Happy New Year
Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail — and What Actually Helps
„Every time you tear a leaf off a calendar, you present a new place for new ideas and progress.“
After a short Christmas break we start freshly into the new year. First of all I want to wish you a very happy New Year and hope that each of you will accomplish everything you want to achieve in 2026. To support you in this I want to share a few insights into how New Year’s resolutions can be maintained and why they so often fail.
Why motivation feels convincing and still fails
It is the first of January and people around the globe make plans they genuinely care about.
They want to change something meaningful, improve their lifestyle, their relationships or their health. For a short time, motivation feels unusually high.
Weeks later, most resolutions quietly fade. This pattern is so common that many people already expect it to happen.
The usual explanation is a lack of discipline. The assumption is that people simply did not want it badly enough or were not consistent enough.
This explanation is intuitive, but it misses the underlying problem. New Year’s resolutions fail not because people lack motivation, but because intentions are asked to guide behaviour on their own. In everyday life, intentions operate very differently than we assume.
Intentions are too abstract to guide behaviour
Intentions describe what we want, how we want to see ourselves and how we want to behave.
But our behaviour depends on when and under which conditions action actually starts.
This so called intention behaviour gap helps explain why even strong resolutions often remain weak in practice. Intentions require repeated conscious decisions, often in moments when attention and energy are already limited.
This becomes even harder when goals are vague. A goal like "exercise more" leaves many decisions open. How often? When? For how long? Each open question creates room for delay and rationalisation.
More precise goals reduce this problem. Instead of "exercise more", a clearer version would be "go for a 20 minute walk after dinner on weekdays". The situation is defined, the starting point is clear and the need to negotiate with yourself is reduced.
Resolutions become more stable when they are tied to concrete situations such as specific times, places or recurring moments that reliably trigger action.
It is not about stronger motivation, but about making the start of the behaviour clearer and easier.
Habits and context usually dominate intentions
Much of everyday behaviour is habitual.
Once routines are established, they are triggered by context rather than conscious choice. When the environment stays the same, old habits keep an advantage over new intentions.
This is why many resolutions collapse despite sincere effort. If the surrounding conditions do not change, they continue to support what is familiar and convenient.
A simple example illustrates this. If the goal is to go for a run in the morning, motivation matters less than what happens right after waking up. When running shoes are already next to the bed, the first step is obvious. When they are hidden in a cupboard, the decision becomes easier to postpone.
Sustainable change therefore rarely starts with discipline. It starts with adjusting defaults.
When desired behaviour is easy to start and unwanted behaviour is harder to repeat, behaviour begins to shift without constant self control.
The basic principle is simple. People tend to do what is easy, visible and socially supported. When these factors stay the same, intentions struggle to turn into action.
How this can be changed becomes clearer when we look at concrete ways to redesign everyday setups so they support consistency rather than work against it.
Motivation peaks briefly and then fades
Temporal landmarks such as New Year’s Day create a genuine motivational boost. They separate past behaviour from a new beginning and make it easier to commit to change.
This effect is real, but it is short lived. The clarity and energy of a fresh start often fade once everyday routines take over again.
Without some form of structure, motivation slowly wears off. Daily decisions pile up, attention shifts and immediate temptations become more attractive. Long term benefits start to feel distant, especially when stress is high. Under these conditions, even well meant goals lose priority.
Positive thinking alone does not solve this. Simply imagining success or reminding yourself of your goal can feel productive, but it rarely changes behaviour. When the first obstacle appears, action often stops.
What helps is using moments of high motivation to set up a simple system. For example, instead of relying on motivation to work out, you might decide that every Sunday evening you block three fixed time slots in your calendar for the coming week. The decision is made once, not every day.
Small and regular resets can support this. A short weekly check in to look at what worked and what did not can be enough to keep the system running, even when motivation is low.
Motivation is best seen as a signal to prepare, not as something that needs to last. It can help you set things up, but structure is what keeps behaviour going.
What actually makes resolutions stick
Most people do not fail because they lack desire. They fail because they try to run change on motivation alone.
A more realistic goal is to build a setup that still works when you are tired, distracted or stressed.
Here is what that setup can look like.
Start by turning the resolution into an action trigger.
Instead of "I want to exercise more", choose a sentence that specifies when the behaviour starts. "If it is 07:30 on weekdays, then I put on my shoes." The first step matters because it removes the need for negotiation. Once the first step is done, the next step becomes easier.
Then redesign the environment so the default supports you.
A useful rule is to make the desired behaviour easier to start and the undesired behaviour harder to repeat. Clothing laid out the night before reduces friction. A packed bag removes the morning decision. Putting a book on the pillow makes reading more likely than scrolling. Leaving the phone outside the bedroom reduces the chance that the day starts in distraction.
Add commitment where your future self is unreliable.
Consistency improves when action is tied to other people or to a fixed structure. A running group, a weekly class or a shared calendar slot creates external stability. It is not a weakness to need this. It is an accurate response to how habits work.
Design a bad day version.
Most plans assume good conditions. Behaviour change needs a version that survives bad ones. A short walk counts. Ten minutes counts. One set counts. The aim is not to keep intensity. The aim is to keep the loop alive.
Pull rewards forward.
Long term outcomes are abstract, but immediate feedback changes behaviour. Tracking can be simple. A tick on a calendar, a short note or a streak you do not want to break. Pleasure can be bundled as well. A podcast that is only played during training, good coffee after a walk or a favourite playlist reserved for deep work.
Finally, decide what happens when you miss a day.
A lapse is normal. The damage usually happens when it is interpreted as failure. A simple rule prevents this. If a day is missed, the next day defaults to the minimum version. The aim is to never miss twice.
None of these elements require extraordinary discipline.
They reduce the need for it.
Sustainable change emerges when behaviour is designed to survive low motivation, stress and distraction.
A conclusion
New Year’s resolutions rarely fail because people do not care enough.
They fail because motivation is asked to compensate for weak structure. Motivation can initiate change, but it cannot reliably sustain it once everyday routines return.
Lasting change is not driven by intensity, but by alignment between intentions, environments and realistic expectations. When goals are supported by clear triggers, supportive surroundings and plans that survive imperfect days, behaviour becomes easier to repeat.
The central shift is therefore a practical one. Instead of asking whether motivation is strong enough, it is more helpful to ask whether the system is doing enough of the work.
Behaviour changes when the system changes.
L.A.
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Thinking from Scratch
by Luc Albrecht
Exploring how we think, decide and create clarity