Don't Set New Year Resolutions Until You've Read This

Understand the two types of goal-setting and be clear on which you're doing.

Fitness goals in 2025?

Why Our Approach to New Year Resolutions Can Fall Short

Every January we're bombarded with advice about New Year's resolutions.

"Set SMART goals!"

"Stay motivated beyond January,” or

“Break big goals into small steps!”

While these tips can be helpful, a one-size-fits-all approach overlooks something crucial: our individual psychology - the underlying influences on our desire to pursue personal goals.

What if the key to achieving meaningful change isn’t just in the resolution itself but in understanding why we set certain goals in the first place?

Our self-worth and self-belief profoundly influence how we strive and what we aim for. By ignoring this layer, resolutions often fail to stick or perhaps more importantly - bring the satisfaction we’re looking for.

The Two Key Reasons We Aim for Goals

In 1998* American psychologist Benjamin Dykman outlined two main reasons we try to achieve goals: growth-seeking and validation-seeking.

Growth-seeking goals arise from a genuine desire to expand your knowledge, skills, or joy. They are inherently fulfilling, correlate with better mood and are linked to better engagement with the task (even when faced with obstacles that could de-rail our efforts).

In contrast, validation-seeking goals stem from a need to prove your worth because you crave reassurance from others. They often reflect an internalised fear that you’re not enough as you are. This correlates with lower self-esteem and higher levels of anticipatory anxiety around stressful events.

Unfortunately, people who have self-doubts or insecurities are more likely to set validation-seeking goals for themselves.

This may translate to New Year Resolutions linked to being a “better” partner, parent, or friend, but the underlying motivation is fear—fear of rejection, failure, or inadequacy.

This type of goal-orientation is a response to critical or perfectionist parenting, where your achievement was tied to conditional approval. It creates a threat-based reason for pursing your goals, making it harder to enjoy them as you are constantly evaluating yourself. Threat-mode makes it harder to get into a flow state which is where creativity and fulfilment thrive.

The good news is that even New Year Resolutions rooted in external validation can be reframed to tap into your personal values and growth-seeking motivations too:

• Validation-seeking motivation: “I’ll lose weight (so others will find me more attractive or acceptable).”
  Growth-seeking motivation: “I’ll lose weight (so I can feel energised and enjoy hiking).”

• Validation-seeking motivation: “I’ll start a new hobby (so I seem more interesting to others).”
  Growth-seeking motivation: “I’ll start a new hobby (because I love being creative).”

• Validation-seeking motivation: “I’ll be more organised (so people won’t judge me negatively).”
  Growth motivation: “I’ll be more organised (to save time and focus on what matters most to me).”

Refocusing on your growth-seeking motivations rather than allowing the validation-seeking reasons to dominate, protects you from over-doing it; resentment, and a persistent sense of striving but never arriving.

How to Set Growth-Seeking Resolutions for 2025

If you’re ready to take a different approach to the new year, here are some steps to guide you:

1. Practice Self-Compassion

Compassion isn’t just for others—it’s also the foundation for breaking free from fear’s constant need for reassurance. Recognise that your tendency to seek approval likely developed as a way to feel safe and valued. Instead of judging yourself for it, acknowledge that this is normal and part of being human. Remind yourself: It’s OK to also listen to my own wishes and desires and to prioritise these. I am worthy of care and respect—including from myself.

2. Reconnect with Your Core Values

You can discover your core values by reflecting on these questions (I highly recommend doing this during a crisp winter solo-walk as the bilateral leg movement helps our thinking to be freer and more creative):

• What truly matters to me? Not what I’ve been told should matter, but what feels deeply meaningful to me. Is it connection? Adventure? Creativity? Fun?

• What makes me feel alive?

• What do I love to do when no one is watching?

  
  Write down your top three to five values and use them as a foundation for your intentions. Let these preferences guide your decisions in 2025.

3. Recognise the Cost of Validation-Seeking

Take an honest look at how striving for external validation has shaped your life, have you:

• Overcommitted and spread yourself too thin?

• Lost touch with your own preferences and desires?

• Sacrificed your well-being to meet others’ expectations?
  
  Recognising these patterns might bring up some sadness as the reality of losses become clear—allow this sadness some space, it shows that coming back to alignment with your own values is something you do deeply desire. This awareness will help you to make intentional choices moving forward.

4. Write Down the Validation-seeking AND Growth-seeking Reasons for Each Resolution

As I demonstrated earlier, write out each resolution then ask yourself how you’re hoping others will see you if you achieve them (this gives you clarity about the underlying validation you’re seeking). Then check in with your values (from point 2 above) and rewrite each resolution to focus on these. This step gives you clarity about your growth-seeking reasons..

This might be hard to hear but… if you cannot think of a growth-seeking reason for a specific resolution then perhaps this isn’t the right way to spend your energy in 2025.

An example:

• Validation-seeking motivation: “I’ll become a vegan (because that’s what all my friends are doing and I’ll be more accepted by them).”

• Growth-seeking motivation: “I’ll aim to have a meat-free Monday because my health is important to me and I feel better in myself when I reduce meat”

5. Embrace Imperfection

Growth-seeking resolutions by their very nature aren’t about being perfect—they’re about showing up with awareness and making choices that feel right for you in the moment. Give yourself permission to pivot, adjust, or let go of resolutions that no longer resonate as the year unfolds.

6. Celebrate Your Wins (Even the Small Ones)

Take time to acknowledge and celebrate the moments when you live in alignment with your intentions for growth. Whether it’s saying no to an unnecessary commitment, taking a much-needed rest, or pursuing something you genuinely enjoy, these small acts of self-honouring deserve recognition.

I like to talk to my clients about an imaginary airing-cupboard with all these wins folded up as warm, fluffy towels. When you are feeling disconnected from your values or unsure on which choice to go with, imagine going to your airing cupboard and taking out one of your wins and wrapping it around you – embodying the feeling of those achievements can reconnect us to our why as well as feeling good!

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Do 2025 Differently

As you set your resolutions for the new year, remember this: You are already enough. Think about the people in your life who already believe this about you—your children, a close friend, a colleague you’ve supported. Their belief in your worth reflects a fundamental truth: You don’t need to earn your value through relentless striving.

This year, when your inner critic urges you to “do more” or “be better” pause and see if you can also listen in to what you actually want and come back to this to anchor yourself. When you focus on living authentically and aligning your day-to-day actions with your values, you’ll find that contentment and joy are within reach.

Here’s to a kinder way of being in 2025.

What Next?

1. What New Year Resolution are you thinking of setting for yourself? Do share it in the comments below so we can help you connect with your growth-seeking motivations for this.

2. If this post has highlighted chronic low self-esteem which you would like to work on in 2025 then you might want to consider therapy. You can enquire with my team of experienced psychologists here.

Read next: Do You Dislike How Competitive You Get?

References

*Dykman, B. M. (1998). Integrating cognitive and motivational factors in depression: Initial tests of a goal-orientation approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(1), 139–158. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.1.139