Keeping your resolutions is not easy. On this specific date, the majority of people have already given up. So if you held on, it’s already an achievement!
The new year has started and as always it comes with good resolutions. If it is not complicated to set one, it is much more difficult to stick to it. Do more sport, stop smoking, reduce your alcohol consumption, spend more time with your family… The resolutions we make are diverse and numerous. However, setting the bar too high or not setting specific goals can quickly lead to giving up.
In a study published in the British Journal of Health Care Managementexperts explain that resolutions must be “specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-limited”. If you want to do more sport, for example, it is advisable to first define a frequency per week, a fairly precise number of weeks, as well as the type of practices envisaged. You can then gradually adapt. You also need to be able to evaluate your real skills because if you aim too high and don’t reach your goal, you risk giving up.
It is also advisable to write down your resolutions so that you can consult them regularly and make them more concrete. Fixing one or two is enough, because otherwise you will quickly become scattered. You can also ask your loved ones for their opinion on your resolutions as well as question yourself about the real reasons that lead you to consider them.
Motivation is unfortunately often very short-lived. According to a studymost people would abandon their resolutions as early as January 17 or 18, not even lasting a month. It may even be sooner. According to another study conducted by the University of Scrantonfrom January 12, 80% of people would stop keeping their good resolutions. According to researchers, 8% of them manage to complete their commitments for the year.
Health-related resolutions are among the most common, but also the most quickly abandoned because the results are not quickly visible. A finding confirmed by the fitness application Strava which for its part places “quit’s day”, as it calls it, on the second Friday of January, i.e. the 10th for this year 2025. There is therefore no need to hold out very long to beat the majority of people who have made resolutions, even if it is even better to continue afterwards, if they have been well thought out.