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In Praise of New Year’s Resolutions
Why they work
In recent years, a grim narrative about New Year’s resolutions has gelled: they don’t work. Not only are they doomed to fail, we’re told, but they can actually prove counterproductive, sapping your spirit and deflating your confidence. The takeaway: don’t bother.
Not so fast. There is mounting evidence that “contrary to widespread public opinion, a considerable proportion of New Year resolvers do in fact succeed,” writes John Norcross, a professor of psychology at the University of Scranton who has studied the phenomenon for decades.
New Year’s resolutions are incredibly powerful, provided you approach them with the right mindset and are willing to accept failure, some at least, as part of the bargain. What matters is how you define “success” and, for that matter, “resolution.”
In an oft-cited study, Norcross and colleagues tracked New Year’s resolvers over a two-year period. After one week, most (77 percent) maintained their pledges, but that number dropped to 55 percent after one month, 46 percent after six months, and a paltry 19 percent at the two-year mark. So, resolutions don’t work, right?
If we define “success” as 100-percent compliance forever then, yes, most resolutions fail, but life, of course, doesn’t work that way. No doubt those who stuck to…
