If you are like most people, you likely made a resolution on New Year’s Day—perhaps to read TheFactFile.com daily (good job so far by the way) or donate weekly (we’ll take you at your word).  You are probably also familiar with all of the studies that indicate you will fail.

According to a 1998 study by Elizabeth Miller and Alan Marlatt, the most popular New Year’s resolutions are exercising (37%), eating better (13%), and reducing the consumption of alcohol, drugs, or quitting smoking (7%). But of those surveyed in this study, a full 75 percent failed at sticking to their resolutions within six months.

So what determines how successful an individual will be in sticking to their resolutions? According to a 2002 study by Norcross, Mrykalo, and Balgys, the main determinant is one’s commitment to their resolution. This study took two groups—those who made New Year’s Resolutions (“resolvers”) and those who did not (“nonresolvers”)—to determine the factors that led to success. Perhaps unsurprisingly, resolvers reported higher success rates than nonresolvers; in fact, 46 percent were continually successful for at least six months, compared to only 4 percent of nonresolvers. As the authors note, self-efficacy (in other words, belief in their ability to accomplish their goals), skills to change, and readiness to change assessed before January 1 all predicted positive outcomes for resolvers. Similar results were found in a more recent paper by Mukhopadhay and Johar (2005), which found that people with a high degree of self-control and those who believe that change can be accomplished with some degree of effort—i.e., those who think “I can exercise everyday if I just put my mind to it”—are very successful. On the other hand, those who believe that self-control is not possible because of factors beyond their control—i.e., those who use things like “being big boned” or “having a slow metabolism” as excuses for failure to keep exercising—are most likely to fail.

To summarize, to be successful in sticking to your resolutions of reading The Fact File daily and donating weekly, all you have to do is stay positive, committed, and cognizant that doing so is completely within your power.  On the other hand, if you believe that you’ll never be able to read The Fact File daily because your connection is too slow or that donating online is beyond your capacity, then you’ll most likely break your resolution and severely disappoint us (not that you should be motivated by guilt).  But, we want you to know that we are rooting for you, just commit and believe.