New Year’s resolutions that actually last: what the research says

Every January, the internet tells you that New Year’s resolutions are doomed. Gyms are packed in week one and empty by February, and supposedly almost everyone gives up.

The research is more hopeful than that. Resolutions are a genuinely good moment to change something. You just need to set them up right.

Do New Year’s resolutions actually work?

More often than you’d think.

In a classic study (Norcross, Mrykalo and Blagys, 2002), researchers followed 159 people who made a resolution and 123 people who wanted to change the same kinds of things but didn’t make one. After six months, 46% of the resolvers were still successful, compared with 4% of the non-resolvers. The groups weren’t randomly assigned, so this doesn’t prove the resolution itself did the work. But it’s a long way from “everyone fails”.

A much larger study from Sweden (Oscarsson and colleagues, 2020) followed 1,066 people for a whole year. At the end, 55% considered themselves successful. The most popular goals were about exercise, weight and eating habits.

Both studies rely on people reporting their own success, so take the exact numbers with a pinch of salt. The direction is clear, though: making a resolution is not a silly thing to do.

Start something instead of stopping something

The Swedish study found one simple difference that mattered a lot. People with approach goals (“start running twice a week”) were more successful than people with avoidance goals (“stop eating sweets”): 58.9% versus 47.1% after a year.

So rewrite your resolution as something you’ll do:

• “Stop scrolling in bed” → “Read ten pages in bed every night.”
• “Quit takeaway” → “Cook dinner at home on Mondays and Thursdays.”
• “Stop procrastinating on my business” → “Work on it every Saturday from 9 to 12.”

One more interesting detail: in that study, the group that got a moderate amount of support did best, better than the group that got the most. More help isn’t automatically better. Regular, light-touch support seems to be the sweet spot. (Small print: some of the authors earn royalties from a book on resolutions, and the study relied on self-reports.)

5 ways to make this year’s resolution stick

1. Pick one, and make it specific

“Get fit” is a wish. “Run a 10 km race in May” is a goal. Specific, challenging goals lead to better results than vague “do your best” goals: that’s one of the most solid findings in goal research. One clear resolution also beats seven fuzzy ones.

2. Plan the when and where

Turn your resolution into an if-then plan: “If it’s Tuesday at 7:00, then I put on my running shoes and go.” A review of 94 studies (Gollwitzer and Sheeran, 2006) found that plans like this clearly help people follow through.

3. Expect it to take months, not weeks

The “21 days” rule is a myth. In a study from University College London (Lally and colleagues, 2010), new daily habits took 66 days on average to feel automatic, and missing one day didn’t ruin anything. So the slump in February is normal, not a sign you’ve failed. More on how habits really form.

4. Track it every week

A meta-analysis of 138 studies (Harkin and colleagues, 2016) found that monitoring progress helps people reach goals, especially when the progress is reported to someone else. A tick on a calendar is enough. Our progress tracking guide has a printable tracker.

5. Get someone who will ask

The hardest moment isn’t January 1st. It’s a rainy Tuesday in February when nobody would notice if you skipped. An accountability partner notices. Light, regular check-ins are exactly the kind of moderate support that worked in the Swedish study.

What to do when you slip

You will slip. Everyone does. A missed week is data, not a verdict.

Ask yourself three questions:

• What got in the way? Time, energy, a plan that was too ambitious?
• What’s the smallest version I can still do? Ten minutes instead of an hour still counts.
• When’s my next attempt? Put it in your calendar now.

And if your resolution no longer fits, change it. It’s your goal, not a contract with the universe.

Start before January

Here’s a little secret: you don’t have to wait for January 1st. Starting in December gives you a head start, and your first slip happens before the New Year pressure even begins.

If you want someone to start with, join the Pactful waitlist. Tell us your goal for the year, and we’ll pair you by hand with someone who’s working on something just as ambitious.