Making resolutions? How about some helpful tools toward reaching goals, while maintaining clear expectations.

For some, the New Year offers great potential; new beginnings, increased optimism for opportunities to come, and feelings of hope for potential growth and self-improvement. It might be why, according to Pew Research, 3 in 10 adults in America make resolutions for the New Year. Also of importance is the reality that studies demonstrate most resolutions end sadly unfulfilled, only a month or so into the New Year.

Yet, what if we could challenge that last statistic, by creating resolutions for ourselves which contain clear, concrete tools and strategies toward increased success, thus having a goal with an expectation as to how to achieve it? Often, it is not about the goal, but about the expectation, that ultimately derails us. 

A great example regarding the New Year’s resolution often surrounds a goal of living a healthier lifestyle. We create the goal of a healthier lifestyle – which is a great goal by the way – and we focus on the expectations we ascribe to that goal. We expect an almost immediate return on our expectation by way of quick and consistent weight loss, or immediate instant energy. Or we create expectations such as exercising daily for an hour, even when our work/life balance might preclude such an endeavor. Then, when we realize, after a week or so, that the expectation is not in sync with what we had hoped, we begin to feel frustrated, sometimes dejected. We might even think we have failed. We ditch the goal, when in reality, it is about revising the expectations to be more in sync with our present circumstance.

For example, if we expect to exercise daily, yet our work/life balance makes that realistically impossible, rather than ditch the goal of improving our health, we could revise the expectation and engage in movement daily with exercise 2 to 3 times each week. After a month or so, we can evaluate the goal and chosen expectations, modifying those expectations as appropriate. Allowing the goal to remain, while exploring and revising the expectations to include awareness of the potential of taking a ‘side-step’ as we journey toward our goal, we provide for ourselves the grace for those occasional side-steps. After all, we are human, and sometimes, even with an amazing goal, we struggle with the expectations which accompany it. That struggle is what inevitably gets in the way. Perhaps one could look at it this way: The goal represents the end result. The expectation represents the journey toward getting there.

Being mindful of affirming goals while embracing realistic expectations enables us to walk slowly – and steadily – toward our destination. May our New Year resolutions be affirming and our expectations fulfilled.

To 2026!

© 2025: Donna J Clarke/Integrative Pathways Counseling, LLC. All rights reserved