New Year's resolutions don't work: Try this bingo card instead

"There's something incredibly compelling about a brand-new year. A fresh start beckons, with each day untroubled by your past decisions. Whatever mistakes you made in 2025 are old news. They were sooo last year. You're a new person now with new priorities, new habits, and new strategies. It's in this spirit of new-leaf-turning-over that nearly a third of American adults -and almost half of 18- to 29-year-olds-decide to make New Year's resolutions for the coming year."

"One of the problems has to do with the fresh start the new calendar year offers to us. We are anticipating a "new year, new you" moment for ourselves, which often leads to unrealistic and overambitious goals. We love to tell ourselves the story that we could go from broke and couch potato on December 31 to frugal and running 5Ks on January 1 through willpower alone. This story doesn't give us room for struggle, frustration, or failure."

A brand-new year creates a compelling sense of fresh start that motivates many people to set New Year's resolutions, with nearly a third of American adults and almost half of 18- to 29-year-olds making resolutions. Most resolutions fail: Baylor College of Medicine reported that 88% of people who make resolutions abandon them within two weeks. Overambitious goals arise from expecting willpower alone to produce sudden, total change. Resolutions often stem from external, calendar-based motivation rather than internal desire, which makes them fragile when external cues fade. Anti-resolution approaches emphasize realistic goals, internal motivation, and allowance for struggle.

Read at Fast Company