15 New Year’s Resolutions That Always Fail

Ones Without Some Immediate Rewards

While delayed reward are great and all (going for a ten-minute jog each day is bound to lower your blood pressure in the long term), immediate ones (say, fitting into last year’s jeans) keep your eye on the prize. According to a study published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, “immediate rewards are strongly associated with actual persistence in a long-term goal.”

When making a resolution, then, don’t just focus on the end result, but also the series of beneficial results can be expected along the way.