New Year’s Resolutions That Won’t Fail, Plus Mine
The Art of Having An Amazing 2025
It’s that time of the year again. People write down their New Year’s resolutions and proceed to fail at keeping them a couple of weeks into the year. In the United States, 38% of people make New Year’s resolutions, but only 9% keep them. Statistically speaking, you are more likely to get diabetes than keep your goals.
New Year’s resolutions are supposed to be a tool to inspire and motivate you into the new year. But in reality, they often end up being a surefire way to start the year wrong and lose confidence by February.
But what if I told you I’ve figured out a way to make fail-proof New Year’s resolutions?
OK, I’m not saying you will achieve 100%, but you can flip the probabilities—making it so you succeed 91% of the time and fail 9%. Would you believe me?
No? Distrust me at your own peril. I’ll prove it to you. Here is a fail-proof one.
A Fail-Proof New Year’s Resolution
In 2025, the goals are:
Find flaws in another person every day.
Get into gambling (or options trading) and lose at least $5,000 by the end of the year.
Get upset at someone, something, or the world every day.
Write down one thing you want that someone else has every day.
Watch porn five out of seven days a week.
Eat something sweet every day.
Don’t exercise for 300 out of 365 days.
There it is. If you set these goals, I can basically promise you that you can achieve them 91% of the time. And it would be relatively easy.
Now you’re rolling your eyes like a teenager: “Jia, yes, anyone can keep these, but why would anyone in their right mind want to have goals like that? That’s like writing a show script where the good guy becomes the bad guy, does evil things to the world, and loses everything in the end. Who wants to watch a show like that?”
My answer:
You obviously haven’t watched Breaking Bad.
You’re right. No one wants loser resolutions like that. But what if you could have resolutions that are just as achievable but are inspiring, productive, and get you to the places you want to be?
That’s the goal of this article.
The Power of Human Nature
Before we get there, let’s examine why the Breaking Bad New Year’s Resolution is so easily achievable.
The answer is simple: all the goals and actions align with human nature, not against it.
In fact, if you examine the Breaking Bad resolutions closely, you’ll find they are based on the Seven Deadly Sins of human nature:
The Breaking Bad Resolutions
Find flaws in another person every day. [PRIDE]
Get into gambling (or options trading) and lose at least $5,000 by the end of the year. [GREED]
Get upset at someone, something, or the world every day. [WRATH]
Write down one thing you want that someone else has every day. [ENVY]
Watch porn five out of seven days a week. [LUST]
Eat something sweet every day. [GLUTTONY]
Don’t exercise for 300 out of 365 days. [SLOTH]
You see, it’s much easier to take actions that align with human nature. You can do them passively, like rolling downhill with gravity, and descend into chaos.
That’s why the Breaking Bad resolutions feel easy and achievable.
When You Go Uphill
Now let’s examine the other side—a typical New Year’s resolution. If it were a show, it would be The Pursuit of Happyness. The hero works hard and gets everything they want in the end.
It would look like this:
The Typical Pursuit of Happyness Resolutions
Lose 15 lbs for the year.
Double my income for the year.
Improve my relationship with my parents or significant other.
Volunteer 30 out of 365 days.
Show gratitude to someone every day.
Get promoted at work.
Start writing the book I’ve been thinking about.
But these are precisely the types of resolutions you fail at 91% of the time.
Why? Because the Pursuit of Happyness resolutions require actions like these:
Actively exercise 5 out of 7 days and control your eating habits.
Actively work hard and creatively to find more income streams.
Actively invest time to talk, help, and be with the people important to you.
Actively set aside time to volunteer.
Actively observe and think about gratitude.
Actively improve work performance, network with colleagues, and find ways to bring value to your company.
Actively put words on screens, one letter at a time.
The word “actively” is key here. Taking hard actions is against physics and inertia. It takes non-stop external force. It’s also against human nature. It’s like declaring war on yourself for a year. Despite what David Goggins tells you, it is extremely hard, if not impossible.
Now, I’m all for doing hard things to achieve rare heights, but I’m also realistic about going against human nature, how easy it is to fail, and how demoralizing it feels when failure hits.
If you think you can do it, sure, but statistics are not on your side. There’s a 91% chance you will fail.
Life is too short to have an unending battle against yourself, only to fail repeatedly. Let’s have some fun. Let’s be at peace. Let’s get some wins and feel good at the same time.
Can you?
Yes, you can!
The Power of Love
Let’s talk about love. Before you roll your eyes even harder, from a teenager to the Exorcist, let me tell you about love.
Love is the biggest antidote for a civil war within you, between your deadly sins and your aspirations.
Love is the lever that tilts the plane, so instead of going uphill AGAINST human nature, you go downhill WITH it.
Love is the key for you to achieve the Pursuit of Happiness resolution with the same ease as you achieve the Breaking Bad resolution.
Love never fails.
The Breaking Bad resolutions tap into your human nature, so you are doing things you secretly love, such as pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth, even though your aspiration and morality tell you not to.
To keep the Pursuit of Happiness resolutions, the key is to turn the results you want into actions you love instead of ones you hate. So you roll downhill toward your goals, not climb uphill toward your goals.
So how do you create lovable actions toward your goals? Two ways:
#1: Do What You Love
There are many ways to achieve an outcome. Instead of only focusing on traditional or common actions—ones that other people and “experts” tell you to take—come up with your own lovable actions.
For example, to lose 15 lbs, you don’t have to just run, lift weights, or swim. Unless you like these actions, they can feel boring and laborious to you.
For me, I have consistently used basketball as my exercise tool over the years. It’s an outlet for my competitive energy as well as a way to stay active. A “playing more basketball” resolution is as easy as it gets.
To improve your relationship with your loved ones, instead of “just talking,” what if you find topics and actions you both love?
For me, to maintain and improve my relationship with my wife Tracy, I bought two maps—one for the world and one for the US. We put red pins on everywhere we want to visit and replace them with blue pins when we visit them together. Over the years, it’s been our way to share life and explore the world together.
My resolution would be “replacing five red pins this year.”
You are the only person who knows what actions you love, and you are the only person who knows how to turn your goals into these actions. But if you tap into your creativity, you’ll find them.
#2: Love What You Do
Now, the second option is to put unloved actions into a different context so you can love them.
For example, I used to hate the idea of cycling. Riding a bike on the road or the mountain felt like peeling off my toenails every day. However, I was intrigued by Peloton during the pandemic and bought one. Four years and 497 rides later, it has become a core part of my life. I have since maintained a weight and physique I am proud of.
Another example was writing. I had been writing newsletters on and off for almost a decade. To be honest, I have never truly enjoyed writing.
However, Substack has changed everything. Substack has a built-in community and all the newsletter features I need. But more importantly, it can publish both email newsletters and web articles at the same time. The time-saving was a game-changer. I can now focus on writing instead of design and all the miscellaneous work.
Now, I am addicted to writing. You are reading this article because of Substack.
Recently, I wrote an article called System Smart - Your Third Intelligence. Systems’ ultimate purpose is turning actions you don’t currently love into ones you do.
Moreover, I wrote two articles called Amazing Conversation with Anyone. I used to hate small talk with strangers. Part One talks about how I now love it by turning chitchat into a problem-solving exercise. Part Two talks about how I turn every encounter into a piece of art.
These are examples of having systems that put actions into different contexts and mindsets, transforming them from loathsome to lovable.
My New Year’s Resolution for 2025
At the end, I am going to put my money where my mouth is. Here is my New Year’s Resolution for 2025. Because it’s made of actions I love, I know 2025 will be a year of rolling downhill toward my goals instead of an uphill climb.
Writing
Outcome #1: Finish the draft of The Art of Achieving Ambitious Things
Outcome #2: Publish 100 newsletter articles on Substack
Action goals: Write 15 hours a week. Monday and Thursday for Substack; Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday for the book.
Health
Outcome #3: Achieve a 300 watts FTP.
Action goals: Exercise 6 times a week. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday on Peloton, and Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday on weights, with basketball on Sunday.
Relationship
Outcome #4: Replace five more red pins with blue pins
Action goal: Travel with Tracy to Vietnam in February, Europe in March, and China in July.
Outcome #5: Keep improving my relationship with kids
Action goal: 20 “Magic Times” with kids
Business
Outcome #6: Speaking 40 times at full fee
Action goal: A little hard to explain here, but I’ll let you know when I hit it.
Are these goals hard to hit? Not really. Because all the actions are something I love to do. In fact, I’m more or less addicted to most of them. I can’t wait to achieve my goals.
What’s your New Year’s resolution? Is it uphill or downhill? Can you make it downhill?
Tease:
This Friday, January 2, 2025, I’ll be taking a chance and launching something new with my newsletter. Hint: it’s all about love.
Loved this article! I am challenged sometimes when writing the goals versus the actions and appreciate your examples. I’ll be doing some slight revisions. Thank you!
Once again you’ve flipped a switch in my head. How to set goals with action steps that feel like rolling downhill? Love this!