UO psychology scholar offers 2 tips for making New Year’s resolutions stick

Spend less money, get in shape, eat healthier: How do you actually get to the end of January with resolutions still going strong?

Deanna Strayer, a doctoral candidate in psychology at the University of Oregon, had some advice for me — and others — who are hoping to make it to February and beyond with their New Year’s resolutions intact. She answered questions from Lookout Eugene-Springfield via email.

Lookout Eugene-Springfield: Are there certain types of resolutions that work versus others that don’t? Like small goals versus big goals?

Deanna Strayer: I think the most important distinction is specific goals versus vague goals. One of the core principles of goal-setting theory is that goals are most effective when they are specific and difficult — but still achievable. So vague goals like “I want to be healthier in 2026” tend to fail since there’s no specific metric to track your progress.

Why do so many resolutions fail? Why do we even bother? What does science tell us?

A large number of resolutions fail because the goal is either too easy or too difficult. When a goal is too easy, you can become bored and disengaged. What is the point of pursuing a goal that doesn’t require any effort? On the opposite side, when a goal is too difficult, you end up not wanting to even bother trying if you don’t believe you can achieve it.

In my own work, I’ve been looking at goals that become harder over time — HOT goals, as I call them. Adjusting the difficulty of the goal as time goes on helps sustain effort and motivation.

I would encourage people to start by thinking about the end goal they desire. Do they want to be more fit? Read more books? Spend less time on their phone? Once they have a goal in mind, they should consider one specific change that, while challenging, they feel confident they can achieve for a period of time. Then, plan to evaluate progress after that time period and consider ways to increase the difficulty of the initial goal.

One example for somebody who would like to read more would be to set a goal to read for five minutes every night before bed. If that proves to be too easy, they can increase the time for all or a subset of days — for example, on Tuesdays and Thursdays read for 25 minutes before bed.

Sustainable change doesn’t typically happen in one giant step. Most people will struggle to go from never reading to reading for an hour every night. By taking the HOT approach, however, you may find yourself hitting that target by the end of the year.

These are my New Year’s resolutions: First, do 100 strength workouts at the gym this year, roughly two per week. Each workout is about 25 minutes, so not too long. (This was also my resolution for 2025, and I was on pace, but then I got this job and, well, I think I probably did only about 45 strength workouts by the end of the year.) And my second is to not look at my phone until I’m out of bed in the morning and my feet are on the floor, unless it’s an emergency text from one of my kids. What do you think? Do I stand a chance? 

I think those are great goals! One way you might find more success is to start off with a more specific, simpler goal. It’s easy to become discouraged and abandon goals entirely if it feels like we aren’t entirely achieving them. Perhaps look at your two goals as the “end goal” and come up with ways to ramp up the difficulty over time in order to encourage progress. 

Take, for example, your goal of not looking at your phone until getting up and out of bed. If one day you give in and scroll social media for a bit while you are cozy under the covers, it can become easy to backslide into old habits if you feel like you already “failed” your original goal. 

A potential adjustment would be to make it your goal to not look at your phone before getting out of bed only on weekends, then reevaluate in a few months. If you are consistently achieving that goal, you may consider expanding it by including weekdays, or leaving your phone in a specific room while at home on weekends.

Do you make resolutions? 

I do! Personally, I like to always be working on learning a new silly skill, something that gives me an excuse to stand up away from my desk and stop thinking about work for a few minutes. So in 2026, one of my goals is to learn at least one new yo-yo trick every week. I’ll reevaluate at the end of March. Once I know enough tricks, I may adjust my goal to include working on trick combinations and transitions.