Why Do New Year’s Resolutions Fail? Two Reasons
They Rarely Stick
At the writing of this article we’re about a week into 2025.
Many of us have made—and let go of—New Year’s resolutions.
How about you?
Are your New Year’s resolutions still intact?
Or have they fallen by the wayside?
Whether it’s to lose weight, save money, or find a new job, we all have ambitious goals that we want to achieve in the upcoming year.
However, it’s no secret that most of us fail to stick with our resolutions.
In fact, a recent study found that only 8% of people actually achieve their New Year’s goals.
While there can be many reasons why resolutions fail, in this blog post we’ll be talking about the two main reasons that people fail to keep their New Year’s resolutions.
Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail
Here’s a video I made on the two main reasons that our New Year’s resolutions fail:
If you get your edification in the form of audio podcasts listen below or look for the BioSoul Integration Podcast and this episode wherever you listen to your podcasts:
1) Timing
The Universe is constantly evolving, meaning it’s churning out new stuff and simultaneiously integrating that new stuff into the whole.
We are embedded in the fabric of life and so life is tugging on the threads of our being and urging us to evolve, too.
The unfolding of our evolution has a few distinct stages—themes that we cycle through each time we transform a layer of our defended self.
Often New Year’s resolutions take the form of taking action and committing to some new behavior.
But taking action and committing to some new behavior is just one of a dozen or so stages, themes or rhythms that emerge in us as life evolves us.
Have you ever heard anyone say, “This year I resolve to rest, listen and wait for what’s next?”
Have you ever heard anyone exclaim, “I resolve to feel the stuckness more fully in 2023?”
Probably not, but those statements represent other crucial themes that show up during the course of our evolution, over and over again.
Taking action and changing behaviors is perfectly in line with the New Year’s resolution tradition, but it may not be in line with the particular stage of your evolution that is unfolding on January 1st.
There are stages to the healing process, one of which is all about committing to yourself
and resolving to take action in your life in alignment with that new commitment.
The trick to the smoothest healing experience is to connect with the particular stage that
the most of you is in at the moment.
When you do that, what’s required of you becomes effortless.
When you’re trying to make a stage happen it requires a lot of effort and is going to be
very hard to sustain.
So though the new year is a good time to make a resolution, the timing may not be right
for you.
Pay closer attention to the themes that are coming up in your life and see if you can trust
them a little more.
2) Unconscious Motivations
The second reason that resolutions fizzle has to do with the motivation for making the
resolution in the first place.
I suggest that if we look closely we’d notice a subtle feeling of worthlessness and a story
that goes something like, “Ugh, I hate how overweight I am. Or What is wrong with me, I’ve
got to get my shit together.”
In essence it’s the judgment, the unkindness, the pushing against a part of ourselves that propels us into the resolution.
But it’s a fact of healing that we can never push against a part of ourselves with enough
force to escape it.
The feeling of worthlessness and the story that goes along with it doesn’t go away just
because we look better in the mirror or because we’re more organized now.
Those feelings come from deep conditioning we picked up when we were in the womb and when we were little kids and they’re going to keep coming up.
So it becomes difficult to justify maintaining the new action when the reason for doing it
was so we didn’t have to feel the worthlessness or hear ourselves tell the story.
What we’ve got to do is bring more awareness to those feelings and the story and give it
permission to be felt without pushing it away.
In the process our heart is opening to a disowned part of ourselves and we’re integrating
that part.
When that part of us is more integrated we can hold it with compassion and when that’s
the case our resolutions tend to be motivated by the desire for greater wholeness.
When that’s coupled with the right timing, change will happen so quickly and completely
you won’t believe it.
What Stage Of The Process Are You In Exactly?
The question you should be asking yourself is, “What stage of the process am I in, then, exactly?
If you are interested in learning more about these stages of the healing process, check out my BioSoul Integration Guide to help you locate yourself on the healing journey landscape.
To find out where you are on the healing journey click the following link, answer one question and receive a multi-page pdf outlining exactly where you are on the map: https://www.biosoulintegration.com/biosoul-integration-quiz
Please feel free to ask any questions or make comments below.
I promise to follow up with you.
I look forward to helping you express more life,
Dr. Jay
About the Author Dr. Jay Uecker
Dr. Jay Uecker is the founder of the BioSoul Integration Center near Boulder, Colorado where he's been practicing for over 20 years. He’s an author, chiropractor, healer, and online soul integration coach who weaves Network Spinal Analysis, intuitive Parts Work, Brainspotting, SomatoRespiratory Integration, and body-centered awareness practices into his own technique, which he calls BioSoul Integration. His work helps people release unconscious resistance stored in the nervous system so they can embody their soul’s gifts and express their purpose more fully. Dr. Jay offers group healing sessions and one-on-one care, both in-person and online. He also offers a self-paced online course and a growing collection of transformational books. For a limited time, claim your FREE copy of If It Didn't Hurt: How to Resolve Your Pain and Discover Your Life Purpose.