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There’s a reason why people say ‘new year, new me’.
As 1 January rolls around, many of us start thinking about how we can improve our lives.
It might be by hitting the gym more. It could be eating healthier. It might be reading 25 books or finally travelling to that country you’ve always wanted to visit.
Whatever it is, making a New Year’s resolution feels like second nature for some people.
Around 74 per cent of Australians will make a New Year’s resolution for 2025, according to research from comparison site Finder.
The most popular New Year’s resolutions are health-based, with 39 per cent of Australians aiming to improve their diet and make healthier food choices, 37 per cent wanting to improve their fitness levels, and 33 per cent hoping to lose weight.
In 2025, Australians want to lose weight, get fit, and eat healthy. But how many of them will actually succeed? Source: SBS News
At least 17 per cent want more sleep, while 20 per cent hope to travel overseas.
Only 26 per cent won’t be buying into the resolution hype.
But while the New Year might feel like a great time to transform your life, your New Year’s resolution could actually be doing more harm than good.
Here’s why.
Are New Year’s resolutions actually good for you?
Ron Borland is a professor of psychology at Deakin University, specialising in health behavioural change. He cautions against casually adopting a New Year’s resolution for 2025.
“They’re bad — unless you’ve got a very clear plan … and you’re prepared to follow through,” Borland told SBS News.
“In general terms, they don’t work that well.”
Studies show 88 per cent of people who set New Year’s resolutions fail them within the first two weeks.
Additionally, only 8 per cent of people will actually achieve their resolutions, according to research from the University of Scranton in the United States.
That means that, while many of us may have good intentions going into the new year, we may be setting ourselves up for failure.
“The most negative impact is setting yourself to do something and failing … failing quite miserably,” Borland said.
But it might be more important to lean into this failure and accept it as part of the journey rather than actively resist it.
“For difficult things, sometimes you’re going to fail. There’s no strategy that has a 100 per cent success rate.”
Why do so many New Year’s resolutions fail?
Most New Year’s resolutions fail because they’re poorly planned and poorly timed, Borland said.
“One of the things that characterises a lot of New Year’s resolutions is they’re not particularly well thought out, and people don’t have a good plan for implementing them.”
On 1 January, we’re still deep in holiday mode. This means it can be a tricky time for radical self-change.
“It’s the middle of a holiday season. You might have something that works for two weeks when you are sunning at the beach, and then you go back to your normal lifestyle and you’ve got no plan to actually sustain that behaviour in your normal lifestyle,” Borland said.
“You need a plan for implementing those strategies into your day-to-day lifestyle. And most people don’t think ahead that far.”
Tips for setting a New Year’s resolution that won’t fail
There are a few ways to ensure you stick to your resolution — or at the very least, keep it going a little longer than the average two weeks.
A general guide for following through with something is to set a ‘SMART’ goal — something that’s specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound.
Borland said this approach to goal-setting is, well, smart.
“With a little bit of planning beforehand and a clear plan to make sure you don’t give up … you can increase your chance of success.”
How to set a SMART New Year’s resolution
Specific: Think about what you want to accomplish, then make it really specific with extra detail. Instead of saying you want to ‘eat healthier’, you might instead say you want to include more vegetables in each meal.
Measurable: Decide how you’ll track your progress. For example, if you commit to running four times a week but only make it three, you’ll know you’re slightly off track and can make a small adjustment.
Borland suggests this clarity helps you to realise exactly when you’re succeeding and when you need to recalibrate.
Achievable: It’s great to aim high, but make sure your goal is realistic given your circumstances.
If you’ve been living off instant noodles for the last six months, aiming to cook gourmet meals every night might be a stretch.
Instead, start with a goal like cooking three homemade dinners a week — it’s more manageable and sets you up for success.
Realistic: Consider whether your goal fits into your lifestyle. For instance, if you’ve never been a morning person, expecting to suddenly wake up at 5am every day might not work.
“You really need to rethink what’s going to be viable for you and whether you need to build up to that or whether you need to acknowledge that at the moment, that’s not quite a realistic goal.
“Choose something that’s more realistic that you can actually achieve,” Borland said.
Time-bound: Set a clear deadline or time frame for achieving your goal. Rather than vaguely saying you’ll ‘get fit’, specify that you’ll run 5K by the end of April. Giving your resolution a timeline adds urgency and helps you track progress.
By structuring your resolution this way, you’ll turn a vague idea into a clear, actionable plan — giving yourself a much better chance of sticking with it beyond the first few weeks.
What should you do if you fail a New Year’s resolution?
If you fail your New Year’s resolution, know that you’re not alone.
Many people set goals with the best of intentions, only to fall short when faced with the realities of life. Borland emphasises it’s important to approach these moments with self-kindness and self-compassion.
“Realistically, it’s very difficult to completely change and become a different person,” Borland explains. “Sometimes it happens as a result of a major crisis, but to just decide to do it and do it — very, very few people succeed.”
He points out that profound personal change is often driven by significant adversity, such as a life-altering event, rather than a simple decision to transform oneself — especially as suddenly as 1 January.
For most of us, however, resolutions are less about overcoming adversity and more about striving towards an idealised version of ourselves.
But Borland cautions against aiming for perfection.
“Just trying to change from current you to some fantasised you, you’ll often find that the fantasised you comes with a whole lot of things you really don’t want to do anyhow.”
This disconnect often leads to frustration and failure when we realise that the sacrifices required to meet these lofty goals don’t align with what we truly value.
“Very few of us are ideal. In fact, none of us really.”
Look at your failure as a learning opportunity. Recognise that sometimes, failure is all part of the process.
