With the first of January recently in the rear-view mirror, it’s time for everyone’s favorite futile annual exercise: New Year’s resolutions.
But what if I told you it’s not your fault that you don’t stick to your New Year’s resolutions? The reality is: your resolutions fail you, not the other way around. There’s a reason for that. And there’s a different approach that makes them actually meaningful.
Why New Year’s Resolutions Suck
The core problem with New Year’s resolutions is most people focus on what they want to do or be. For example:
- I’m going to lose 20 lbs
- I’m going to call my parents every Sunday
- I’m going to write the great American novel
- I’m going to do a date night with my partner once a week
- I’m going to meditate daily
There are two main problems with focusing on specific actions as resolutions.
First, it totally ignores the context of your life and the evolving constraints on your time and actions, making you more likely to fail them. In a vacuum these all seem great and do-able, but when these plans make contact with reality they don’t always work — or they result in trade-offs that have unacceptable consequences in other areas of your life.
The other issue is that it’s binary: you either did it or you didn’t. There’s no partial credit, and changing a goal is indistinguishable from failure. Some of these goals could be large, multi-year goals — and the key is to create momentum towards them that sustains you, and rack up wins bit by bit.
How to Make Them Better
In brief: focus on how you want to feel. In other words, take the things on the above list and ask yourself: “If I do this, how will I feel?” Seen through that lens, you might get:
- I’m going to lose 20 lbs → I want to feel healthy
- I’m going to call my parents every Sunday → I want to feel more connected to my parents
- I’m going to write the great American novel → I want to feel more confident expressing myself creatively
- I’m going to do a date night with my partner once a week → I want to feel more connected to my partner
- I’m going to meditate daily → I want to feel more peaceful and less distracted
Or as an even better idea, skip the “what” entirely — because that’s putting the cart before the horse. Just ask yourself, “How do I want to feel?” You might wind up with a list like:
- I want to feel healthy
- I want to feel more connected to my parents
- I want to feel more confident expressing myself creatively
- I want to feel more connected to my partner
- I want to feel more peaceful and less distracted
And from there, you can reverse engineer things you might do to feel that way:
- I want to feel healthy: run 3+ miles 5x per week; go to the gym 5x per week; no more fried food; cut out ultra-processed foods; train for a marathon; start doing yoga; start doing pilates; take a workout class 5x per week; sleep at least 7 hours every night; start working with a nutritionist; talk to your doctor about getting on a GLP-1 drug; etc.
- I want to feel more connected to my parents: call them every Sunday; find a phone game you can play together remotely; send them random links whenever something you’re reading online reminds you of them, at least once a week; send them a random text message whenever you think about them; send them cards on birthdays and holidays; fly out for their birthday; spend a weekend with them and interview them using a “tell me your story” format; etc.
- I want to feel more confident in my creative expression: doing morning pages 5 days a week; publish and blog post weekly and share it with your networks; take an improv comedy class; take a painting class; learn to DJ; take piano lessons; take singing lessons; etc.
- I want to feel more connected to my partner: do a date night once a month; send them flowers randomly at least 6 times throughout the year; read a Gottman book together, or go to a Gottman workshop together; get a couples coach or therapist; do a weekend away, just the two of you, once a quarter; do a short guided meditation together every morning; get a couples question card deck and pick one question to discuss every night before dinner; etc.
- I want to feel more peaceful and less distracted: do a gratitude journal daily; meditate 10 minutes daily; go for a walk on the beach once a week; do a 10-day silent meditation retreat; make one day every week a no-phone day; delete all social media apps on your phone; etc.
The point is: there are many paths to achieving a feeling-oriented goal. This means that not only can you be flexible in your approach but you can also chain together actions to compound your progress.
You Will Be More Ambitious and More Successful
“But wait!” You object. “This framing is just a cop-out so you can give yourself a participation trophy and don’t have to deal with the fact that you failed!”
Not at all! It’s a fundamental mindset shift that makes you more likely to ultimately achieve your goals.
Rather than concluding, “I failed to accomplish this goal,” you can instead say, “Now is not the right time for this specific goal.” And instead of giving up, you change your approach but continue on your journey — especially with your biggest, boldest, most audacious goals.
Orienting your resolutions around how you want to feel will in no way dull your work ethic, ambition, or drive. Rather, it will build persistence, determination, and grit, and keep you focused on what really matters. It encourages you to adapt your approach to fit your circumstances and persevere rather than just giving up.
So: focus on how you want to feel instead of what you want to do, and make much more progress in 2025!