Goal Setting and New Year’s Resolutions
Goal Setting and New Year’s Resolutions
It’s that time of year again. Gyms are once again overcrowded, stocks in herbal supplements are soaring, and thousands—if not millions—of New Year’s resolutions have been made upon a star.
Resolutions to get leaner, stronger, or to physically perform better are common. Approximately 45% of people set a New Year’s resolution, and of those, 45% set goals focused on physical health or fitness. But how many of us stick to them? According to one study, that number may be as low as 8%.
So if we’re so bad at keeping resolutions, why do we bother setting them in the first place? As I learned while writing this, the tradition, as we know it today, dates back to Roman times. The month of January is named after the Roman god Janus, who has two faces—one looking to the future and the other to the past. The New Year symbolized a time for Romans to reflect on the past and set intentions for the future. They offered sacrifices to Janus and made promises to act more virtuously in the coming year.
Over 2,000 years later, New Year’s resolutions remain a cultural mainstay. Beyond tradition, the practice of dividing time into distinct periods offers practical benefits for productivity and goal setting, and, most importantly, helping us achieve important gains.
The Fresh Start Effect
New Year’s resolutions leverage what is called the "fresh start effect." This phenomenon explains people’s renewed enthusiasm and heightened self-efficacy (a belief in their ability to succeed) around distinctive landmarks in time, such as the start of a new year. This effect isn’t limited to New Year’s, however. Data from Google shows that searches for terms like "diet" or "gym" typically peak on Sunday/Monday and decline as the week progresses. Similar trends are observed at the start of new months, semesters, or after holidays and birthdays. So why do we let these landmarks, which are arbitrary at their core, shape our behavior?
Researchers have found that we use these landmarks, which demarcate the passage of time, to create a mental accounting period of sorts. These “accounting periods” allow us to relegate our past shortcomings to a previous time—creating distance from our former selves. Suddenly free from the burden of past disappointments, we’re able to take a bigger-picture view of the future and tackle tasks with a fresh perspective. This idea of the fresh start effect is embedded in the phrase “New Year, New You”—the implication being that your future self, which exists immediately after the temporal landmark, will be more capable of accomplishing a particular task than your previous self.
Although there is a grain of truth to this, and the phenomenon can bolster self-efficacy in the early stages of goal attainment, as we’ve seen from the data, it takes more than a resolution and one moment of reflection to achieve a well-constructed goal. To maximize the chances of success, a goal needs to be supported by substantive strategies that promote ongoing and sustainable success.
The rest of this article will discuss several key factors to consider when translating a New Year’s resolution—or any goal, for that matter—into long-term success.
Process vs. Outcome
Albert Einstein once said, “If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.” Research confirms that having a goal—even if it’s not fully achieved—provides both direction and meaning to our lives. The important takeaway is that the outcome or result is not the only measure of success. In fact, the journey of working toward a goal can be just as valuable—if not more so—than the final achievement itself.
There are two basic types of goals: outcome goals (what you want to accomplish) and process goals (what you need to do repeatedly to achieve your outcome goals). Both serve distinct purposes and are necessary. Outcome goals are most effective at sparking motivation, both in the initial stages after the goal is set and then again in the later stages when the goal is within reach. In contrast, process goals are crucial for keeping you on track during the more monotonous middle stages—or the “grind,” as many would say. This is where most of the work takes place, so having well-constructed process goals is important.
Advancing in sport takes time, and progress inevitably decreases as you continue to improve. Even if you reach the top, further progress can be slow, and results are never guaranteed. Champions experience losing streaks and long periods of plateaus, sometimes lasting years—and so will you. While progress is worth celebrating, it cannot be the sole driver of your efforts. When things aren’t going your way, process goals will be key to keeping you on track and getting you back on course if you’ve erred.
By adopting a process-oriented approach—one that focuses on the tasks, behaviors, and habits that will lead us toward our desired outcome, rather than fixating solely on the outcome of the performance—we can focus on what is required in the short term to support our success. This approach helps prevent us from getting caught in the gap between the small progress we’ve made and the substantial effort required to reach our desired outcome (i.e., where we are now vs. where we want to be
There’s a fitting analogy:
“whether or not you want to summit the mountain, or whether you enjoy walking uphill, you’re going to walk uphill either way.”
If you just start walking and eventually get close enough to see the summit, you can decide whether to push for it. But if a person wants to summit the mountain simply for the sake of saying they did it—especially if they don’t like walking uphill—then standing at the bottom, unable to see the top, is going to be highly demotivating for them, and their probability of success is going to be lowered. Instead, enjoy the process by setting shorter-term goals, particularly those that focus on the specific routines and behaviors that will get you to your goal, and find satisfaction in both doing the work and accomplishing milestones along the way. After all, putting one foot in front of the other will eventually get you to the top of the mountain, whether or not it was your intention to get there.
Mastery vs. Performance
Another distinction between a process-oriented and outcome-oriented approach is the contrast between a mastery mindset and a performance mindset. Mastery goals are particularly effective because they frame obstacles and setbacks as opportunities for growth, fostering creativity, resilience, and continuous improvement. In contrast, performance goals can lead to discouragement when progress slows or failures occur.
Individuals with a mastery mindset strive to develop new skills, deepen their understanding, and become better over time, regardless of external rewards or comparisons to others. Motivation, in this case, comes from the intrinsic desire to improve, explore, and master the skill or subject. Success is defined by personal progress. People with a mastery mindset view challenges and mistakes as opportunities to learn, making them more resilient and likely to persist in the face of difficulties because their goal is continuous learning.
In contrast, a performance mindset is centered on outperforming others, gaining recognition, or achieving specific external outcomes, such as medals, or social media status. Individuals with a performance orientation aim to prove their abilities by comparing themselves to others. Motivation comes from the extrinsic rewards of doing well relative to others and is often centered around how others perceive their performance. Those with a performance mindset often avoid challenges because they fear failure or appearing incompetent, which limits their long-term development.
Goal Difficulty
Failure is inevitable at some point in any pursuit. But is there such a thing as too much—or too little—failure? As it turns out, there may be an answer to this. Scholars have long recognized a "Goldilocks phenomenon" when it comes to goal attainment: we perform at our best when we are periodically challenged to push ourselves just beyond our current limits.
When a challenge is too simple, and we don’t fail at all, we fail to acquire new skills—at least over the long term. Conversely, when a challenge is so difficult that we fail entirely or give up before seeing progress, we also fail to grow. Experiencing discomfort, frustration, anxiety, and similar states of mind and body shifts the brain into a state of neuroplasticity—the ability to change and adapt. This makes sense because if a task is too easy, there’s no reason for the neural circuitry in your brain or body to adapt or reorganize. Why would it?
Studies into how neural networks learn show that the optimal rate of learning occurs when failure happens 15% of the time—or 15.87%, to be exact. Put another way, success occurs about 85% of the time. These findings have been observed across both artificial neural networks used in AI and biological neural networks in human and animal learning. In artificial models, the 85% rule toes the line between underfitting and overfitting the model, meaning it can fit the data it has been trained on while also being able to generalize and adapt to any new data it’s tested on. In humans, the 85% rule is high enough to maintain the learner’s confidence while being challenging enough to keep the brain’s neural circuitry open and alert for change. Although there is still much more research to be done in this space, the takeaway message here is that while failure is necessary, we should set goals that set us up for a high chance of success.
So when you’re setting goals, try to evaluate your chances. Is there a high, but not guaranteed, chance that you’ll succeed? If the answer is yes, that’s great. If the answer is no, that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to change the goal—it might just mean that you should add a few smaller goals along the way that can serve as stepping stones to the larger goal. Or, if your goal is too easy, maybe you just need to come up with some ways to make it just that little more challenging.
Conclusion
Achieving goals and making behavioural changes is entirely possible, but relying solely on willpower and determination is unlikely to be enough. By using simple, evidence-based strategies, you can significantly improve your chances of success in your next attempt to reach a goal or change a behavior. Below is a summarized list of some goal-setting do’s and don’ts:
Goal Setting - Do’s
Do make goals specific, measurable, and tied to defined actions.
Allocate hours per week and make them quantifiable.
Do avoid sharing your goals with others unless they will hold you accountable and until you’ve done the necessary work to make them feasible.
Sharing goals prematurely may lead to validation without actual pursuit.
Do focus on approach goals rather than avoidance goals. For example, say, "I will do X," rather than, "I will not do Y."
Approach goals are linked to positive emotions, greater well-being, and better outcomes overall.
Do modify your environment to support your goal.
Reduce friction between you and goal-compatible actions and increase friction between you and goal-incompatible actions. For example, keep your workout gear (clothes, shoes, equipment) visible and easily accessible, such as by placing your gym bag by the door. Set timers for distracting activities like phone use, TV, etc.
Do practice flexibility in your approach.
Prioritize achieving goals, excitement about training, and staying consistently 'good' over a long period, rather than maintaining a 'perfect' routine.
Goal Setting - Don’ts
Don’t avoid setting goals altogether.
Without a clear direction, you’re like a rudderless ship. Similarly, avoid setting goals that lack clarity. Define exactly what it is you want to do and how you are going to achieve it.
Don’t only set long-term goals.
Without short-term goals to keep you on track, motivation can wane. On the other hand, avoid setting short-term goals that are too big, as consistently failing to achieve them can erode confidence and self-efficacy.
Don’t let others dictate your goals.
Don’t let others dictate your goals. Choose goals that matter to you personally, to ensure intrinsic motivation and sustained effort, rather than focusing on what others might think.
