New Year, Old Habits: The Numbers on the Successes and Failures of New Year’s Resolutions

By Grant Law Office on January 16, 2014

It’s only a few weeks into 2014, and surely some people are dropping the resolution they were so adamant about at their New Year’s cocktail party. But of course, this is all expected. Many promises are easily made at the beginning of every year and many are just as easily broken.

For example, it is a well known fact that gym memberships spike in January … and membership cancellations spike a few months later. We all know that change is tough, that old habits die hard, but most of us probably don’t know the statistics surrounding New Year’s resolutions.

What do you know? Researchers at the University of Scranton have published New Year’s resolution statistics in the Journal of Clinical Psychology. A lot of the data confirms what we already know, but there are a few interesting, even surprising, tidbits.

There are no surprises whatsoever in the ranking of top New Year’s resolutions for 2014. Weight loss takes the number one spot, as it always does. People also want to save money, stay healthy, get happy, and fall in love. These resolutions have been on repeat for who knows how many years.

Nearly half of all people make resolutions every year, whereas 38 percent choose to forego making resolutions at all. Are these nonparticipants skeptics or realists? Subsequent data seems to support the realist platform: only eight percent achieve their resolution while 73 percent either are inconsistent with their resolution or fail them completely. But wait, don’t jump to depressing conclusions about humanity just yet. Researchers have also found that those who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to accomplish their goals than those who choose not to do so.

The Atlanta personal injury attorneys at The Law Offices of Wayne Grant, P.C. encourage everyone to keep on with their struggle to improve themselves. Change is difficult, but it is not impossible. All it takes is some gumption and lots of work. Go at it!