the new year, rather, it is about your life.

Therefore, get to know yourself. Understand yourself and find out what kind of life you want to live. And then set goals according to your core values, not according to the calendar.

Third, master the skill of goal achievement. That’s right, setting and achieving goals is a skill. The better you are at it, the more likely you are going to achieve all your goals and become successful.

The majority of people out there don’t understand how goals work. All they know is they need to have goals and perhaps write them down.

Setting and achieving goals is much more than that. It is also about your planning skills and how to put yourself into action and create the results you want.

If you want to master goal setting, I suggest you take my course at GoalSettingFormula.com. You will learn how to set empowering goals that inspire you, how to create a specific actionable plan that gets real results, and how to turn your dream life into reality.

And that’s all for this post.

Enjoy your new year and have a blast.

Remember, if you want to make 2023 your best year, don’t set New Year’s resolutions, instead, learn to set empowering goals that change life…