It’s that time of year again — time to make New Year’s resolutions. If you’re like me, you have to rack your brain to remember your resolutions for 2025. Were you hoping to walk 10,000 steps per day? Were you hoping to do 30 minutes of yoga every morning? Were you hoping to spend less time on social media and more time talking to your dog?
Perhaps you were smart enough to write your resolutions down and read them every day — at least until the second week of January, when they started collapsing and you couldn’t revive them, not even with smelling salts.
Even if you failed to keep your 2025 resolutions alive for more than a few days, don’t let that stop you from trying again. The worst thing you can do is quit (unless you’re a smoker). Whether you’re trying to give up a bad habit or adopt a good one, it often takes many attempts before you’re successful. Just ask Selena Gomez how many years it took for her to give up Justin Bieber.
“Keep trying” is the first tip I’d give anyone who is tired of making the same resolution over and over. You never know when you will finally succeed. Sometimes all it takes is a change in your environment. You thought you would never have the discipline to learn a new language, but that was before you met your cute new neighbor from Estonia.
Here are four other tips that I’ve gathered from experts and my personal experience:
Don’t make too many resolutions. Instead of making ten resolutions, choose two or three that will have the biggest impact on your life. You are more likely to be successful if you devote your energy to making just a couple of changes, such as “read 10 pages a day” and “smile as much as possible at the new neighbor from Estonia.”
Small changes can make a big difference. The easiest way to fail is to try to do too much. Just because your favorite author writes 1,000 words per day, producing two novels per year, don’t think you can automatically do the same. It takes a lot of discipline and dedication to maintain that output, day after day, even on those days when Liverpool plays Arsenal. Instead of shooting for 1,000 words per day, give yourself a more realistic goal: 100 words. That may not seem like much, but it’s better to set a target that you can achieve consistently. Setting realistic goals is something I like to do. Instead of resolving to run 10 laps around the track every day, I resolve to run 10 laps around the coffee table. You have to start somewhere.
Give yourself a “lazy out.” I try to go to the gym four times a week. When I’m feeling lazy, instead of skipping the workout altogether, I tell myself that I’ll just do it for 20 minutes. That’s my “lazy out.” It gets me off the couch. And once I’m in the gym, the laziness often disappears, especially after hearing so much grunting and groaning (and that’s just the guy trying to squeeze his winter jacket into the locker). In the same way, if I have a household chore that I’m reluctant to do, I tell myself that I’ll just do it for five minutes. That’s my “lazy out.” But once I get going, I often don’t stop until the job is done; otherwise my wife might yell, “Lazy oaf!”
Don’t rely too much on willpower. If you want to cut back on the amount of ice cream you eat, don’t keep a tub of ice cream in your freezer. It takes a lot less willpower to resist something when it isn’t sitting in the next room, calling out to you: “Hey! I’ve over here. Don’t forget about me. If you don’t eat me, who will? I’ve got calcium and protein and will help you meet your recommended daily intake of guar gum and carrageenan.”
