Ask the Expert: How to successfully set and stick to your New Year’s resolutions

Marina Zhukova, PhD, licensed psychologist and assistant professor, McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, and director of the UTHealth Houston Center for Eating Disorders

Welcome to "Ask the Expert," a new UTHealth Houston newsroom series where our leading physicians examine pressing health challenges. In this edition, we address how to successfully stick to your New Year’s resolutions.

The new year gives us a powerful feeling of starting over. It’s the same energy people feel on a Monday, when they tell themselves, “This week will be different.” There is something appealing about the idea of a clean slate. But the truth is we do not wake up on January 1 as a completely new person.

Lasting change comes from aligning resolutions with your values and building habits slowly and intentionally over time. The good news? Sustainable habits don’t require perfection — just consistency, patience, and a little strategy.

What makes a good New Year's resolution? 

A strong resolution should reflect your values: the things that matter most to you, not what you think you “should” want. When a goal is grounded in values, like health, family, creativity, balance, or community, motivation feels more natural because the behavior connects to something meaningful.

A good resolution is also clear and realistic. Instead of deciding to completely overhaul your life all at once, focus on setting SMART goals – specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. Think of January 1 as an opportunity to realign with what matters most and take the next step forward.

What are some tips for sticking to your resolutions once they’re set? 

One helpful approach is habit stacking. This means attaching a new behavior to something you already do every day. When new habits piggyback on old ones, they feel much easier to remember and maintain. For example:

• After I brush my teeth, I’ll stretch for two minutes.
• When I make morning coffee, I’ll take vitamins.

Another tip is to focus on consistency rather than perfection. Progress rarely looks perfect. Some days you’ll follow your plan, some days you won’t. The win is showing up again. Small, consistent actions compound over time. A helpful way to think about this is to imagine accidentally dropping a single ingredient while cooking. If you spill a little flour on the counter, you wouldn’t throw out the entire recipe and start over from scratch. You simply wipe up the mess, add what you need, and keep cooking. Habits work the same way. A moment of difficulty doesn’t undo everything you’ve built. You can clean up the moment and continue forward.

Make your environment work in your favor. When the tools you need are easier to access, the habits you want become easier to follow. Even small adjustments — like putting your running shoes by the door or keeping healthier snacks where you can see them — can have a meaningful impact.

What should you do if you have trouble sticking to your resolutions? 

Prepare for setbacks. Old habits feel familiar, so slipping back into them is normal. The setback itself is rarely the problem. What keeps people stuck are the thoughts like “I failed” or “I am weak,” which create guilt or shame, and lead to giving up the new habit altogether.

It helps to redefine what a setback means. A setback is simply information that the habit is still developing. It is equivalent to taking a wrong turn while driving. You do not start the trip over. You adjust and keep going. When you view setbacks as part of the process rather than proof that change is impossible, it becomes much easier to reset and continue.

By: Marina Zhukova, PhD, licensed psychologist and assistant professor, Louis A. Faillace, MD, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, and director of the UTHealth Houston Center for Eating Disorders. All quotes should be attributed to her. 

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