According to Lifehack (whatever that is) these are the top ten reasons, with notation added, why New Year’s resolutions fail:
1. “You’re treating a marathon like a sprint.” Speaking from personal experience, doing so in the last two-tenths of a mile of a marathon may result in not being able to walk for a week.
2. “You put the cart before the horse”, and the horse is full of Greek soldiers (1184 B.C.?).
3. “You don’t believe in yourself.” Cogito ergo sum (Descartes, 1637).
4. “Too much thinking, not enough doing.” Back to the ancient Greeks, circa 1988, when Nike, goddess of victory, famously first advised, Just Do It.
5. “You’re in too much of a hurry.” Isn’t that the same as number 1 and the opposite of number 4?
6. “You don’t enjoy the process.” Are we having fun yet? (Zippy the Pinhead, 1979)
7. “You’re trying too hard.” This seems like a red herring. I’ve never met anyone who tried all that hard to keep a resolution.
8. “You don’t track your progress.” How do you expect Fitbit to stay in business?
9. “You have no social support.” Add another Zoom meeting. Have a glass a wine during the call so that you can enjoy the process of tracking your progress, unless the resolution was to give up drinking.
10. “You know your what but not your why.” I don’t know – third base (Abbott and Costello, 1936).
I would add that limiting your number of resolutions helps. Zero is a comfortable goal.