Happy 2025! It’s hard not to get caught up in the excitement and promise of a new year. It amazes me that with the stroke of midnight on December 31st, our priorities and motivation are expected to take a sudden shift. We feel compelled to set a resolution – a statement of what we want to change. For some of us, these resolutions lead to a year of growth, change and accomplishment. For most of us – and statistics show that this represents 88% of us – we fail to follow through on our resolutions within two weeks of setting them.
It doesn’t surprise me, then, that many people have given up on setting New Year’s resolutions. With a failure rate of 88%, why would we even bother? Imagine if, as a student, you were told, when the school year started, that you would only have a 12% chance of achieving the resolutions you set. As a professional, imagine leading a team with only a 12% chance of success towards making a key change. Sadly, the odds are not in your favour.
Resolutions often fail because they are never turned into habits. Habits require routine, consistency, and actionable steps that lead to automaticity, and it is often in goal setting, not resolutions, that we can build our habits. It’s one thing to say, “I want to run more in the new year”; it’s another to say, “I want to run 30 minutes three times a week” and then plan specifically around how that is going to be accomplished.
Regardless of whether you uphold your resolution beyond two weeks or build lifelong habits through goal setting, the one thing the new year offers all of us, without too much accountability or need for change, is the opportunity to reflect. I found myself over the break looking through last year’s photo album on my phone in reflection. I then had my kids do the same. What did our year look like? What activities, as a family, brought us joy? We then compared photos from our family trips, concerts we attended, time at the cottage, moments with our pets, sports and birthday celebrations – the list went on. We reflected on how much we did and how much fun we had. I got to thinking that perhaps our resolution for this year could be to stay the same but replicate as many of those moments that brought us joy. Could there be an opportunity for us to travel again? What other concert could we attend? How will we celebrate milestones in 2025?
Why do we need to reinvent ourselves every January 1st to resolutions that don’t hold, when we could simply take the path proven to be successful – our own past triumphs and joys? I certainly like those odds a lot more. Take time to look back over 2024. What brought you joy and how can you replicate that event or reimagine that experience? I hope you will seek out those moments of happiness again in 2025. Here’s to a new year of the same you!
