Often, resolutions last for a few weeks at best, but never become part of a person’s daily routine or life, and they may even make the same resolution each year, in the hopes that “this will be the year.”
Stopping New Year’s resolutions happens for many different reasons, and varies person to person, but a particular downfall to setting goals is the length of time someone aims to continue their new habit or goal. As much as someone might want to drink a gallon of water every morning, or run two miles every day, it’s not always attainable to make such a large jump in daily tasks or goals.
Quitters’ Day, aka the second Friday in January, marks the day when many people give up their resolutions. Often this is because the goals were too big to begin with, and once the initial period of time passes, people start to realize the unrealistic side to their goals.
But what if no one gave up on their resolutions? Imagine for a moment, what if you were able to accomplish your 2026 resolutions and did not stop within the first weeks?
According to CNBC, brains receive a dopamine boost every time someone is impressed with a difficult New Year’s resolution, but that wears off before the goal is actually achieved. As the dopamine drops, often a person’s desire to accomplish the goal does too, as the finish line is still far away.
A way to avoid that spike in dopamine is to create a smaller goal. For example, instead of saying that you will strength train or run every single day for the entire year, a large goal, try starting with, “I will strength train or run two times a week for a month.” This goal is easier to reach and at the end of the month the brain receives the dopamine from accomplishing the goal.
Senior Gigi Gildark voiced her agreement with chunking tasks, as she says, “I see the month ahead of me and then plan it out”. Instead of creating one resolution that lasts all year, she changes her goals each month, which she believes “causes less stress.”
Gildark was not the only person to agree with the stress surrounding New Year’s resolutions, as senior Grant Nelson also stated that “Most people don’t stick to them [resolutions] and it creates unnecessary stress.”
The psychology behind resolutions does not just mean that creating resolutions that are too big will lead to failure, and vice versa, that creating smaller resolutions will lead to success, because it’s ultimately in your hands to change your life. As freshman William Wallace said, “If you put in the work it actually goes somewhere.”
The question is: how can you set yourself up for success in 2026?
