Do resolvers do better? The numbers from two studies
The most cited study on the subject is by Norcross, Mrykalo and Blagys, published in 2002 in the Journal of Clinical Psychology under the title “Auld lang syne”. The researchers followed, by telephone interviews over six months, 159 people who made a New Year’s resolution and 123 comparable people who also wanted to change a problem but put it off and made no resolution. The most common goals were weight loss, exercise programs and quitting smoking. At six months, 46% of resolvers had sustained success, versus 4% of nonresolvers. Self-efficacy, skills for change and readiness to change, measured before January 1, predicted the resolvers’ outcomes, and the successful ones used more cognitive-behavioral strategies during the year.
One detail matters: the two groups were not randomized. People who make a resolution already tend to be more ready to change, so the gap between 46% and 4% does not prove that the resolution by itself causes success. The right reading is another one: a well-prepared resolution, made by someone already ready, has a decent chance of lasting months.
The second study is an experiment. In 2020, Oscarsson, Carlbring, Andersson and Rozental published in PLOS ONE a study of 1,066 Swedish adults who signed up online, randomly assigned to three groups: no support, some support and extended support. Success was measured by a 0 to 100% rating given by the participant, with 70% or more counted as success. After a year, 55% of those who answered considered themselves successful. The most common goals were physical health (33%), weight loss (20%) and eating habits (13%). The central comparison: those who chose an approach goal, meaning starting or adopting something, had 58.9% success versus 47.1% for those who chose an avoidance goal, meaning stopping or avoiding something. The effect is small, but consistent.
There is also a surprise in the same experiment, and it is instructive. The group with some support (information about social support, a named support person and an email on coping with difficulties) had 62.3% success, versus 55.9% for the no-support group. The extended-support group, which also received guidance on specific goals, interim goals and more emails, had 52.5%, with no statistical difference from the no-support group. The authors suggest, as an after-the-fact explanation, that very specific goals and many interim milestones create more opportunities to “fail”. In other words: more method is not always better, which is why the second half of this guide insists on lean planning.
| Study | What it measured | Main number | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Norcross, Mrykalo and Blagys (2002), J Clin Psychol | 159 resolvers and 123 nonresolvers, 6 months, telephone interviews | 46% vs 4% sustained success | Groups not randomized; self-report |
| Oscarsson and colleagues (2020), PLOS ONE | 1,066 adults, 3 randomized groups, 1 year | 55% success; 58.9% vs 47.1% (approach vs avoidance) | Rating given by the participant; self-selected sample; authors receive royalties from a book on the subject |
The fresh start effect: why January 1 (and other dates) helps
Why do people pick New Year’s to change? Hengchen Dai, Katherine Milkman and Jason Riis, of the Wharton School, studied this in a 2014 paper in Management Science. In three studies with real data, they found that Google searches for the word “diet”, visits to a university gym and new goal commitments on a goal-setting website all rise after temporal landmarks: the start of a week, month, year or semester, a birthday, a holiday. They called it the fresh start effect. The authors’ proposed explanation is that these landmarks create new mental “accounting periods”: the imperfections of the past are left in the earlier period, and the person looks at their life with a broader view, which favors aspirational behavior.
In a 2015 popular-press piece, Dai also summarizes ongoing experiments: labeling a date as a landmark (“the first day of spring” instead of “the third Thursday in March”) raised the choice of that date for a goal reminder by 354%, and “first day of summer break” raised it by 657% among students. Among people who had failed a goal in 2013, those who reflected on why the 2014 New Year felt meaningful clicked on three times as many goal-related sites and read them 46% longer. Dai cautions, however, that these are relative increases, that they measure intention and interest rather than goal completion, and that the piece gives no sample sizes.
The practical consequence is good news for anyone who has already slipped in January: the same research suggests using the next landmark, such as the start of next month, a birthday or a Monday, as a new beginning. Mark those dates on the printable calendar and let the countdown show how many days are left until the next one.
If-then plans: what Gollwitzer and Sheeran found
An intention says what you want; an implementation intention says when, where and how you will act. Psychologist Peter Gollwitzer proposed the format “if situation X happens, then I do response Y”. In 2006, Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran pooled 94 independent tests in a meta-analysis published in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology: forming an implementation intention had a medium-to-large effect on reaching the goal (d = 0.65) compared with merely having the intention. The authors also describe how these plans help people get started, protect effort from distractions and drop strategies that do not work.
In 2024, Sheeran, Olivia Listrom and Gollwitzer updated the picture with 642 tests in the European Review of Social Psychology. Effects ranged from small to medium-large depending on the type of outcome (thoughts, emotions or behavior), and the benefits were larger when the plan had the if-then structure, when the person was strongly motivated and when they rehearsed the plan. This reinforces two ideas in the method below: the plan has to be concrete, and the goal has to matter to you. An estimate as high as the 2006 one should be read as the ceiling, not as what to expect in your own case.
How long a habit takes: what Lally measured
The “21 days” rule does not come from habit research. The reference study is the one by Lally and colleagues, from 2010, in the European Journal of Social Psychology. Ninety-six university students, with a mean age of 27, chose a simple health behavior tied to a daily cue (for example, a 15-minute run before dinner or a piece of fruit with lunch) and repeated it for 84 days, logging each day whether they had done it and how automatic it felt. According to the BPS summary, the average time to reach maximum automaticity was 66 days, with individual variation from 18 days to an estimated 254. The 254 figure is an extrapolation, because the study lasted 84 days, and about half of the participants had not yet reached a habit-level score by its end.
Two conclusions help with planning. First, missing a single day had little effect on gains in automaticity, while many missed days, even spread out over time, lowered the maximum level reached. That makes the plan for the lapse, in the method below, part of the design rather than a sign of weakness. Second, automaticity was measured by self-report and the sample was university students, so the figures serve as an order of magnitude, not a guaranteed timeline. If you still wonder why you postpone what you decided, the procrastination quiz can help you see the pattern.
A 7-step method, from the review to the lapse plan
The method below turns the research findings into a practical sequence. Note: the number of goals (1 to 3) and the frequency of check-ins are design choices, not study results. They follow the spirit of what you saw above (more method does not always help) and you can adjust them to your case.
- 1. Review your lifeRate each area from 0 to 10 (work, health, money, relationships, leisure, learning) in the wheel of life. The low scores and the areas that bother you most show where effort pays off most.
- 2. Choose 1 to 3 goalsFewer goals leave more attention for each. If in doubt, choose just one and add another once the first is running.
- 3. Rewrite it as an approach goalSwap “stop sitting all day” for “walk 20 minutes after lunch”. Oscarsson’s research points to a gain for goals about starting something.
- 4. Turn it into an if-then planWrite: “If I finish lunch, then I put on my sneakers and walk around the block.” The cue has to be something that already happens every day.
- 5. Define the smallest first actionSomething that takes two minutes: put on the sneakers. For focus goals, use a short block in the Pomodoro timer, and read the science behind the technique before betting on it.
- 6. Schedule check-insTen minutes a week to look at what happened, and a review at the start of each month, which works as Dai’s fresh start. Mark everything on the calendar.
- 7. Plan for the lapseWrite it down beforehand: “If I skip a day, then I resume the next one, without doubling up.” Lally found a single lost day weighs little; what hurts is dropping the whole goal.
| Vague wish | Approach goal | If-then plan | Smallest first action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Be healthier | Walk 20 minutes on weekdays | If I finish lunch, then I put on my sneakers and head out | Leave the sneakers by the door |
| Stop putting off studying | Study 25 minutes a day | If I sit at the desk after dinner, then I open the notebook and start the timer | Open the notebook to the right page |
| Spend less | Save R$ 200 a month | If my salary arrives, then I make the R$ 200 transfer the same day | Set up the automatic transfer |
| Read more | Read 10 pages a day | If I get into bed, then I read 10 pages before picking up my phone | Put the book on the pillow |
A worked example with numbers for the money goal. Saving R$ 200 a month for 12 months adds up to R$ 2,400 in deposits. If that amount earned, hypothetically, 1% a month with deposits at the end of each month, the balance would be about R$ 2,536.50, that is, R$ 136.50 in earnings. The rate is only an illustration, not a forecast: run your own in the compound interest calculator and read the guide on compound interest, contributions and inflation to see what changes in the real world.
To see which difficulty is likely to weigh most in your case, three quizzes help you notice your style: the motivation quiz, the grit and perseverance quiz and the procrastination quiz. They do not measure your chance of reaching the goal, they only help you pick strategies.
The honest limits of this research
Almost everything we cite depends on what people report about themselves. In Oscarsson’s study, success was a rating given by the participant, with no verification of behavior. In Lally’s, automaticity was also self-reported. In Norcross’s, the difference between resolvers and nonresolvers comes from telephone interviews with groups that formed on their own. The effects of if-then plans, for their part, range from small to medium-large depending on the type of outcome, as the 2024 meta-analysis shows.
- Self-selected samples: people who join a study on resolutions tend to be more motivated.
- Small to medium effects: the gap between approach and avoidance goals was about 12 percentage points.
- Authors with a stake: three authors of the Oscarsson study receive royalties from a book partly based on it.
- Observational data: the fresh start effect comes from searches, gym visits and recorded commitments, which show association rather than cause.
- Viral numbers with no source: Dai notes that the line “more than 90% of resolutions fail” circulates with no cited origin.
Frequently asked questions
Do New Year’s resolutions work?
Is it true that 90% of resolutions fail?
What are the most common New Year’s resolutions?
What is an approach goal?
What is an if-then plan?
How many days does it take to form a habit?
How many goals should I set for a year?
Can I start a goal on a date other than January 1?
What should I do when I miss my goal?
The research does not promise your New Year’s goal will work, but it points to a path: few goals, framed as something to do, tied to an if-then plan, with a two-minute first step, scheduled check-ins and a plan for the day you slip. The observed success rate was around 46% to 55% depending on the study and the definition of success, and the time to a habit averaged close to 66 days, with wide variation. Since almost everything is self-report, read the numbers as orders of magnitude and treat the method as a personal experiment: review, adjust and start again at the next landmark on the calendar.
Sources & references
- Norcross, J. C., Mrykalo, M. S., & Blagys, M. D. (2002). Auld lang syne: success predictors, change processes, and self-reported outcomes of New Year’s resolvers and nonresolvers. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 58(4), 397-405 (PMID 11920693)
- Oscarsson, M., Carlbring, P., Andersson, G., & Rozental, A. (2020). A large-scale experiment on New Year’s resolutions: Approach-oriented goals are more successful than avoidance-oriented goals. PLOS ONE, 15(12), e0234097
- Dai, H., Milkman, K. L., & Riis, J. (2014). The Fresh Start Effect: Temporal Landmarks Motivate Aspirational Behavior. Management Science, 60(10), 2563-2582
- Dai, H. (2015). New Year’s Resolutions Failed? Be Prepared to Leverage Other Fresh Starts. Behavioral Scientist
- Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69-119
- Sheeran, P., Listrom, O., & Gollwitzer, P. M. (2024). The when and how of planning: Meta-analysis of the scope and components of implementation intentions in 642 tests. European Review of Social Psychology
- Lally, P. et al. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology (BPS Research Digest summary)