Every January, I watch the same routine unfold — social media is filled with declarations of “new year, new me,” and every year I feel the familiar pressure to participate. I want to write out goals, redesign my life and promise myself I will somehow be more disciplined, more productive and healthier on the first of January than I was on the 31st of December.
As the year progresses, my motivation fades, my new habits slip and the version of myself I envisioned at the start of the year completely disappears. By the end of the year, I feel a quiet sense of disappointment at having failed yet another year’s worth of resolutions.
While reflecting on my failure to meet my 2025 goals, I realized that one of the biggest mistakes I make when setting goals is building them on pressure and not intention. Most of my goals are a response to guilt. I feel bad that I procrastinate, I don’t exercise enough, I eat a lot of junk food and I don’t call my parents enough. I make resolutions I think will “solve” these issues.
This year, I am hoping to approach change with more honesty and patience. I want to dig deeper into understanding where my resolutions stem from and make changes rooted in self-love rather than shame.
As I assessed my own struggles with New Year’s resolutions, I looked further into why so many people struggle to keep the resolutions they set for themselves. The more research I did, the clearer it became. The problem is rarely a lack of willpower, discipline or motivation. More often, it is misalignment.
One of the core problems with resolutions is that they are built on unrealistic expectations rather than an understanding of human behaviour. Many people are well-intentioned, but when setting new year’s goals they are often trying to completely overhaul their lives.
Human beings are not wired for sudden, large-scale behavioural change. Especially when it requires prolonged discomfort. So, in situations where the required effort is high and the progress is slow, we tend to revert to older, easier habits.
A more sustainable approach to goal setting begins with alignment. In James Clear’s book Atomic Habits, he noted it is more important to build systems than to set goals. A goal might sound something like “I want to lose some weight this year,” while a system might be, “I will walk for about 30 minutes every day.” Clear suggested people should focus on the process itself rather than the end product. This is because progress is slow. If you only focus on the result, it can become discouraging when you do not see any change. By focusing on the process, progress is less likely to curb your motivation.
With this in mind, I have decided to focus on processes rather than end goals this year. I want to forget about the person I think I should be on the outside and instead concentrate on doing the internal work to grow in self-love. For a long time, I measured my progress by how well I could stick to a list of goals I set in January. Now, I’m learning that slow and steady really does win the race.
As the new year unfolds, I hope more people permit themselves to redefine what success looks like. Growth and change do not have to be dramatic, they just have to be present.
