How to Set A New Year’s Resolution You’ll Actually Want to Keep
I think New Year’s Resolutions get a bad press. Mention you’re setting one and people are quick to roll their eyes, usually with a comment about how resolutions only last until the end of January.
Well, I love a New Year’s resolution. Since 2018, I’ve set myself a new goal each year—and actually stuck to it. So I wanted to share what I’ve learned, and help you to set a resolution you’ll genuinely want to keep.
Start With Something You Want To Do More Of
January 1st always feels full of potential. It’s a clean slate, a chance to reset after the indulgence and busyness of the festive season.
And I do indulge. I love feasting over Christmas—big dinners with all the trimmings, wine and cheese nights, coffee and cake with friends. That cosy chaos makes the quiet focus of January feel even more appealing.
But when the clock resets, many people get fixated on what they need to cut out: Stop drinking. Lose weight. Cut screen time. Quit sugar.
That approach can feel punishing before you even begin.
Instead, build your resolution around something you want more of—more movement, more creativity, more learning, more rest, more connection. It feels lighter, more motivating, and infinitely more enjoyable.
How to Set A New Year’s Resolution You’ll Actually Want to Keep - Make It Personal
New year’s resolutions have been around for thousands of years. Babylonians made promises to their Gods as a new year rolled around. The Romans made promises to be good, and early Christians used the first day of a new year as an opportunity to reflect on mistakes and resolve to be better.
Religion was a key driver in resolutions in the past, but they’ve become more secular as people all across the world resolve to make positive changes in their lives on the first of January.
There’s no rule book so you can set whatever you want as your resolution, and you can do it your way. If you want a resolution just for the month of January, then go for it! “If you want to set a resolution that lasts all year, or only on weekends, or just for one season, you can absolutely do that.
Making your resolution unique and personal to you will give you a greater chance of sticking to it.
Make It Positive
Resolutions framed around deprivation rarely work. “No more…” or “Less…” immediately sound restrictive.
Instead, ask yourself:
What do I want to welcome in? What do I want to say yes to? What do I want more of?
Less scrolling might really mean more reading.
Less snacking might really mean learning to make more nourishing meals.
Less stress might really mean more planning or more sleep.
Once you’ve identified what you want to focus on, the next step is to make it specific.
When your resolution is grounded in good things rather than guilt, you naturally want to stick with it.
How to Set A New Year’s Resolution You’ll Actually Want to Keep - Make It Specific
Vague goals get vague results. “Eat healthier” or “Get fit” are so broad that you’ll never really know if you’re succeeding.
Specific goals help you to track your progress and enable you to celebrate the wins as you go.
For example, if you want to read more, you could set yourself the specific goal of reading 12 books this year.
If you want to improve your cooking skills, you could set a goal of cooking every recipe in one recipe book, or cooking 12 meals from scratch.
If you want to get fitter, you could set a goal of being active for one hour a week, or covering a certain distance over the course of the year, or trying 12 different activities.
This is an opportunity to get creative as you make your goal specific.
Remember that small, measurable actions all add up to big things.
Make It Achievable And Realistic
Whilst it’s good to set yourself a challenge, you also don’t want to set yourself up for failure by making it overly ambitious. It’s good to stretch yourself, it’s good to aim high, but you also want to set yourself up for success.
So whatever goal you’re considering, is it actually possible? Have you got enough time to be able to complete your goal? Is it going to cost you more money than you want to spend?
When your goal is realistic, you’re not lowering the bar—you’re giving yourself the best chance to succeed.
Celebrate The Wins Along The Way
Every time you tick something off towards your goal, recognise the achievement. Using the goal of reading 12 books, keep a record of each book you’ve read, or leave a review each time you finish reading.
You could keep a diary, making a note each time you reach a milestone, you could treat yourself to something every time you reach the next marker. The main thing is to recognise that you are making progress.
Being persistent and consistent takes effort, so give yourself some kudos that you’re on the right track and keeping going.
Remember—You’ve Got All Year
January is not the deadline. You have 365 days to work with. If you want to. You could set a resolution just for the first month of the year if you choose to.
Real change happens slowly, so be patient with yourself. Focus on building habits rather than chasing dramatic overnight transformations.
Remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
You don’t have to do something towards your goal every day. Heck, you don’t even have to do something towards your goal every week.
I’ve made it my goal to try 52 new things a year since 2018. Now yes, logically that could mean I try something new that I’ve never done each week of the year. Well, it turns out that I do the same thing as an adult that I did as a teenager – the habit of leaving my homework until the last minute. But I always complete my challenge, even if it does mean that I’ve made December particularly busy for myself.
Keep chipping away at your goal throughout the year. If it’s important to you, you will do it.
How to Set A New Year’s Resolution You’ll Actually Want to Keep - Inspiration
As I mentioned at the start of this post, I’ve set myself a New Year’s resolution each year since 2018 – and stuck to it! So if you’re looking for inspiration for setting your own, take a look at what I’ve been up to:
2018–present: Try 52 new things a year.
This one has stuck—I’ve been doing it every year since!2019: Have breakfast in 12 different cities.
I love exploring new places, and this helped me get out and about.2020: Celebrating a national day every day for a year
This was a lot of fun as I discovered some wonderfully bizarre days.2021: Cooking a dish from every country in the world.
With the pandemic still limiting travel, I explored the world from my kitchen.2022: Cooking my way through an A–Z of new ingredients.
After enjoying the previous year’s food challenge, I stayed in the kitchen.2023: Staying in 12 different types of accommodation.
A nostalgic nod to my childhood love of building dens.2024: Sending 52 thank-you emails.
Aiming to spread cheer was surprisingly more challenging than expected.
Find Your Motivation (And The Right Accountability)
You’ve likely heard that sharing your resolution gives you accountability—because once you’ve said it aloud, there’s social pressure to follow through. The thought of having to tell people you haven’t achieved something you set out to do can be a driver to stick at something.
For some people, this works brilliantly. For others, it has the opposite effect. So how can you motivate yourself?
Gretchen Rubin, an influential and thought-provoking observer of happiness and human nature, has created the idea of the Four Tendencies. It suggests that everyone responds to expectations differently. Some people thrive with external accountability, and others are better with quieter internal motivation.
There is a brilliant book that delves into it all. However, if you want an overview of the tendencies, and to find out which one you tend to lean towards, you can take this short quiz on her website. Are you an upholder, a rebel, a questioner or an obliger? Understanding which tendency you might lean towards, can help you to understand what your motivations are, which in turn can help you set and stick to a new year’s resolution.
Choose the kind of accountability that supports your personality, not someone else’s.
How to Set A New Year’s Resolution You’ll Actually Want to Keep - Don’t Give Up If You Slip
Despite best laid plans and intentions, life can get messy. One setback can make it all too tempting to abandon the resolution entirely and consign it to the bin—but it’s not a failure, it’s a slip.
A slip is temporary. A slip is human. But more importantly, a slip means you get to try again.
The only thing that truly derails a resolution is deciding that one slip means you should stop. Missing a day, a week, or even a month doesn’t erase the progress you’ve already made. You still have the rest of the year.
Imagine you’d set yourself a challenge to read a chapter of a book every day of the year, and circumstances mean that you have to miss a day. That doesn’t have to mean it’s game over for your resolution. You could always shift it. For example, you could read a chapter of a book every week instead. That way, you’ve not completely given up on your reading streak, you’ve just shifted it.
Making shifts can help to keep your resolution alive, and keeping your resolution alive means you’re continuing to work towards your goal and towards success.
Shift. Don’t quit.
The Mindset Shift That Changes Everything
The resolutions I’ve kept since 2018 all had one thing in common: they felt like gifts to my future self, not punishments for my present one.
If your resolution excites you—even just a little—it will naturally feel easier to keep it going.
So ask yourself:
- What do I want more of in my life this year?
- How do I want to feel by the end of December?
- What small habit could gently move me toward that?
Start there, and your resolution might just be one you genuinely love keeping.
Make your new year’s resolution feel like a gift, not a punishment—and you might just surprise yourself.
Good luck!
