Why You’ve Already Failed Your New Year’s Resolutions — Even With Perfect Goals
No one is talking about the real reason you won’t meet your goals.
Last year, I set a New Year’s resolution I thought would be easy — to run 500 miles over 2023’s 365 days. I failed so miserably — barely scraping past 100 — that I’ve since banned myself from setting a goal like that ever again. And it’s not for the reasons you’re thinking.
I wish I understood then what I do now: that setting health goals is almost as hard as achieving them.
The concept of SMART goal setting has been drilled into many human brains over the years. Even if you don’t follow the practice, you likely at the very least know that setting Specific, Measurable, Attainable, and Time-Sensitive goals is a common strategy for achieving personal objectives.
But there are a few goal-setting roadblocks the SMART method doesn’t tell you about, and they’re even more important when it comes to setting goals related to health and self-improvement.
The reason you aren’t meeting your goals isn’t due to a lack of specificity, measurability, attainability, or timeliness.
The truth is that you don’t actually want to achieve the goals you’ve set for yourself. Therefore, you don’t end up achieving them.
Let’s use one of the most common New Year’s resolutions as an example. At the beginning of January, you decided you wanted to lose weight. Knowing this goal was too vague, you chose a number, maybe even a deadline with milestones at appropriate intervals. Perhaps you vowed to lose one pound a week for the next six months. Did you also write a few secondary goals to get you there, like working out twice a week? Even better!
It’s the end of January though, and you’re not four pounds lighter like you planned to be. Weight loss is complex, and while you may be doing everything “right,” there is only so much we can control when it comes to how our bodies react to changing habits.
Consider, additionally, whether losing weight is actually what you wanted to achieve in the first place.
I know! How dare I accuse you of not knowing yourself and what you want! But hear me out. So many of us are setting these huge ambitious goals — like running 500 miles in one year — without stopping to ask ourselves an important question first: Are we sure we actually want to do that?
Do you really want to lose weight (if you do, great!)— or do you simply want to feel stronger and more confident in the body you have? That could involve losing weight, but it doesn’t have to. And while body confidence is no less complex and no easier to achieve than losing a pound a week or running 500 miles in a year, it’s also more rewarding, attainable, and dare I say, fun.
If we continue setting goals that are only going to make us miserable, we’ll never actually achieve anything. We’ll just be sad. Forever.
Why are we wasting our time setting goals that sound like they would be cool to achieve when we could be selecting goals that actually make our lives better?
Here are a few ways you can modify your goals to create a healthier and happier life for yourself — not just this year, but for all the years to come.
Set Goals You’ll Actually Enjoy Achieving
Some of our goals and resolutions aren’t all that fun, even if achieving or sticking to them will produce positive results in the end. And it’s okay to have a few of those. Maybe you’ve resolved to buy a house in 2024, but that will require some financial sacrifices and less-than-glamorous to-dos.
Along with those kinds of goals, you should also have things to work toward that aren’t a slow, miserable burn down to ash. The purpose of any health-specific goal should be to improve your life, not make it worse. If you don’t enjoy losing weight just to say you did it, then don’t do it.
However, that doesn’t mean working toward other goals — ones you enjoy — can’t also change your body in positive, beneficial ways. Losing 10 pounds feels like a chore. Being strong enough to carry the new supersized bag of dog food from the car to the basement without assistance feels like a kick to the patriarchy. (It’s a heavy bag; I have noodle arms.)
If you set goals that feel unattainable before you even start working toward them — because you don’t actually want to spend six months working toward a result that isn’t going to keep you happy — you’re doomed before January even kicks into high gear.
But if you set goals that are going to let you lift weights to your favorite music and eventually lead to a small but powerful burst of independence every time you buy dog food — that’s what’s going to get you out of bed in the morning.
If you’re having fun, and the result isn’t something you’re just going to check off and immediately move on from, you’re much more likely to stick with your goal not as a one-time achievement, but instead as a lifelong habit.
Create Goals That Challenge Yet Inspire You
Instead of setting a goal to run 500 miles this year, I chose a different fitness-related goal: to attempt The Eras Tour workout, or run the entire duration of Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour setlist.
I haven’t trained for long-distance running in years, and realistically might not be able to run the entire setlist by the end of the year. But I discovered something important when I ran through each era in December to calculate the average distances for each.
It was fun. The most fun I’d had running in years.
It was also hard. I struggled even to finish a few of the eras individually.
But every time I hopped off the treadmill after finishing one, I felt better than I had in a very long time … despite the tightness in my calves and sweat dripping into my eyes.
Health goals shouldn’t make us miserable day in and day out only for us to drag ourselves through the finish line regretting every moment. I have nothing tangible to gain from attempting to run The Eras Tour. There is no medal waiting at the end, and Taylor Swift won’t be there to high-five me at the end of “Karma.”
I plan on buying a new running outfit if I do the whole thing, as a treat. But that’s not why I’m doing it. I’m doing it because it’s fun.
If you can find a goal that yields a net positive gain to your long-term health that also makes you feel like you can conquer the world every time you work toward it, you’ll basically be living the dream.
Don’t set goals to punish yourself. Set them to lift yourself up, to remind yourself of all the amazing things you’re capable of. Challenge yourself, but in a way that makes you want to wake up tomorrow and do it again.
Think of Goals That Speak to Your Heart
I didn’t truly fall in love with cooking until it became an activity my husband and I bonded over when we started dating. Now we try to choose at least one new recipe to make at home every week — and while it has the advantage of teaching us new cooking methods and introducing us to new foods and flavor combinations, it also has another benefit I never expected.
It has become something I look forward to. And that sparks a kind of joy inside me unlike any other.
Far too many of us set goals that our hearts are completely detached from. And you probably already know from experience that if your heart isn’t in it, you’re not going to stick with it.
There’s a lot to be said about why we choose the health goals we do — the internet in particular has created the illusion that losing weight or running 500 miles will somehow magically make every area of our lives instantly better. And it’s much more complicated than that.
We have to put in the work to unravel some of these harmful beliefs and replace them with healthier ways of thinking, starting with the goals we set for improving our health and well-being. Your heart isn’t telling you that you need to lose 10 pounds. It’s telling you that it wants you to feel good inside your skin. How you get there isn’t an easy road by any means. But if you start with being honest about the end goals you’re really after, things get a lot less dreary and a lot more hopeful.
I don’t mean to imply that setting a health goal that energizes and inspires you will instantly make it simple to achieve. It won’t. I can’t wake up tomorrow and run over 13 miles just because Taylor Swift’s music makes me feel unstoppable. I have to train for it. It will take months, if not the entire year.
Finding a goal like that — one that you truly want, one that will challenge yet fuel you, one that makes your heart feel full — isn’t as hard as you might think.
Life is hard, and health is specific to the individual. The best you can do for yourself is focus on goals that make you feel genuinely good; powerful; unstoppable. No matter how specific or time-sensitive you make it, if it’s not really what you want deep down, it’s not worth working toward.
Go after what you really want. Ask for help if you need it. Figure out the result that will change your life for the better, forever, and decide on the steps you’re going to take to get there.
I know doing things for yourself when you have other obligations — work, family — often seems pointless or impossible. That’s why goals can be small and long-term. Walking for five minutes a day is better than none.
Set a goal that genuinely excites and motivates you and go from there. One tiny step at a time. It will make all the difference.
