How do I keep my New Year's resolutions?

By No Rush · Updated October 22, 2026

The short answer

Make the resolution small enough to do next Monday, and give it a time and a place. People start goals more often after a fresh start like New Year, a study of gym visits and goal sites showed. Planning when, where and what to do if something comes up helps a bit. Missing one day hardly counts.

Why does a new year make it easier to start?

Hengchen Dai, Katherine Milkman and Jason Riis looked at moments that mark a new period, like a new week, a new month, a birthday or New Year. After those moments, more people searched Google for "diet", students went to the gym more often, and more people set a goal on a goal website. The researchers think such a moment puts old misses in the previous period, so starting feels cleaner.

How to actually keep a new year's resolution?

Decide beforehand when and where you will do it, and what you will do if something gets in the way. For example: On Monday after breakfast I walk for ten minutes. If it rains, I go after lunch. A review by Paschal Sheeran and colleagues of 642 tests found that plans like this help people do what they intended. The effect is smaller than often claimed, and it was larger when people were motivated and used the plan more than once.

Why do people often fail to stick to resolutions?

There is no reliable count of how many resolutions fail, so this page gives no number. Often the resolution is just too big. Get my life together or be more productive doesn't say what to do on Monday at nine. So Monday comes, nothing specific is planned, and you tell yourself you'll start next week. Shrinking it to one action with a day and a time helps with that part.

What if I skip a day?

In a study by Phillippa Lally and colleagues, 96 people picked one thing to do every day, like a walk after breakfast. It took between 18 and 254 days before it felt automatic. Missing it once did not make a real difference to how the habit formed. One skipped day is a reason to do it again the next day.

When the new year feels heavy

The study on fresh starts only looked at neutral or pleasant moments. The researchers say a hard moment may not motivate at all. If New Year feels like one more reminder of what did not change, any ordinary Monday can be a start too.

If it has felt heavy for a long time, or nothing seems to matter anymore, talk to your doctor or someone you trust. The helplines are at the bottom of this page.

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

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
Sheeran, Listrom & Gollwitzer (2025). The when and how of planning: Meta-analysis of the scope and components of implementation intentions in 642 tests. European Review of Social Psychology, 36(1), 162-194. doi.org/10.1080/10463283.2024.2334563
Lally, van Jaarsveld, Potts & Wardle (2010). How are habits formed: modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998-1009. doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.674