Why are New Year’s resolutions so hard to keep?

A psychologist has answers for you about how to make your New Year’s resolutions last.

It can be fun to make New Year’s resolutions, but hard for most of us to keep them. Gyms, for example, get crowded in early January, but come February the determination of many begins to peter out.

Will those who have taken on a new diet succeed in sticking to it through the end of this year? The chances of success can be small.

Why then do we make resolutions, why usually in the first few days of the year, and what can we do to improve our chances of keeping them?

Ian Ballard is an assistant professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside. His lab studies the mechanisms of goal-directed behavior using tools from cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and computer science.

Here, Ballard digs into the psychology of New Year’s resolutions:

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