The emptiness of New Year’s Resolutions

I wonder why it is that so often New Year’s Resolutions are set and then not achieved? The failure rate of achieving them is spectacularly high, unlike other types of goal setting. Why is this?

My take on this is informed by many years of having a successful counselling and psychotherapy practice, where clients would regularly be admitting to me their dreadful secret: they hated Christmas, didn’t want to go ‘home’, and secretly wished the whole thing would go to pot!

But off they would go, grin and bear it, and then emerge into January with all sorts of good intentions, perhaps borne out of relief that they’d survived another Christmas.

New Year Resolutions made in this context are likely not to work, simply because they’re built on false premises.

Secondly, resolutions are really just another word for goals, but they’re not treated with the same kind of respect that goals are given. Perhaps this is because resolutions belong in the personal world, not the business world, and it’s unlikely that you’ll be held accountable for your resolutions not being achieved. But it’s a mark of disrespect to yourself if you don’t treat making resolutions seriously. So better to not make any than to make them, give up on them and feel a failure.

Thirdly, setting and achieving a New Year Resolution, like any other goal, actually requires a process of change to make it happen. This is where RichThinking comes in. Without a willingness to enter into and go through the changes that have to occur when you want to get from where you are to another place, then as soon as you hit a challenge on the road, you’ll stop.

So this year do yourself a favour – either decide to make a New Year Resolution with integrity, knowing this is a gift to yourself, or don’t do New Year Resolutions at all.