Failing at New Year resolutions already? Try these expert tips now

Whether you’re calling them New Year resolutions, or simply thinking about things you’d like to achieve this year, January is often a time of setting goals. But it can also be a time of beating ourselves up – when those ambitious targets fall by the wayside and we’ve ‘failed’ by the time February arrives.

Is it possible to make new goals actually stick? Or is there another way of approaching it, so we don’t end up feeling worse than before we started?

Why do you want this?

“The thing about setting goals is that it’s about improving your life, not creating another stick to beat yourself with – and it all starts with compassion,” says coach and podcaster Meg Kissack, founder of The Rebel Rousers (therebelrousers.com). “Any goal needs to be compassionate, flexible and sustainable. You need to meet yourself where you are right now, and stop comparing yourself to where you think you ‘should’ be by now.

“When setting goals, I recommend asking yourself three things,” notes Kissack. “Is this something you actually want, or is it something you feel like you ‘should’ want? How can you do it in the most compassionate way possible? How can you make it sustainable?”

Ditch the wagon

A big reason new year goals ‘fail’ is because we let ourselves believe it’s all or nothing. Either we’re on the wagon, or we’ve fallen off. But life happens. Humans get tired. Someone throws a birthday party and you need a lie-in (we can but dream!).

“Remember, you’re not aiming for massive perfect leaps. You’re aiming for tiny imperfect actions,” says Kissack. “There needs to be some acceptance that there will be times you fall off the wagon and that’s OK – that’s a human thing, not a personal flaw. Sometimes we need to fall off to remember why it mattered to us in the first place, give us the perspective we need to change it to make it work the way we work, or re-evaluate if it was the goal for us in the first place.”

Embrace immediate gains

Dr Ian Taylor, Loughborough University’s senior lecturer in Psychology, says: “Immediate benefits are much better at motivating than delayed benefits. To get a bit geeky, motivation comes from the benefits, not the behaviours. This means, if your benefits are in the future, then there’ll be little motivation to do the behaviour. But if the benefit is immediate, then its motivational power will be associated with the behaviour.”

Imagine you want to take up a new exercise regime. If your goal is to reach a particular physical change that feels way off in the future, your chances of sticking with that regime are a lot lower than if your focus is simply to enjoy doing the exercise each week. “A great immediate benefit of activities like exercise is the mental health boosts it brings,” says Taylor. “However, this motivational principle applies to any new behaviour. Focus on immediate benefits to stay motivated.”

Celebrate yourself

Build on this further by celebrating your wins along the way – rather than fixating on some daunting, far-off target – even if that’s just doing a week without scrolling Instagram in bed, or running a kilometre without stopping.

“Celebrating your wins, no matter how small, is a proven way to create a more motivated mindset. Every time you give yourself credit, the pride you feel releases a small hit of dopamine, which makes us feel good,” says mind and body coach Kim Raine (kimrainecoaching.com).

“We love feeling good and want to feel more of it more often, hence there is more chance of us repeating the action. This is why ticking tasks off a list feels so good – it gives us a sense of achievement. Try and recognise each time you complete a task or action.”

‘Be’ your goals

“Motivation can sometimes be a bit abstract and hard to describe, however, we all have a robust type of motivation inside us. Our identity is one of the best motivations that exist, because we all find expressing our identity very easy,” says Dr Taylor. “Someone who considers themselves to be an ‘exerciser’ doesn’t find it difficult to engage in exercise. Someone who identifies with being ‘healthy’ finds it very easy to [eat healthily].”

He suggests focusing on ‘being’ our goals, rather than goals as something we ‘do’ or ‘have’. So if your goal is to write a novel or paint more, think of yourself as ‘being’ a writer or an artist. “Think about who you want to ‘be’ and work out how to do that. After a while, these types of goals become much easier to sustain,” says Taylor.

Does it have to feel so hard?

Trying to transform into some sort of ultra-disciplined ninja? If it feels too hard, maybe it is. “Humans dislike effort in most circumstances,” says Dr Taylor. “Many people think goals should be challenging. However, in the beginning of trying a new behaviour or hobby, the opposite is true. Neuroscience research tells us the feeling of effort isn’t very pleasant, and humans are predisposed to avoid things that aren’t pleasant.

“When individuals have developed confidence and skills in their new chosen behaviour, then this avoidance of effort can be overridden. But in the beginning, it’s best to take things easy,” Taylor adds. “This principle can also be used when planning to do an activity. Make it as easy as possible by making all decisions ahead of time. Pack your equipment, so you don’t have to find it, choose a place that’s easy to get to. All these things minimise the effort required.”

Stop daydreaming

One of the most common strategies for success is to visualise it – picturing yourself crossing the finish line with a personal best, or seeing your bestseller on shelves. But, says Gabriele Oettingen – a professor of psychology at New York University and the University of Hamburg, and author of Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation – this could actually be counterproductive.

Over many studies, her research has established an unexpected but powerful correlation between positive thinking and poor performance. “The more positive a daydream about the future, the less I put in effort to actually realise it,” Oettingen explains.

In other words, fantasising about our goals makes us feel good in the short term – to the point of lowering our blood pressure – but it saps us of the energy we need to take action. “People feel accomplished,” says Oettingen. “Like they’re already there.”

Worryingly, Oettingen suggests, this inaction could over time even lead to depression, with a correlative link established between fantasising about the future and a more negative mood.

So, instead of simply visualising, Oettingen advocates what she calls “mental contrasting”: not just fantasising about success but comparing your daydream with reality to reveal what, specifically, is holding you back from achieving it. Once you understand clearly the obstacles standing in your way, you can plan to overcome them with an “if it’s this then I do that” plan.

Oettingen dubs this approach “Woop” – wish, outcome, obstacle, plan – and says it works for just about any behaviour change, from creating healthy habits to improving relationships and academic performance. (There are free resources at woopmylife.org, and an app).

Once you have nailed down what is holding you back, you will find that you are energised to work towards your resolution – or that you aren’t as invested in it as you thought. In that case, you can let go of this resolution: “By really looking at the obstacle – I will understand if it is too costly, there is not enough time, or it is simply not surmountable,” she says. “And then, with good conscience, I will simply get out and devote myself to more promising, feasible futures...Mental contrasting is a way to clean up your life.”