If you started 2025 with a New Year’s Resolution, how’s it going? Given up? Started to veer off course?
If so, you’re not alone.
A 2023 poll from Forbes Health showed that most people give up on their resolutions after four months.
All is not lost. It may just be a problem of scale.
It isn’t necessarily that you have too lofty a goal. Make your goal as big as you want, just break it down into bite-size steps.
Think small. Really. Really. Small.
I go to a neighborhood fitness club several times a week. The owner of the club often has interesting quotes up on the blackboard. The one below was there at the beginning of the year.
The quote is attributed to James Clear, probably best known as the author of the New York Times Bestseller Atomic Habits published back in 2018.
It’s the consistency of doing something new—think daily habit—that will create change. And it’s that consistency that’s so darn hard. So, to give yourself a better chance at being consistent you need to choose small.
But thinking small is hard. Because too often you think if something is so small, it can’t possibly be worth it.
Nothing can be further from the truth.
Small makes consistency easier.
The other great benefit of starting small is motivation.
If you start with something small enough that you can be consistent with it, you’ll feel successful. Being successful is motivating. Failing to live up to your stated intentions is not.
And when you feel successful, you’re that much more likely to keep going…toward your stated goal.
