Blog Post 29th January 2026 
Tired of Making the Same Old New Year’s Resolutions?
So many of us make resolutions at the start of every year. And so many of us will find ourselves making the same resolutions as last year.
Every year we return with positivity and determination in equal measure, convinced that this year will be different. We might not have succeeded last year, nor the year before, but we tell ourselves that this year will be different. 2026 will be the year of change!
Will it? Or will we find ourselves on the cusp of 2027, another year older, making the exact same resolutions?
Maybe something else needs to change this year? Using cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy can help you to make long lasting change.
Aspirations
There’s nothing wrong with aspiration, or trying to reset, but it can be easy to get stuck in a cycle of aspirational self-improvement: to start with enthusiasm and vigour, then for ‘real-life’ to kick in, the time and energy for the goals to be achieved dwindling and feelings of failure setting in.
Whether resolutions are focussed on decluttering, increasing physical activity, decreasing screen time, weight-loss or weight management, nail-biting (the list could be endless!) this cycle is familiar to the many people who make behavioural resolutions.
Why do so many New Year’s Resolutions fail?
Many people consider their resolutions between Christmas and New Year – a time where normal routine is suspended, or at the very least, altered. It’s easy to forget the demands of normal life. Not because we’re daft, but because we want things to be different, we focus our attention on the positives.
Think about someone who’s been advised to lose weight. They make a resolution to avoid eating ultra processed food and lose two stone by the summer. This has been their resolution for the past 3 years, only at the end of 2022 they were trying to lose one stone. Before New Year, they are inspired to cook from scratch and spend their time off work researching ingredients and recipes, inspired by social media.
This goes well, until the second week in January and the demands of real-life resurge with vigour. Time is pressed; energy is needed for work, family or social responsibilities. Social media feeds are filling up with stories of others’ ‘amazing’ weight loss stories. Batch cooking begins to take over the weekend, and meals are becoming monotonous as the motivation and energy to experiment wanes. One night on the way home from work, tired and hungry, and realising they didn’t yet get around to grocery shopping, they stop off for a quick meal of convenience (and full of UPFs). Just this once.
That short-lived feeling of satisfaction is quickly replaced with the narrative of failure and chastisement which often prompt a need for self-soothing. Coupled with the all-or nothing thinking of ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’ and hunger hormones crying out for more food, they comfort themselves with eating more UPFs in the form of chocolate, telling themselves that tomorrow’s a new day and they’ll start again.
And this works, until it doesn’t. Whether that’s three weeks or three months later. The self-talking narrative becomes that they’re a failure, rubbish at diets. They continue to compare themselves to a polished social media feed, compounding their feelings of low self-worth which in turn requires more self-soothing.
This is not because they’re ill-disciplined or weak – it’s because what they are trying to achieve is difficult and is influenced by so many aspects of themselves and their lives.
Positivity and determination are great attributes for enacting change but are rarely a match for the complexities that make us human.
How does lasting change happen?
To make effective, lasting change we need to understand why we behave the way we do. Until we identify and accept that, any change in behaviour is likely to be short lived, with the risk of the rebound effect, creating a negative cycle as described above. Identifying the thoughts and feelings that sustain these behavioural patterns is key to evaluating and restructuring them so that they better serve us.
Humans are not simple beings. Whilst a goal of weight-loss might sound simple (‘just eat less and move more’), taking this at face value and trying to apply a simple solution undermines the challenges experienced by many. Likewise with decluttering – ‘just throw the stuff out / recycle it’.
Taking a holistic, integrated approach, using five domains, can help us to understand ourselves better and make the changes we want to make. For example, eating behaviours can be influenced by our emotions, thoughts, physiological state, and imagination. And, in turn, our eating behaviours can influence each of these domains. For example, if our physiological state is one of stress, we are more likely to engage with eating behaviours that will deliver an instant sense of comfort. It’s different for everyone, but if we understand that this physiological state is sustaining unhelpful eating behaviours, then it lets us see that finding new and effective ways of reducing stress is where our time and efforts would be better spent.
Whilst we can address them all, we often find that positive intervention in one or two of these domains can have a positive impact on the others.
Mindset – think about values, rather than goals
Goals can be helpful but often as part of a bigger picture. They can be ticked off, achieved and that feels good. But then what? The constant pursuit of goal achievement leaves little room for contentment. Contentment allows us to appreciate what we have, what we are, what’s happening now.
Taking a values-led approach, working out what’s important to you and the person you want to be can lead to lasting change. It’s not about achieving a specific goal, more about the small day-to-day actions and behaviours that take you closer to being who you want to be and to living the life that you want to live. There’s no end point as such, more that these small decisions and actions help move you (or keep you) in closer proximity to your values. Conversely, identifying actions that do not align with your values or who you want to be, helps you to notice these more consciously and make a decision as to how you wish to proceed.
A benefit of adopting a values led approach is that dealing with setbacks is easier. If our action takes us further away from our values, it’s not an all-or-nothing situation which makes us feel like we’ve failed and we might as well give up. Whilst the behaviour might move us away a little, positive actions can move us back in the general direction of where we want to be.
Identify barriers
Trying to change long -standing behaviours can be difficult for many reasons. A surprising one is that the behaviour we’re trying to stop is serving a purpose in our lives. The example above of eating for comfort during times of stress applies here. This could also apply if it’s a new behaviour we’re trying to adopt, or there could be fear holding us back. Sometimes the fear is straightforward and easy to identify, for example, a fear of rejection when attempting to join a social group. Other times it can be a bit more obscure. Sometimes addressing the barrier is what’s required, other times it’s more helpful to identify other strategies for overcoming that barrier.
At times, the barriers can involve other people. Apprehension about how others might react to the changes we make, or in our actions can be unsettling. This is why it’s important to take time to figure out what matters to you and what your priorities are. This can be difficult to navigate which is why seeking support is important.
Identifying barriers can take time and courage because it requires us to be honest with ourselves. However, once identified and addressed it makes desired change so much more accessible and sustainable.
Seek support
Making changes in how we live our lives to better align with our values might impact on other people too. That’s OK. Having their support can make a world of difference so taking time to explain to them the changes you want to make and why it’s important for you can help with this. Often, friends and family will want to be supportive but might not be sure what they can do so it helps if we’re prepared to let them know how, specifically, they can support.
For example, someone who values their time and wants to be more productive might identify ‘endless doomscrolling on their phone’ as a behaviour they’d like to change. They could ask their partner or flatmate to remind them (kindly!) that they’d like to set a 10-minute timer to limit the time spent, or perhaps ask them what else they’d like to be achieving at this time. Being specific about the support required reduces ambiguity and gives direction and permission to your supporters. This level of support won’t be required forever, but can be useful in the transitory phase.
Support might also come from others in a similar situation. Peer support can be invaluable when we’re seeking solidarity or empathy. Being able to tap into the wisdom and experience of those who’ve navigated these waters before us can help us to avoid some pitfalls or, to fall into pits, knowing that it’s possible to climb back out and crack on!
We don’t set these aspirational goals because we’re daft – sometimes we do it because we’re hopeful, we’re swept along with the idea of new year, new you. However, on the stroke of midnight, as the calendar flips into a new year, we don’t actually change, our circumstances don’t change. We’re the same as we’ve always been but now with a new burden of expectation that we’ve placed on ourselves. This is why it’s not easy.
If you are serious about making a change and want 2026 to be the last year that you make this particular resolution, seeking support from a professional can be a worthwhile investment of your time. When we’re in the midst of a stressful situation or in a rush, it can be incredibly difficult to find the time, or indeed the presence of mind, to ask ourselves if our actions align with our values and who we want to be, never mind come up with the answer that will move us in the direction we want to go. This is where hypnotherapy can make a difference.
In hypnotherapy, we utilise our imaginative domain and using our imagination to rehearse coping well with these difficult situations. This can set us up to deal with them effectively and more easily as we’ve rehearsed this so vividly that it feels like we’ve already encountered the situation, dealt with it fine and moved on to the next thing. Using imagined rehearsal in hypnotherapy is empowering, it creates that window, that split second that we need in order to gather our senses and make a behavioural choice that aligns with our values.
Combined with cognitive and behavioural therapeutic approaches to help us understand ourselves and find out what is maintaining the cycle of unhelpful behaviour, hypnotherapy can support us to make long-lasting change.
As a cognitive behavioural hypnotherapist, I take a holistic approach which allows me to support you in working out what’s important to you and what’s holding you back. We can then address these issues using a combination of cognitive restructuring of any unhelpful thoughts and beliefs; behavioural approaches to support the development of new, helpful behaviours (and also the eradication of those which you have deemed unhelpful) and relaxation techniques which help you to focus on being the person you’d like to be.