Given up on your New Year’s Resolutions?

Around this time every year, the internet seems to fill up with posts, blogs, and news articles about New Year’s Resolutions. You’ve probably seen the headlines:

5 Achievable New Year’s Resolutions You’ll Actually Keep!

The Best New Year’s Resolution Ideas For 2025!

3 Unusual New Year’s Resolutions That Will Boost Your Work Performance!

But despite our best efforts, New Year’s Resolutions often fail. No matter how hard we try to eat better, exercise more, take social media breaks, read more, and complete everything else on our start-of-year checklists, it seems as though eventually, we’re bound to slip up. Things fall through the cracks, and by February, we can hardly remember what we promised ourselves a month ago.

So, how can you approach New Year’s Resolutions in a way that’s actually impactful?

Our advice is simple: when it comes to New Year’s Resolutions, stop making them.

But first, let’s back up and talk about what makes New Year’s Resolutions so tricky to tackle in the first place.

Why it’s so hard to keep New Year’s Resolutions

Eat more vegetables. Go to the gym. Delete Facebook. Get a raise. Switch careers. And so on…

Why is it so hard to keep resolutions like these?

The problem lies in the fundamental thinking behind why we make resolutions like these. When we talk about wanting to go to the gym more, the reasoning is clear: we don’t want to gain more weight, we don’t want to feel uncomfortable in our clothes, and we don’t want to slip up and perpetuate old, unhealthy habits from the previous year.

It’s all about what we DON’T want.

Worse, New Year’s Resolutions often come from a place of strictness, rigidity and self-admonishment. Because of this, we’re merciless with ourselves when we—as humans often do—inevitably slip up and fail.

With Resolutions like these, we’re shooting ourselves in the foot by setting ourselves up to experience a dark, negative mental spiral the moment things go wrong. We skip gym day once in mid-January, beat ourselves up for it, and ultimately decide that if we can’t even make it a month without failing to live up to this new version of ourselves, we may as well stop trying entirely.

This is no way to live. And it’s certainly not the right way to usher in a new year full of possibilities, opportunities and experiences.

So, if making traditional New Year’s Resolutions is a recipe for failure, then what can you do?

A new kind of New Year’s Resolution

This year, if you want to make resolutions that really stick, we’d encourage you to try something a little different: instead of calling them resolutions, try coming up with New Year’s Hopes and New Year’s Dreams.

We know this sounds a little hackneyed—maybe even a bit cliché—but when you understand the thinking behind it, the subtle change in semantics makes sense.

Reframing your resolutions as hopes or dreams helps you by changing the very nature of the kinds of resolutions you make. “Resolving” to do something comes from a very black and white, strict, no-nonsense place that crowds out a crucial part of making life changes: having fun while making them.

Saying “I need to go to the gym three times a week” is no one’s idea of fun—it doesn’t get you excited about the new year; it feels like another chore to add to your already overbooked calendar. You’re simply committing to another project that needs completing between all the other projects.

But what about turning that resolution into something productive and fun? What about exercise-related hopes and dreams that sound like this?

• I hope to make a new friend at the gym this year. I’ll start by saying ‘hello’ to someone at the rec center this week.
• I hope I can feel more inspired to move my body this year. Maybe I’ll join a social media hiking group page and see if anyone would like to accompany me.
• My fitness dream would be to be physically stronger to do all the things I love doing. My reward for putting in the work will be experiencing things I love again.

These kinds of hopes do two things: first, they’re fun to think about and start doing. Second, they stop putting pressure on you for not always living up to them.

That’s what makes “hope” and “dream” such great words. Hoping and dreaming about what you might do this year is a great way to stay excited about what you’re doing. It gets you thinking about what you do want out of life, rather than avoiding what you don’t want.

And if you occasionally fail? So what!

Labeling your resolutions as hopes keeps things in perspective. It opens the door for falling off the horse—because let’s be honest, we all have bad days—and then picking yourself up and getting back on. It takes the pressure off of something that should be engaging, fun and exciting, and lets you move toward a kind of life that’s less about checklists.

Instead, these new kinds of New Year’s Resolutions are about living a life full of exhilaration, peace, ease, fulfillment and joy.

Focus on the NEW, not the YEAR

There’s another way to think about the new year that inspires joy rather than dread. It’s all about focusing on the “new,” and not the year itself. You can do this very simply; all it takes is a little brainstorming in a notepad or journal.

Here’s how it works:

• Reflect: Pull out your journal and take time to reflect on all the novel experiences from your past year before making any forward-looking plans. Consider all the meaningful encounters, discoveries, and achievements that shaped your journey—from forming new friendships to mastering simple skills or developing beneficial habits. Even seemingly minor experiences like exploring an unfamiliar neighborhood or finally establishing an effective daily routine deserve recognition.
• Redirect: Rather than creating rigid resolutions, shift your focus to examining what fresh possibilities the coming year might hold. Write expansively about experiences you’d like to embrace across all aspects of life. This could range from refreshing your personal style and exploring new destinations to deepening relationships or expanding your culinary horizons. The key is to let your imagination roam freely toward things that spark genuine enthusiasm.
• Embrace: Consider how embracing novelty can naturally guide personal growth without the pressure of traditional resolutions. When you redirect your attention from strict self-improvement goals to anticipating positive new experiences, you create space for organic development. This mindset helps maintain focus on what truly matters while avoiding the discouragement that often comes with unmet resolutions.
• Acknowledge: Acknowledge that meaningful change doesn’t always require grand gestures or complete lifestyle overhauls. Sometimes the most impactful developments come from small but intentional shifts in perspective or daily habits. The emphasis should be on gradual exploration rather than dramatic transformation.
• Adjust: Remember that the quality of new experiences matters more than their scale or scope. Whether you’re contemplating major life changes or minor adjustments to your routine, prioritize changes that align with your interests and values. This approach naturally leads to more sustainable personal growth than following conventional resolution templates.
• Discover: Personal development can be an exciting journey of discovery rather than a rigid set of goals to achieve. By focusing on what’s new and engaging rather than what needs to be “fixed,” you create a more positive and sustainable framework for growth throughout the year.

One last tip: try a new word this year

There’s one final technique that might help you think about New Year’s Resolutions differently this year. It involves a very simple promise—and it’s best paired with the tools and tactics above.

This year, try coming up with a “word” for the year. Write down one word—just one—that encompasses what you’d like this year to be about. What word best describes all the novelty, excitement, opportunities and possibilities that this year could contain? And how would you personally like to move through the year as you experience these novelties?

Take, for instance, the word “compassion.” If you write down compassion, then maybe your goal this year is to open up your heart and mind to people and things you normally wouldn’t. A year centered around compassion could involve deepening relationships with friends, mending frayed relationships, volunteering in your community and getting more thoughtful about how you show up in others’ lives.

Of course, that’s just one interpretation—the best thing about picking a word is that it can mean anything you want it to. Here’s a quick starter list of potential “new words” you might choose as your blueprint for an exciting year:

• Grace
• Growth
• Adventure
• Presence
• Joy
• Wonder
• Peace
• Vitality
• Curiosity
• Courage

So, what do you say? Want to join us in making some New Year’s Hopes and Dreams for 2025?

(Oh, and one last thing: if getting a personal coach is on your list of New Year’s Hopes, we can help! Get in touch with us today.)

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