Why We're Afraid to Keep Our New Year's Resolutions

Every year, as December 31^st dissolves into January 1^st, we make our New Year’s resolutions.

This is going to be the year we turn it around: we’re going to get in shape, we’re going to write that book, we’re going to find the girl of our dreams and so on. Midnight hits and we toast to the New Year, which we fully intend to make better than the last. For a while, we even act like we mean it: early to mid January is harvest time for gyms, adult education classes, and, of course, dating sites. We have a plan, we have made our resolutions and sworn off our old habits.

This time, it’s going to be different.

Except it isn’t. Within a month or two, we’re right back to our old habits.

Our gym membership has lapsed, our diets have fizzled, and we haven’t made any serious progress on any of lofty goals to which we were toasting as Times Square erupted in celebration. Just like last year, and the year before that. And, just like in previous years, we hit a moment where we realize that we aren’t going to follow through on our resolutions and ask ourselves why.

The answer is that it’s the same reason why we’ve never done these things before, and why we felt the need to wait for a major demarcation such as the New Year to make another attempt. Our characters are as serenely indifferent to the changing of the calendar as a mountain lion is to the border between Canada and Maine. When we wake up on the afternoon of January 1^st, we’re still the same people who went to bed that morning. Thus, the same doubts and fears that restrained us in December will still be there in January.

So, the question is less, “Why don’t we keep our New Year's resolutions?” than it is, “Why don’t we do the things that will make us happier and better people?”

So, why don’t we do the things that will make us happier and better people?

Individual reasons vary, of course, but it usually comes down to the same thing: fear.

One way or another, we are afraid to change, afraid to set aside what we’ve carried for so long, even though it’s a burden to us. We may genuinely want to make the change, or at least, we may intellectually acknowledge that the change would be good for us, and on a certain level believe we would be happier afterward. But still we are afraid to go through with the procedure.

Part of this is simply the fear of failure: we worry that we won’t have the courage or the ability to see it through.

We’re worried that if we reach for the big dream or the big goal, we will fall on our faces. If we ask the cute girl out, she may laugh at us. If we try to get into shape, we may find the work too hard. If we try to change careers, we may fail.

But we’re not just afraid of failure: we may be equally afraid of success.

See, the thing about success is that it always carries its own set of problems, pressures, and responsibilities. If we get into shape, we then have to maintain it by constant diet and exercise. If we start dating the cute girl, we then have to work at the relationship with all the hardships and sacrifices that entails.

Just acknowledging our fear of change (or making a resolution) isn't enough.

You see, failure at least has the consolation of familiarity; we’re back where we started, or close to it. Success means that nothing will be the same anymore. It may be for the better, and you may know that you’ll be happier, but even so it means abandoning the familiar for the unknown.

This points to an interesting and too-little acknowledged fact about fear: that knowledge really does very little to alleviate it. We may know, intellectually speaking, that we will feel better after a work out, or that we’d be happier without that one habit, but what does that matter? Even so, a man with a fear of spiders may know that most spiders are harmless, may know that they’re generally more afraid of us than we are of them, but still suffer agonies of revulsion if he had to pick one up.

Fear is a phenomenon of the passions, not of the intellect. It is felt, not understood, and therefore is only overcome through felt emotion. The head rules the belly through the chest. As C.S. Lewis explained in The Abolition of Man, it is not syllogisms that keep soldiers at their post, but crude sentiments about a flag or a regiment.

This is why, even when we have a plan in place, even when we know it would be good for us, even when we genuinely want to change, we still flinch at carrying out our resolutions and why they so often fail.

Recognize what is holding you back and cultivate a contrary passion.

So, what can we do about it?

1. The first step is to recognize that it is fear that holds us back and identify what that fear is. This may take a good deal of reflection. Watch your thoughts as you find yourself hesitating to carry out your resolutions, and try to see what you’re afraid of.

2. Once this is done, the next step is to cultivate a contrary passion: something that is opposite and superior to your fear. Make it something that inspires you, that speaks to your heart. If you want to get into shape, for instance, you may cultivate a desire to protect those around you, which requires you to be tough and strong.

3. When you find yourself plagued with fear, put your life and your actions in a larger context, and defer to that.

Of course, once you have identified your fear and cultivated your contrary passion, the next step is to put it into practice through planning, specific resolutions, and a good deal of effort. But first we have to feel in our bones why we want to succeed, and why it is worth the risks of both failure and success.