{"id":94970,"date":"2019-12-28T05:00:42","date_gmt":"2019-12-28T12:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/renewsblog\/?p=94970"},"modified":"2021-03-16T13:45:42","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T19:45:42","slug":"new-years-resolutions-suck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/new-years-resolutions-suck","title":{"rendered":"4 Reasons Your New Year’s Resolutions Will Crash and Burn (& How to Change That)"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is something that everyone has but no one keeps? Their hair? Well, yes\u2026 but no!<\/p>\n

The answer is New Year\u2019s resolutions.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s that time of the year\u2014the time where everyone reflects on the past 365 days, thinking of new ways they can flip the switch and improve a certain aspect of their life.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew year, new me! On January 1st, I am going to start eating healthy, going to the gym, quitting smoking, getting ahold of my finances,” etc.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to January 31. The gyms are desolate, the cabinets are stacked with Twinkies and Ho Hos, and you missed a week of tracking your spending, so your finances are a lost cause. Another new year, another failed resolution.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t feel bad, though! A whopping\u00a092 percent of all New Year’s resolutions fail<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Why is this the case? Why is January the world\u2019s biggest graveyard of self-made promises?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s because the whole concept of a New Year\u2019s resolution is completely bogus and against any sort of human psychology. In this article, I am going to explain why these New Year\u2019s resolutions make zero sense and what you should do instead.<\/p>\n

Throughout this discussion, I’ll use the example of \u201cliving a healthier lifestyle.\u201d I use this example because this was my New Year\u2019s resolution back in 2011.<\/p>\n

And it did not work.<\/p>\n

So in 2012, I had the same resolution but took a different approach\u2014to slowly work to change one habit at a time to improve my health. First, it was exercising five days a week. Once I developed that habit, I moved onto small improvements in my eating.<\/p>\n

Several years later of continuous improvement, I can make a strong case that my current lifestyle is healthier than at least 90 percent of anyone else in my age group. And I feel great!<\/p>\n

\"financial-freedom-habits\"
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\nRelated:<\/strong> Goals and Resolutions Will Make You Broke and Depressed. Try This Instead.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

4 Reasons Your New Year’s Resolutions Will Crash and Burn<\/h2>\n

1. You’re choosing an arbitrary day to enact a big change.<\/h3>\n

Have you ever woken up on the morning of January 1 and thought, \u201cWow! It feels like next year! I am a new person!\u201d I bet you haven\u2019t. In fact, I bet your first thoughts when you roll out of bed on January 1 this coming year will be, \u201cWhat the heck happened last night?\u201d<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t worry, I was there.<\/p>\n

Then, for at least the month of January, you will continue to write last year\u2019s date more often than not. I do this, too!<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing. My point is that the whole \u201cnew year\u201d concept is easily forgotten subconsciously.<\/p>\n

While the new year seems like a good time to reset for everyone, truthfully, your body can\u2019t tell the difference. Every day is a reset. If you recognize an area of improvement in your life, you can start making changes immediately rather than waiting until the beginning of some arbitrary week, month, or year.<\/p>\n

So, rather than improving bad habits an average of 80 times in your lifetime, you can improve an average of almost 30,000.<\/p>\n

2. You’ve already set yourself up for failure.<\/h3>\n

How can one go from stuffing themselves with Christmas ham, apple pie, and copious amounts of alcohol on December 31 to a purely healthy diet with consistent exercise on January 1?<\/p>\n

The answer is you can\u2019t<\/em>\u2014or at least, it\u2019s extremely likely that you can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

This is setting yourself up for failure. What do you want to do the morning after a night of heavy drinking (i.e., New Year’s Eve)? I\u2019m sure it\u2019s not wake up early, eat a few pieces of avocado toast, and hit the gym that\u2019s probably closed.<\/p>\n

You are likely going to eat a big, greasy breakfast and veg out to recover from the night before. So it’s day one, and you have already failed at your New Year\u2019s resolution.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this one failure cripples you before you start. Psychologically, once someone fails, there is a higher probability of the goal becoming a lost cause. They become discouraged and believe the goal cannot be achieved, which makes it harder to see any sort of results.<\/p>\n

3. You’re trying to do too much all at once.<\/h3>\n

Humans are creatures of habit. Your life is simply a compilation of habits strung together.<\/p>\n

In other words, to improve your lifestyle, you need to change one single habit. Changing habits takes much more than a split second between 11:59 p.m. on December 31 and midnight on January 1. If this was all it took, the world would be free of smokers, gamblers, alcoholics, and drug addicts.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, it is not.<\/p>\n

Back to our healthy lifestyle example. Let\u2019s say you go from not exercising regularly to one morning (January 1) deciding that you are going to exercise rigorously five days per week, every week.<\/p>\n

You may be able to get up and do this for one or two weeks. However, the excitement of your new activity will wear off.<\/p>\n

Before you know it, it will be too cold or too dark or too \u201cinsert excuse here\u201d to continue exercising. This usually happens before the habit is formed, and you\u2019re back to square one, trying again next year.
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\nRelated:<\/strong> The Real Reason We Fail at Our New Year\u2019s Resolutions<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

4. Your goals aren’t specific or actionable.<\/h3>\n

According to a January 2017 poll<\/a>, the most common New Year\u2019s resolutions were:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Exercise more<\/li>\n
  2. Lose weight<\/li>\n
  3. Eat more healthily<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Every single one of these is not specific and therefore impossible to attain. If there is no metric or timeframe to measure your results, how do you know whether you achieved it or failed?<\/p>\n

    \u201cExercise more\u201d?! Please tell me how you are going to complete this? Are you going to do one push-up per day? Or are you going to exercise five to six days per week?<\/p>\n

    One end of the spectrum is ineffective, while the other is not immediately sustainable.<\/p>\n

    I would argue that most people fall toward the more aggressive end of that spectrum on January 1. The problem here is that the first week they fail at this goal, they get down on themselves, lose confidence, admit they can\u2019t do it, and then stop. So again, back to square one.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    A Different Approach<\/h2>\n

    Now that you see a few of the many flaws of New Year\u2019s resolutions, let me guide you through a different approach. It\u2019s quite simple. In fact, you may have heard of it: It\u2019s called goal setting<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    Some of you may have heard of the acronym \u201cSMART\u201d goals. SMART stands for:<\/p>\n