I’m not one for resolutions per se, though this time of year brings to mind changes. When it comes to diet – eating less, eating better – there’s nothing like the holiday indulgences to make us aware that at least a little detoxing would be a good idea. Eating better is, after all, a prime resolution at this time of year – a recent poll show 29.5 per cent of Canadians list improving their personal fitness and nutrition goals as the top resolution in 2023.

So, here we are five days into the new year. Have you broken any resolutions yet? Chances are if you made a resolution, you’ll break it.

Studies show fewer than half of us still make resolutions, with only about eight per cent sticking with them through the year.

As Mark Twain put it more colourfully, “Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever.”

Of New Year’s intentions, he added, “Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.”

What is it about a new calendar year that makes us eager to reinvent ourselves, if only a little bit? The coming of a new year is seen as a fresh start and a time for deciding what needs to be changed and where to go next. It’s for these reasons that so many people make new year’s resolutions to accomplish things such as to exercise more, quit smoking, pay off debt, save more money, complete projects, get organized, further education, lose weight, and the like.

Perhaps there’s an endless optimism that we can change, that we can be better – which, of course, recognizes that we all have something in our lives that we wish to alter. Psychologists tells us this is normal human behaviour, adding that the tough part is actually following through on the impulse for self improvement. In other words, fantasizing about a better you, about an idealized version of you – most of us can actually picture ourselves that way – will remain just that: a fantasy. Unless, that is, we are willing to work hard to make the dream a reality.

Each December people around the world are filled with motivation and enthusiasm. They promise themselves that in the New Year they’ll start going to the gym, give up smoking, start saving money, and begin a new career… But year after year people continue to fail to achieve their New Year’s resolutions, often by the time they reach February or March.

Countless studies indicate that anywhere between 75 to 95 per cent of people fail to achieve their resolutions. Maybe that’s why fewer of us are even bothering to do so. A recent survey shows almost 70 per cent said they don’t make New Year’s resolutions, up 10 percentage points from just a few years ago.

Even without a formal resolution, there is something about rolling into a new year that gives us hope for a new start. Personal goals that have been neglected or forgotten, for instance, resurface with the beginning of a new year – hope springs eternal.

We all have things about ourselves we’d like to change or improve, habits we’d like to instil. Overly ambitious goals can be counterproductive, however.

“I’m all for ambition, but you know, you can start with something that’s smaller … something that’s really achievable and attainable,” Jim Davies, a cognitive science professor at Carleton University, tells CBC, noting many of us set targets that are too lofty, especially when it comes to health-related goals.

It’s best to pick something you’re really motivated to achieve, then break it down into manageable steps. You’re probably courting failure otherwise.

“If you want to install a good habit, you need to keep doing it until it feels habitual, which means that you’re not making a decision to do it every time.”

Research shows that we are biased in our predictions of the future by our present circumstances. This ‘presentism’ leads us to believe we’ll feel less stressed in January just as we did during the holidays.

Basking in the holiday glow, we feel that we can make the changes we’re resolving to make – no problem. In the future. Later. After we keep doing what we’re doing for the time being. There’s nothing like a good intention for later to make us feel good now.

Getting up early and going for a walk seems like a fine idea as you enjoy yet another helping of enhanced eggnog sitting in your easy chair. Later, the alarm clock, darkness and sound of the wind howling quickly disabuse you of that warm glow.

Starting out slowly could help you get up from the recliner.

“Our desire for a ‘fresh start’ makes it tempting to set highly ambitious resolutions. For instance, after a particularly decadent Christmas, we may feel the need to set strict weight loss resolutions. However, when the New Year comes around, we often fall off the motivation wagon because the goal was unrealistic in the first place,” psychologist Dr. Mark Travers writes this week in Psychology Today.

“Instead of chasing an arbitrary weight loss goal, consider adopting a habit of doing a light 20-minute workout every other day for the first three months of the year. Choose something that is sustainable and effective.”

That you don’t immediately follow through on your often-too-grand goals is no reason to get down on yourself, however. The Canadian Mental Health Association, for instance, advises us to be kind to ourselves, noting being able to follow through – or not – on a New Year’s resolution doesn’t determine our worth.