5 Reasons New Year's Resolutions DO NOT Work! Curious? Read On.

Quick Give-Up:

• 23% of people give up on their resolutions within the first week of the new year!

• 92% of people give up on their goals before achieving them, with nearly half dropping out by the end of January, as found by researchers at the University of Scranton.

• There is even a National Quitter's Day to recognize this debacle! The day falls between January 12th and 23rd, marking the peak period for abandoning resolutions. This year, that day fell on January 12th! How were your resolutions going the first few weeks of January?

Reasons for Failure:

• Ambitious Ambiguity: "Get healthy" sounds great, but what does it even mean? Vague goals lack direction and make it hard to track progress, leading to discouragement.

• Pressure Cooker: January 1st arrives, and suddenly you're expected to overhaul your entire life. This immense pressure creates stress and sets you up for burnout.

• Unrealistic Goals:  Setting unrealistic goals, lacking a plan, encountering obstacles, losing motivation, and fearing fail

• Obstacles: Obstacles can be caused by a myriad of problems ranging anywhere from childcare issues, illness, lack of planning time, etc. This could be a long list! The main point is to plan ahead and prepare for your day so that you accomplish what you set out to do!

• Losing Motivation: Motivation may initally get you moving, but as most of us likely already know, motivation fades and you give up on your goals. A better option is to build routines & habits that support your goals.

So, what does work? There has been a lot of research that shows creating a vision and identifying long & short-term goals is a much more successful approach to achieving your goals. More on that next week!

Sources:

• https://www.thetimestribune.com/news/local_news/tips-for-making-sure-your-new-years-resolutions-stick/article_8cd14b54-17fd-51a9-ab5a-89859e6e34c4.html

• https://time.com/6243642/how-to-keep-new-years-resolutions-2/

• University of Scranton: https://www.forbes.com/sites/dandiamond/2013/01/01/just-8-of-people-achieve-their-new-years-resolutions-heres-how-they-did-it/

• https://fisher.osu.edu/blogs/leadreadtoday/why-most-new-years-resolutions-fail

• Savvy Psychologist: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/articles/why-do-new-years-resolutions-fail/

• https://fortune.come/well/article/quitters-day-new-years-resolutions-how-to-start/#