Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail—and What Actually Works

If it’s still January and you’re already tired of the idea of starting over, you’re not alone—and you’re not lacking discipline.

Most New Year’s resolutions fail not because people don’t try hard enough, but because the resolutions themselves are built on the wrong foundation. This is especially true when it comes to weight loss.

For years, I set the same types of goals: lose 30 pounds, go to the gym five days a week, quit eating sugar. Every January, I felt motivated. And every year, by February—or let’s be honest, sometimes by January 7th—I had either forgotten the goal, sabotaged it, or decided it was unrealistic.

By March, the goal was gone. But the desire for the result never left.

That cycle feels terrible. And feeling terrible is not how lasting change happens.

Why We Set Goals in the First Place

Here’s the thing: We don’t set goals because of the goal itself. We set goals because of how we think we’ll feel when we achieve them.

The resolution to lose weight isn’t really about the number on the scale. It’s about our desire to feel confident, accomplished, attractive, and comfortable in our bodies. Working out consistently isn’t about checking off workouts—it’s about feeling strong and capable. Quitting sugar isn’t about restriction—it’s about wanting more energy and ease.

This applies to all goals. Promotions, more time with family, starting a business—every goal leads back to a desired feeling state like accomplishment, connection, or purpose.

In fact, the reason humans take any action at all is because we believe it will make us feel better. We put on a sweater because we’re cold. We go to bed early because we think tomorrow will feel easier. We eat because we think it will help us feel better in the moment.

Wanting to feel better is not the problem. That part is very human. And when you allow yourself to feel good, it doesn’t just affect you—it positively impacts the people around you, too.

Where Traditional Resolutions Go Wrong

Here’s where things break down.

We assume that to feel good later, we have to feel terrible now.

To lose weight, we believe we must deprive ourselves of foods we enjoy. To be fit, we think we must suffer through workouts we hate. We accept discomfort, restriction, and punishment as the price of success.

But this logic doesn’t hold up.

If the path to your goal feels miserable, the destination will too.

If you lose weight by feeling chronically deprived, you don’t suddenly feel free and happy once you reach your goal. You have to keep doing the same things that made you miserable just to keep it going. 

That’s why so many people regain the weight—not because they failed, but because the method was unsustainable.

You cannot pave the road to success with suffering and expect joy at the finish line.

The Myth of No Pain, No Gain

Let’s call this out directly: the idea that suffering leads to success is a lie.

Suffering does not produce sustainable joy. It produces burnout, rebellion, and relapse.

We’ve been taught that discipline has to hurt, that goals require sacrifice, and that ease means you’re doing it wrong. But if success only exists on the other side of suffering, then the cost never actually goes away—you just keep paying it.

Real success is something that should feel good while it’s happening, not only when you finally “arrive.”

If the method feels terrible, the destination will too.

The Identity Shift That Changes Everything

Here’s the reframe that changes everything:

Instead of waiting to feel good after you reach your goal, commit to feeling good now—and in the action you take along the way.

This is not about ignoring your goals. It’s about shifting from forcing behavior to aligning your identity.

When the commitment is to how you want to feel, behavior naturally begins to change. You stop trying to control yourself and start paying attention to what actually supports you.

This is alignment over force. Identity over willpower.

And it’s rooted in self-trust—not self-punishment.

When you stop fighting yourself and start aligning with how you want to feel, change stops being exhausting and starts becoming inevitable.

Real Life Example: Choosing Feeling Good

Let me give you an example of this from my own life to show you how it works. 

At one point, I committed to taking actions that helped me feel good physically and emotionally—100% of the time.

Is that a big goal? Yes. Is it technically impossible to feel good all the time? Probably. But that wasn’t the point.

The point was that the goal excited me. It motivated me. It would stretch me. And that excitement made me want to take action.

From that commitment, my choices became clearer.

Goodbye, ice cream. I love ice cream—it’s delicious. But I don’t feel good after eating it. I have IBS, and it aggravates my system. So ice cream was out. Not because it was “bad,” but because it didn’t align with how I wanted to feel.

Goodbye, more than two glasses of wine. I want to feel good tomorrow, and when I go beyond that, I don’t. It often leads to other choices that don’t support me either. So that boundary made sense.

Goodbye, grueling workouts at the gym. I hate the gym. I love exercise and how I feel when I move my body—but not all forms of movement feel good to me. Walking outside and going to Pilates allow me to feel strong and energized. Is it challenging sometimes? Yes. But it feels good, and that’s why it’s sustainable.

When feeling good becomes the priority, the path to your goals starts to feel good, too.

And that’s when change lasts.

Impossible goals work when they feel expansive instead of restrictive.

The Difference Between Temporary Results and Lasting Change

When I was losing my unwanted 30 pounds years ago, I made one decision that changed everything: 

I wasn’t going to do anything to lose weight that I wasn’t willing to do for the rest of my life.

This decision matters because, as humans, we’re wired to seek pleasure and avoid discomfort. You can suffer your way to a result temporarily—but you cannot sustain it.

If reaching a goal requires you to feel deprived, restricted, or miserable, you will eventually return to the version of life that feels better. Not because you failed, but because that’s how human behavior works.

Lasting change only happens when the process itself feels supportive. If you want to feel good when you get there, the way you get there has to feel good too.

A New Way Forward

This approach is the complete antithesis of what most of us were taught. 

It’s not about dieting, deprivation, or control. This isn’t about willpower or forcing yourself to behave better—it’s about removing the friction that makes change so hard in the first place.

It’s about alignment. It’s about choosing actions that support how you want to feel—physically, emotionally, and mentally.

It’s revolutionary—but grounded.

And it works because it’s rooted in love, not force.

You don’t have to do this perfectly. You just have to be willing to pay attention to what actually supports you—and let go of what doesn’t.

A Different Kind of Resolution

My hope for you is that this year feels different—not because you’re trying harder, but because you’re approaching your goals in a new way.

Let’s make this the year you experience transformation with food, with weight, with feeling good, and with loving yourself in a way that actually lasts.

The goal isn’t just weight loss. It’s releasing deprivation, quieting the constant mental chatter around food and weight, and creating space to live your life fully and intentionally.

You deserve that.

If you want support applying this approach, I’d love to talk with you. You can book a coffee chat with me at liapinelli.com.

Let’s do this differently—from a place of love.