Failing your New Year’s resolutions? Here’s why it’s okay
The New Year hits, and suddenly, everyone’s a life coach for themselves. We promise we’ll eat better, spend less time on social media, exercise more… until we’re three days in and still in pajamas, scrolling through TikTok with leftover champagne in hand.
Why we make resolutions
Our urge to create New Year’s resolutions isn’t random—it’s deeply rooted in history and psychology. The tradition stretches back to the Babylonians, who made promises to their gods at the start of the year to earn good fortune and harvests. The rituals have changed, but the impulse has not. Across cultures and centuries, the new year has symbolized a chance to begin again, to reset one’s moral and personal compass.
Even the month of January carries this symbolism, named after Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, with one face looking back and one looking forward. The image captures the psychological tension of the season—caught between reflection and aspiration, between who we have been and who we hope to become.
Psychologically, the new year functions as a temporal landmark, a clear boundary that marks the start of a new chapter. This sense of a blank slate makes change feel possible, and renewal feel within reach.
That sense of possibility tends to funnel into familiar ambitions. According to a 2025 YouGov poll of US adults planning New Year’s resolutions, the most common goals were saving more money (26 percent), improving physical health (22 percent), exercising more (22 percent), being happy (22 percent), and eating healthier (20 percent). The hierarchy reveals that health, stability, and self-control remain our most persistent concerns.
Yet enthusiasm rarely survives the calendar change. An article published by Columbia University found that only about 25 percent of people still stick with their resolutions after 30 days, and fewer than 10 percent accomplish them long‑term, highlighting how difficult sustained behavior change can be.
This failure is often attributed to laziness or lack of discipline, but neuroscience points elsewhere. Much of human behavior is automatic. We eat, sleep, socialize, and cope on autopilot, guided by habits reinforced over years. Resolutions are conscious intentions trying to override those unconscious habits that are familiar and resistant to disruption.
When resolutions reveal more than they fix
I have never experienced the New Year as a deadline for reinvention. Instead, it has always felt like a mirror. In the days following the celebrations, when the glitter has been swept away and the champagne glasses emptied, it becomes clear that resolutions are less about accomplishment and more about realization and understanding.
They offer insight into our values, our contradictions, and the invisible patterns that govern behavior.
For me, resolutions have often served as experiments in self-perception. One year, I resolved to read more, assuming the habit would naturally expand my thinking. What it actually revealed was how easily distraction claimed my time. The lesson was not about books, but about attention—about what I allowed to interrupt, and what I consistently postponed. It illuminated how frequently I let distraction dictate my hours, revealing deeper truths about attention, curiosity, and priorities.
Seen this way, success is not simply achieving a goal. It is understanding what the attempt exposes. Effective resolutions, then, are not fueled by ambition alone. They are sustained by attention—attention to what energizes us, what exhausts us, and what we return to without force.
Ultimately, the days or even months after the New Year are fertile ground for observation. Resolutions become less about rigid targets and more about cultivating awareness, experimenting with behavior, and exploring the landscape of one’s inner life.
Approached this way, the turning of the calendar is a lens through which we can examine our patterns, values, and the small, deliberate choices that shape our lives.
So this year, stop chasing perfection or obsessing over “success.” If you don’t achieve every resolution, don’t beat yourself up or fall back on the classic “next year na lang ulit.” Instead, see it as a mirror—every attempt is an opportunity to learn about yourself and refine your practices that will guide meaningful changes, no matter what year it is.
