New Year’s resolutions fail far more often than they succeed. In this Mistake of the Week, Mark Graban explores why treating change as a test of willpower—rather than a system design challenge—leads to predictable frustration, both personally and in organizations.
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Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail (and What That Teaches Leaders)
Drawing on behavioral psychology and leadership examples, Mark connects failed personal resolutions to how organizations often approach improvement. Big announcements and ambitious targets don’t work if leaders don’t redesign the system of work or create psychological safety for people to say, “This isn’t working,” or, “We’re too busy to follow all these steps.”
The episode closes with a practical reframing: instead of trying to boost motivation or eliminate human error, ask how to make the right choice easier and the wrong choice harder—starting small, iterating, and learning forward instead of blaming backward.
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This episode is especially relevant for leaders working on culture change, improvement initiatives, or behavior change that hasn’t stuck.
Episode Transcript & Leadership Takeaways
Hi, I’m Mark Graban — and this is The Mistake of the Week.
As the calendar turns, millions of people make New Year’s resolutions.
Exercise more.
Eat better.
Spend less.
Finally fix something that’s been bothering us for years.
The intention is sincere.
The mistake is what comes next.
We tend to treat resolutions as a test of willpower.
If we succeed, we credit discipline.
If we fail — and most of us do — we blame ourselves.
We say we weren’t motivated enough.
We say we didn’t want it badly enough.
We promise to try harder next year.
But research suggests something else is going on.
The Core Mistake: Treating Change as a Willpower Problem
According to reporting by Verywell Mind, more than sixty percent of people say they feel pressured to make a New Year’s resolution. Many set three or more goals at once. And studies consistently show that more than ninety percent of resolutions are abandoned within just a few months.
That’s not a motivation problem.
That’s a design problem.
Psychologists point out that resolutions fail for predictable reasons.
First, we think too big.
Clinical psychologist Terri Bly told Verywell Mind that we’re drawn to big, sweeping change — because it sounds inspiring. But humans aren’t wired for sudden transformation.
Lasting change usually comes from small, repeatable steps — the kind you can sustain even on a bad day.
Second, we don’t ask why.
Bly also notes that change sticks only when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of changing. Many resolutions are things we feel we should do, not things we’re truly ready to do.
And third, we often aren’t ready yet.
Psychologists describe change as a process — moving from awareness, to preparation, to action, and then maintenance. Research suggests people who keep resolutions are already in the action stage. Many others aren’t — even if January 1 makes it feel like they should be.
Failure, in that case, isn’t surprising.
It’s predictable.
This should sound familiar.
In organizations, when improvement efforts fail, we don’t usually say, “People just weren’t motivated enough.”
We ask whether the system supported the change.
Whether the environment made the right behavior easy.
Whether people were ready — and supported — to try something new.
But every January, we forget those lessons and turn improvement into a character judgment.
Here’s a quieter truth:
January 2nd is usually just a continuation of the systems you had running on December 31st.
What Leaders Can Learn from Failed Resolutions
So when resolutions fail, the better question isn’t, “What’s wrong with me?”
It’s, “What small experiment could I try next?”
That idea comes straight from the work I’ve done on learning from mistakes. In The Mistakes That Make Us, one theme comes up again and again: improvement doesn’t come from grand promises.
It comes from iteration.
From starting small.
From testing changes instead of declaring them permanent.
From treating setbacks not as failure — but as information.
So if you’re thinking about resolutions this year, try this instead.
Don’t ask, “How do I stay motivated?”
Ask, “How do I make the right choice easier — and the wrong choice harder?”
Don’t aim for transformation.
Aim for one small change you could test for a week — or even a day.
And if it doesn’t work, don’t quit.
Adjust.
Because improvement — personal or organizational — isn’t about willpower or perfection.
It’s about learning your way forward, one small step at a time.
New Year’s resolutions aren’t a mistake because change is a bad idea.
They’re a mistake when we confuse change with self-control — and forget that learning, not resolve, is what actually makes improvement stick.
I’m Mark Graban.
And if this perspective resonates, I explore these ideas more deeply in my book The Mistakes That Make Us — about learning from setbacks by starting small, iterating, and improving without blame.
And this has been The Mistake of the Week.
Reflection Question for Leaders
Where in your organization are you relying on willpower instead of redesigning the system—and what’s one small experiment you could try?