New Year's Resolutions

New year’s resolutions: Why do we make them, and how do we keep them? What do they reveal about us as a society?

People are drawn toward growth. They need something to look forward to. To remain in the present is to be mired in it. Setting goals makes it easier to tolerate the pain of the present. They also recognize what they did not achieve as the year draws to an end, and setting an intention of doing better the next year offers some relief from the sting of inachievement.

New year’s resolutions are easy to make. But they are difficult to keep. The motivation present at the beginning of the year weakens, we miss one milestone, then another. Eventually we decide that because we’re not perfect, we might as well not be good, either. And we give up.

Goals are achieved not by perfect behavior or one large leap forward but by repeated small steps. Most people mistake bursts of energy with progress, when they would achieve far more by simply doing less but doing it more often. In that way, intermittent failures become less significant. When success relies on a few huge bursts, one failure is crippling.

Of course, this requires discipline and patience, as well as deferred gratification. We are not good at any of this. Quick results. Laziness. Intolerance of setbacks. This is what defines modern society. That is why we miss our goals. An accumulation of small efforts creates tremendous leverage toward solving big problems.