1- They're Too Vague

 

Vague goals can feel nebulous and unreal at best, and overwhelming at worst. They don’t give you any direction, or any benchmarks for progress. 

 

How to fix this: Pick a manageable, specific thing that you want to accomplish within a reasonable time frame. 

 

For instance, instead of saying, “I want to save more money”, say, “this weekend, I will set up an auto deposit of $50 to my savings account whenever I get paid. Then, in two months, I’ll raise that to $75.” Instead of saying, “I want to get fitter”, say “I want to run a 5k by June. I am going to start going on walks in the evening, and next month I will find a couch-to-5k program and start following it.” 

 

2- You made an impossible promise to pull off a behavioral 180. 

 

So often, I see people doing something like this: they say they’ll go to the gym three times a week. They do this for two weeks, but then only make it once or twice per week for the next few weeks after that. And then, one week, when they fail to make it to the gym at all, they declare they've "screwed it up" and give up on it. 

 

This is unfortunate, because the reality is that they’re actually doing ok. Not spectacular, but ok. Giving up now would be like dropping out of college because you got B minuses in your first semester. 

 

How to fix this: It’s easier said than done, but you’re going to need to internalize the fact that habit formation isn’t about perfection. It’s about doing the thing often enough that it ceases to be a conscious effort. Once you've done this, though, you're laughing. That habit will carry you when life inevitably throws a wrench in your routine/plans.

 

3- You made one because you felt socially obligated to, and you don’t actually care about it. 

 

It’s fine to not make a resolution. It’s bad for your mental health to make one that you know you’ll wind up letting go, because in the long run, this can harm your perception of your ability to change your habits when it actually does matter to you. 

 

How to fix this: Don’t make one. Be free.