New Year’s Resolutions … Resolved

We are now comfortably into 2026 and most of us have probably already broken our New Year’s resolutions and there is a tonne of ‘scientific’ research about why we fail at these so quickly.

I won’t bore you with the details (willpower / arbitrary / vague / emotionally thin / fresh start illusion etc), but thought I would offer an alternative for anyone feeling deflated about this!

I used to religiously set New Year’s resolutions on December 31^st having given them zero thought and no meaningful attention. They were often vague and usually unrealistic!

I read an email several years ago that happened to land in my inbox at an opportune moment (1^st January) which suggested setting my goals for the year … in February (revolutionary!)

The author of the email had some good advice about how to do this … like making your goals challenging yet achievable (standard) but also recommended trying ‘small wins’ and far fewer ‘ongoing’ goals. Most importantly they talked about reframing the actual words we use – thus turning them into an “identity system”.

So now my annual goals are very (oddly!) specific and many of them are ‘one and done’; some of them are teeny tiny non-negotiables.  For the ‘big things’, I avoid goals like “lose weight” and “read more” and substitute these with things like “this year I will become the kind of person who usually eats one piece of fruit a day” and “this year I am determined to read at least a chapter a week”

Life is too short to beat ourselves up over failing to meet self-imposed unrealistic (or idealistic) expectations. Whilst I am all in favour of self-improvement, it’s important to tell ourselves often:

“you are good enough as you are”.

I wish you a belated Happy New Year and hope that 2026 is full of great times and memorable moments.