From January euphoria to February despair: Why most of our New Year’s resolutions fail

At the end of December, many make New Year’s resolutions to implement from the first day of January. As the annual hourglass counts down, people analyze their shortcomings or excesses and consider how to balance them: learning a new language, exercising more, reducing or eliminating vices... However, as the weeks go by, these goals are often forgotten due to daily commitments, laziness, or simply because they stem from excessive ambition.

“First, we need to understand where that decision comes from. Many of these resolutions stem from an emotional surge, rather than a conscious decision. That surge initially propels us forward and generates all the dopamine that makes us approach things with great motivation,” explains Aurora López, a clinical psychologist and director of the Más Vida center in Málaga. “But this dopamine doesn’t last throughout the entire process of establishing a habit. We often confuse the desire to start a habit with being prepared and having a real strategy to ensure its long-term sustainability.”

Other factors that lead to abandoning New Year’s resolutions include impulsiveness or lack of self-control, or excessive self-criticism and perfectionism: “It’s important to keep in mind that establishing a habit and the process of achieving it is not linear. There will be many setbacks and relapses, and adjustments must be made. Furthermore, we are often somewhat disconnected from our true selves, and we imagine an ideal self in which perfectionism plays an excessively important role,” the expert points out.

A 2024 study from the University of Adelaide (Australia) highlighted that around 91% of attempts to break bad habits without a plan or pause will fail by the end of January. “Abandoning New Year’s resolutions within a few weeks is common because we make them and know we should do them, but we haven’t fully grasped the idea of ​​when and how we’re going to carry them out,” explains clinical psychologist Laia Ugarte, author of the book Cómo dejar de dar vueltas a todo (How to Stop Overthinking Everything). “Over time, they end up falling apart because there’s no real underlying motivation. The daily grind overwhelms us, and the resolution falls by the wayside,” she warns.

One way to avoid abandoning your goals is to not try to do everything at once, but rather to set short-term objectives: “When you make an effort to go to the gym or sign up for English classes, it can lead to frustration. It’s important to know what the most immediate rewards are, even if they’re small. If it’s only long-term, the dopamine system gets depleted and motivation will drop significantly,” says López. She adds, “We also don’t make an emergency plan for when we’re not motivated or rested. What will my plan be in that case to avoid losing the habit?”

A 2025 YouGov survey indicates that exercising more (25% of respondents), being happy (23%), eating healthier (22%), and saving more money (21%) are the top New Year’s resolutions among Americans. “I’ve been trying to get in shape for several years. Working out at home, going for runs, or even paying a monthly gym membership, but in February I would start to drop out weekly, and by March I had already stopped for a while. It was all about getting fit,” says Sara, a 27-year-old woman. “But since January of this year, I’ve been focusing on short-term goals, like running for a certain number of minutes one day or doing a certain number of weightlifting repetitions in a few weeks,” she explains.

According to a study in the journal Management Science, New Year’s resolutions are driven by a psychological phenomenon known as the Fresh Start Effect, whereby people are more inclined to initiate changes after significant dates, such as birthdays or the start of an academic or sports season. However, this initial motivation is not long-lasting and eventually fades. “Thinking about starting to fulfill resolutions on significant dates is because we are socially accustomed to it. These dates have an impact, and if you review the year, you engage in self-criticism or compare yourself to your past performance,” says Ugarte.

How does the frustration that leads to abandoning goals that were initially pursued with great motivation develop? “It seems like there’s a struggle against ourselves, but it should be something more, driven by curiosity, by challenging ourselves, or by having fun. It feels like I have to reach a certain milestone in a certain way, and that’s it. It’s not just that or nothing. The frustration arises from the rigidity of thinking that, because I didn’t do it the way I wanted, it’s no longer valid,” Ugarte points out. For Sara, this situation is familiar: “At the end of the year, I spent almost a week creating a month-by-month structure of what I was going to do: run three days, exercise two, and so on every week. Although it’s true that at the beginning, when laziness got the better of me or I had other plans, I tried to get back on track. But in the end, there were more days I did nothing than days I followed my plan, and I ended up quitting almost without realizing it. It was like that every year, although I tried to learn from the previous year’s mistakes.”

To help maintain motivation and prevent resolutions from fading away during January or February, both experts offer some advice. “You have to find a way that’s uniquely yours to make resolutions. We can’t all do it the same way. Flexibility is also very important, as is setting goals that are progressive and have emotional significance,” says Ugarte. For López, it’s essential that goals be measurable: “For example, at the gym, it’s not the same to say, ‘I’ll start in January,’ as it is to say, ‘In January, I’ll go Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 10 a.m.’” She also emphasizes the importance of resolutions having a margin of error, flexibility, or even accepting the possibility of not achieving them: “It’s better to set a goal that’s 80% achievable and leave a 20% margin of failure than to make it an all-or-nothing endeavor.”

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