How to keep your New Year's resolutions (for real)

On 31 December the list of resolutions looks easy: go to the gym, read more, get up early. On 1 January you are tired from the night before. After the holidays the routine comes back, and the excuses with it. By mid-January you have skipped three days, and by February you can't even remember the list. If this sounds familiar, it wasn't motivation you lacked. You lacked a plan that survives January.

To keep your New Year's resolutions, each one needs four things that almost no list has: a specific time, a way to prove you did it, something to lose if you don't, and a start before 1 January. Below is how to set up each one, with what the research says and examples you can copy.

Why New Year's resolutions don't last until February

Wanting something and doing it are different things. A review of studies on health habits (exercising, going for medical check-ups) found that people turn their good intentions into action only 53% of the time. Resolutions work the same way:

• They are vague. "Do some exercise" doesn't say when or where. Every day you have to decide again, and every day you can decide that today is not the day.
• Skipping a day costs nothing. You don't go to the gym today and nothing happens. Tomorrow neither. The cost arrives months later, all at once, when it's too late.
• They start at the worst moment. Between New Year's Eve and 6 January no routine is possible: dinners, trips, broken schedules.
• There are too many. Ten changes at once compete for the same energy. Better one or two.

Step 1: give it a time and a place

A meta-analysis of 94 studies by Peter Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran compared people who only had the goal with people who had also decided when, where and how they would do it. The second group followed through considerably more often, and the effect held across very different areas, from health to studying.

The idea is to turn the resolution into an appointment, just like a dentist's appointment:

On the list	With a time and place
Do some exercise	Gym on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 19:00
Read more	20 pages every night at 22:30, on the sofa
Get up early	Up at 07:00 Monday to Friday
Study English	30 minutes at 08:00, before opening email

If you don't know which time to choose, pick the one that competes least with other things. First thing in the morning usually wins, because the day hasn't got complicated yet.

Step 2: write what you will do, not what you will avoid

"Give up sugar" says what you won't do, but not what you will do instead. A study of real New Year's resolutions, published in PLOS ONE in 2020, followed participants for a year. At the end, 59% of those who had set out to do something said they were sticking to it, compared with 47% of those who had set out to avoid something.

So swap "give up sugar" for "fruit for dessert every day", and "no phone at night" for "read in bed at 23:00".

Step 3: decide how you will prove it

A ticked box in a habit app is easy to fill in even when you haven't done it, especially on bad days. Concrete proof is much harder to make up:

• A photo in the gym at the time you said.
• A photo of the book open at the day's page.
• A photo of breakfast in the kitchen at 07:15.

Proof makes you be there, and leaves a record that doesn't depend on your memory or your mood.

Step 4: give it something to lose

Right now, skipping your resolution costs nothing. The most direct way to change that is to make it cost something. Economists call this a commitment device: a decision you make today to bind your future self.

There is a classic study with real money. In CARES, a programme in the Philippines, smokers were offered the chance to deposit money for six months. If they then passed a nicotine test, they got it back. If not, the money went to charity. Those who received the offer did better: they were 3 percentage points more likely to pass the test than the control group, and the difference was still there in surprise tests a year later.

It has limits: only one in nine smokers agreed to try it. But for those who do, it changes the question each morning from "do I feel like it?" to "do I want to lose €5 for not going?".

Step 5: start in December

If 1 January is your first day, you start tired, in the middle of the holidays and with no routine. If you start on 14 December, by 1 January you are already more than two weeks in.

• Practise with one or two resolutions, not the whole list.
• Expect to miss a day or two over Christmas. Better to miss in December, when it's a rehearsal, than in January.
• Adjust the time if you see it doesn't fit. December tells you which time is realistic before it counts.

How to keep a New Year's resolution: a full example

Let's take the most common one: going to the gym.

1. Time and place: gym on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 19:00.
2. Positive: "go and train", not "stop being sedentary".
3. Proof: a photo in the gym, before 19:30.
4. Something to lose: €5 for every session you skip.
5. Start: Monday 14 December.

When this method isn't right for you

• If the resolution is a result you don't fully control, like "lose 10 kilos", first turn it into something you do every day ("walk for 30 minutes at 08:00"). The method works with actions, not results.
• If you are exhausted, adding pressure doesn't help. Sometimes the most sensible resolution is to sleep more.
• If money makes you anxious, keep the time and the proof, without the money. That's already much more than a list.

How we do it at Ultimatum

Ultimatum is the app we are building for this. You choose what time you'll do it, leave a small guarantee and prove it with a photo taken in the moment. If you keep your word, you get your money back. If the photo check has doubts, nothing is charged: a person on the team reviews it.

The app isn't out yet. If you want your 2027 resolutions to last longer than the list, join the beta below.