The days between Christmas and New Year invite us to pause, look back and decide what should change next. New Year’s resolutions have a poor reputation, yet research does not support the idea that almost everyone fails. Many people do make meaningful changes. The useful question is: what makes a resolution easier to keep?
Through NLP and coaching, I have spent a great deal of time thinking about goals and motivation. I am less interested in whether people “should” make resolutions than in how a goal can become something they genuinely want to return to.
Why New Year’s resolutions fail—or quietly fade
“Choose one goal.” “Write it down.” “Make it SMART.” These familiar suggestions can be helpful, but no single formula explains every successful change. A resolution also has to work psychologically in everyday life.
One useful lens is the relationship between order and chaos:
- Too much chaos: the goal is so large or vague that it becomes overwhelming. You see the whole mountain and cannot find the first step.
- Too much order: the plan is so narrow, repetitive or detached from personal meaning that it creates little curiosity or energy.
Jordan Peterson often describes meaningful development as taking place at the boundary between order and chaos. That is a philosophical and coaching-oriented frame, not a universal scientific explanation of goal achievement. The closest research parallel is the challenge–skill balance associated with flow: a task can become more absorbing when its difficulty stretches us without making success feel impossible.
Make goal-setting feel like play
Play does not mean having no structure. A good game has comprehensible rules, feedback and an appropriate level of challenge. It may involve other people, but it does not require a competitor or even a partner.
Treating a resolution as a game can make experimentation easier. You can try a strategy without demanding perfection, learn from a failed round and adjust a rule that does not work. A playful approach is not proven to be the single best driver of lasting change. It is one practical way to reduce the shame and rigidity that make many people abandon a goal after the first setback.
How to turn a resolution into a playable practice
Whether you want to exercise more, spend less time on social media or communicate differently with your partner, these principles can help:
- Choose an approach goal. “Walk for twenty minutes three times a week” gives you something to move towards. “Stop being lazy” defines only what you want to escape.
- Create a small, clear round. Decide what counts today or this week. A playable next step is easier to begin than an entire transformed life.
- Use support and visible feedback. A friend, partner, coach, calendar or simple score can help you notice progress without turning the process into punishment.
- Allow yourself to be a beginner. Every game has a learning curve. Expecting mastery in the first week turns normal difficulty into evidence that you have failed.
- Adjust the rules deliberately. If a rule repeatedly fails, do not silently abandon the goal. Change the time, difficulty or environment and begin another round.
Two ideas that strengthen motivation
1. Meaning and autonomy: Why does this resolution matter to you now? Goals tend to have a different quality when they express values you genuinely endorse rather than pressure you have absorbed from someone else.
2. Growth as part of the outcome: A goal can matter for what it delivers and for the capacities developed on the way. Consistency, courage, skill and self-knowledge may become part of the result rather than merely the price you pay for it.
Conclusion: make room for another round
Resolutions fade for many reasons: the goal may be poorly framed, the environment unsupportive, the challenge mismatched or the motivation too externally controlled. Turning a resolution into a game will not solve every obstacle.
It can, however, change your relationship with the process. With clear but adjustable rules, meaningful challenge and permission to learn, one imperfect week no longer has to end the whole attempt. It can simply become information for the next round.
Sources
- Oscarsson et al. (2020): A large-scale experiment on New Year’s resolutions
- Deci & Ryan (2000): The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits
- Fong, Zaleski & Leach (2015): Challenge–skill balance and the antecedents of flow
- Edwards et al. (2016): Gamification for health and wellbeing—a systematic review
- Jordan B. Peterson: Meaning at the boundary between order and chaos (conceptual background, not evidence for the effectiveness of play)