How to achieve your New Year’s resolutions: a systematic review

It’s the start of the year again, and as is tradition, you may have come up with a few things you want to do differently in the coming year: your New Year’s resolutions. Now, if you do, in fact have some resolutions, here is how your pursuit of them will most likely go:   

Let’s say you want to go to the gym more often, to remove the six pack of beer that has been protecting your real sixpack (see Figure 1 for reference). In the first weeks, you naively but enthusiastically work out three times per week while getting immensely sore in the process. Yet, you are not a baby, and you work through the pain because, as they (the gym bro’s I guess?) say, no pain, no gain! You keep this up until about halfway through January, until one morning, you are just too sore to get out of bed and hit the gym. This is so demotivating that you stop going entirely, because every time you think of it, the only thing you remember is the pain and suffering from being sore all the time.   

Figure 1:

Thus, your resolution does not live to see the third week of the year, and the only lasting gains you see are how the €80, - bag of protein powder gains dust in your room. But fear not, dear reader, because many people fail to live up to their resolutions every year (Norcross & Vangarelli, 1988). If you make it to the second week of January, you are doing better than about 23% of people!  

So, how do you achieve your New Year’s resolutions? To answer this question, I wanted to do an independent lab study. Unfortunately, the Intermania does not have sufficient funding for this, a tragedy we blame on the recent budget cuts on academia. Luckily, many researchers have tried to solve this issue before me. Thus, I decided to conduct a systematic review. Now, without further ado, here are some science-based ways to achieve your resolutions:  

1. Set realistic and specific goals  

Studies on goal-setting theory suggest that well-defined, measurable, and achievable goals improve commitment (Locke & Latham, 2002). Having vague or unrealistic goals such as “get in shape” or “get a six-pack” are often demotivating and unrealistic. Instead, set a clear and measurable goal, such as “go to the gym three times a week”. Now, I hear you thinking, this was precisely what went wrong in your first example!? So, “going to the gym three times a week” might not be the best option to begin with, which is where the second point comes in:  

2. Start small and build from there  

When you start from nothing, suddenly hitting the gym three times per week is a significant change. Your body will not be used to it, resulting in immense soreness. Large-scale changes like this can be overwhelming, incremental adjustments, however, allow you to form habits naturally (Duhigg, 2012). If you start by going to the gym once a week, you will eventually not be too sore anymore, meaning you can go twice a week, etc. Gradually building up to going three times a week will be much more sustainable in the long run!  

3. Have a plan  

Psychological research reveals that concrete plans make it easier to bridge the gap between intention and actual behavior (Casas et al., 2004). When you already have written down a workout routine and reserved time for it in your agenda, you are much more likely actually to complete it. Planning ahead also allows you to prepare for potential obstacles that might prevent you from reaching your goal. Going back to our gym example, maybe it is closed on some holidays, preventing you from reaching your goals and your gains. If you know this beforehand, you could look for a calisthenics park to do a workout outside for a change or see if you can get a day pass at another gym.  

4. Have a support system  

Humans are social animals, and the people around us heavily influence us, as such, social accountability and encouragement helps us to reach our goals. Studies have shown that social support improves success rate in health-related behaviors such as weight loss and exercise adherence (Hwang et al., 2009), (Wing & Jeffery, 1999). Thus, telling the people around you about your resolutions might help, and getting one of your friends to become your gym buddy is even better. In this way, you can motivate each other to go to the gym, while making it more social and fun in the process. You are also less likely to skip your planned workout if you have to come up with an excuse for your gym buddy.  

I hope these science-based tips help you reach your goals this year. Now, there is really no excuse for lacking a 100-kilogram bench-press PR by 2026!  

P.S. 

The aforementioned strategies also work for less desirable habits including, but not limited to: starting smoking, doing a year-round Kloktober, doubling your DUO profits in the casino and SOGing by writing Intermania articles (a possible self-reflection of the author). 

No relevant conflicts of interest have been disclosed by the author. For referencing this article (APA), use:

Lubbers, A. (2025, January). How to achieve your new year’s resolutions, a systematic review. In Intermania Love of Science & the Science of Love. Intermania Department of Social Sciences & Research. https://www.intermate.nl/intermania/192-how-to-achieve-your-new-years-resolutions-a-systematic-review 

References: 

1. Casas, F., González, M., Figuer, C., & Coenders, G. (2004). Subjective Well-Being, Values and Goal Achievement. In Social indicators research series (pp. 123–141). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-2312-5_7  
2. Duhigg, C. (2012). The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. National Geographic Books. 
3. Hwang, K. O., Ottenbacher, A. J., Green, A. P., Cannon-Diehl, M. R., Richardson, O., Bernstam, E. V., & Thomas, E. J. (2009). Social support in an Internet weight loss community. International Journal Of Medical Informatics, 79(1), 5–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2009.10.003  
4. Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey. American Psychologist, 57(9), 705–717. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.57.9.705  
5. Norcross, J. C., & Vangarelli, D. J. (1988). The resolution solution: Longitudinal examination of New Year’s change attempts. Journal Of Substance Abuse, 1(2), 127–134. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0899-3289(88)80016-6  
6. Van Bavel And Dominic Packer, J. (2022, 29 December). Sick of Failing at Your New Year’s Resolutions? There Is a Better Way. TIME. https://time.com/6243642/how-to-keep-new-years-resolutions-2/  
7. Why most New Year’s resolutions fail | Lead Read Today. (2023, 2 February). Lead Read Today | Fisher College Of Business. https://fisher.osu.edu/blogs/leadreadtoday/why-most-new-years-resolutions-fail  
8. Wing, R. R., & Jeffery, R. W. (1999). Benefits of recruiting participants with friends and increasing social support for weight loss and maintenance. Journal Of Consulting And Clinical Psychology, 67(1), 132–138. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006x.67.1.132