How many New Year's resolutions should I make?

By No Rush · Updated November 1, 2026

The short answer

Fewer than you'd think, and one is a good place to start. Amy Dalton and Stephen Spiller found that planning when and where helped people reach a single goal. When people planned several goals that way, the benefit mostly disappeared, because the plans showed how hard the whole list would be. Pick the resolution that matters most to you and plan only that one.

Is it better to have one resolution or several?

For most people, one to start with. In the experiments of Amy Dalton and Stephen Spiller, deciding when and where to work on a single goal helped people reach it. With several goals, the same detailed planning drew attention to how hard it would be to do them all, and people became less committed to each one. A plan that helps one goal can make a long list feel heavier.

How do I start improving my life when I want to change everything?

Write the whole list down, so it's out of your head. Then choose one item that would make some of the others a bit easier, like getting up at the same time each day. Plan only that one, with a moment and a place. The rest stays on the list, where you can see it and pick the next one later.

What if I do want several resolutions?

Then make the set look doable. In the same research, people who saw their several goals as something manageable felt they were less difficult, and they did more of what they had planned. Keep each resolution small, for example ten minutes of reading instead of a book a week, and don't start them all in the same week.

Why does a new year make me want to change everything at once?

A new year feels like a clean page. Hengchen Dai, Katherine Milkman and Jason Riis found that people search for and start goals more often after dates that mark a new beginning, like a new year, a new month or a birthday. Old misses seem to belong to the period before. That clean page is also what makes a long list so tempting in January.

In the No Rush app

In the app, every step you plan comes with the question When, and where? You fill in something like after dinner, at home. There is also a part called Your rhythm. There you choose one small thing to do regularly and say at what moment of the day you do it. After four weeks the app asks if it is helping. If you say no, it is removed, and you can choose something else.

No Rush app

An iPhone app for people who feel stuck. It sets out one small next step at a time and tells you why that one. It is not therapy.

Sign up free Take the test For iPhone. Coming soon to the App Store. The first seven days are free in the app. After that, you choose whether to subscribe. Sign up now and the app stays free for you, for life.

Sources

Dalton & Spiller (2012). Too much of a good thing: the benefits of implementation intentions depend on the number of goals. Journal of Consumer Research, 39(3), 600-614. doi.org/10.1086/664500
Dai, Milkman & Riis (2014). The fresh start effect: temporal landmarks motivate aspirational behavior. Management Science, 60(10), 2563-2582. doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2014.1901