How to Make Your 2025 New Year's Resolutions Stick

This is a free excerpt from one of Shortform’s Articles. We give you all the important information you need to know about current events and more.

Don't miss out on the whole story. Sign up for a free trial here .

What are your goals for 2025? How can you ensure that you follow through with them?

A new year offers a clean slate and a chance for a new direction. But it can be difficult to embrace change. That’s why we compiled advice from four top authors on how to face your fears, choose a path, and take action.

Here are four tips for making your 2025 New Year’s resolutions stick.

Following Through With Your 2025 Resolutions

Do you have a 2025 New Year’s resolution? A new year is a natural time to re-examine our lives and make positive changes. But it can be hard to know what changes to make and harder still to follow through. Here are four tips from popular authors to help you find and pursue a new direction in the new year.

1: Face Your Fears

Embracing change starts with facing your fears—as screenwriter and producer Shonda Rhimes did when she realized she’d been passing up opportunities because she’d been afraid of failure. To redirect her path, she committed to a Year of Yes in which she’d say ‘yes’ to every opportunity, even if it felt scary to leave her comfort zone.

She writes that to face your fears, first figure out what they are: What’s holding you back from feeling satisfied, engaged, or empowered in various aspects of your life? Then, embrace your truth: Be open and honest with others about who you are and what limitations you might have. When others see that you’re comfortable acknowledging your restrictions, they’ll respect them, and you’ll be better able to set boundaries and request reasonable but necessary accommodations. For example, if you’re a single parent, make it clear that you need to schedule your day to balance multiple responsibilities—and don’t apologize for that requirement.

2. Discover Your Calling

In You Are a Badass, Jen Sincero writes that once you’ve decided to change, you need to find your calling: how you can use your unique gifts and skills. Sincero recommends several techniques for figuring out your purpose:

Imagine you’re an alien suddenly inhabiting your body, so that everything is new. Ask yourself, who is this person I’ve inhabited? What do they have fun doing? What are they awesome at? What are you going to do with this incredible new life you’ve stepped into? This can make you aware of possibilities and resources you may take for granted.
Dive in and do something—anything. Don’t waste time figuring out the perfect next move; just start with one thing that feels right and keep heading in that direction.
Watch what other people are doing. You don’t have to invent your life from scratch. Look around and see whose life makes you jealous. Identify the specifics you like about their life.

3: Turn Your Resolutions Into Habits

To overcome your fears and follow your calling, you’ll have to adopt new habits. In Atomic Habits, James Clear advises that you make a specific and measurable plan to implement new behaviors—which he calls an implementation intention.

The two most important cues for your plan are time and place, so when scheduling your resolutions, be as specific as possible: Instead of saying, “I’ll exercise every day,” say, “I’ll walk for 20 minutes around my office building at 2 p.m. every day.” This removes the need for inspiration or motivation to kick in.

How to Kick a Bad Habit

In The Compound Effect, Darren Hardy says there are five strategies to help get rid of bad habits:

Know your triggers. What situations trigger bad habits? (Do you drink too much with a certain group of friends? Do you crave chocolate at a certain time of day?)
Get rid of it. Throw out the objects enabling your bad habits.
Find replacements. Find something healthy that can replace the bad habit.
Take it easy. You don’t have to go cold turkey. Since they are so entrenched, you may need to take small steps toward unwinding your bad habits.
Or don’t take it easy. While it’s probably the exception and not the rule, some people actually do better changing a lot of bad habits at once.

4. Chunk the Year and Chunk Your Goals

In The 12 Week Year, Brian Morgan and Michael Lennington write that most people create goals based on an annual plan of attack: They give themselves until December to achieve resolutions set in January. This mindset, however, encourages you to procrastinate until the December deadline comes into focus.

Instead, the authors argue that you should think of the year as a series of 12-week bursts, and then divide your goals into steps you can accomplish in each of these shorter periods. When you focus for just 12 weeks on one aspect of your annualized plan, your deadline is always in sight, which helps you push past your productivity limits and motivates you to achieve more immediate results.

Tips on Keeping Resolutions:

In her book Girl, Wash Your Face, Rachel Hollis provides advice on keeping promises to yourself. She writes that when you commit to keeping every resolution you make to yourself, these strategies will help.

Start with one small goal. Don’t overwhelm yourself with a big general goal, such as starting a diet. Rather, start by adding a new, good habit, such as drinking water. When you achieve that for a month or so, you set a higher standard and can add on something together.
Slow down your commitments. Only commit to things you know you can finish because they’re important to you. Otherwise you set yourself up for failure.
Be honest with yourself. When you blow something off, acknowledge what you’re doing. If you look at all the commitments you’ve canceled in the last month, you’ll see how you’re training yourself to behave.

How to Make Your 2025 New Year’s Resolutions Stick