Want to Keep New Year’s Resolutions? Consider the Consequences of Failing

THE New Year’s resolutions are still new. And a cynic — or realist, given past performance — might say many of them will fail by spring, if not sooner.
Even so, the resolutions return every year, particularly the big three: getting in shape, becoming better at work and improving our financial lives.
All three have something else in common: There are financial and economic consequences when someone fails to keep them, just as surely as there are financial and economic benefits to success. And people who can tie their resolutions to real consequences, psychologists, doctors and even health club owners say, have the best chance of success.
“People typically succeed because their ‘why’ is bigger than their ‘but,’” said Elizabeth Lombardo, a wealth psychologist in Chicago.
As an example, she said, “I want to work out, but I have no time.”
Getting past the “but” is not easy. That’s why so many of the resolutions fail. To succeed, the resolution makers are going to need a combination of more help, lower expectations and bigger consequences than most imagine.
DIETS AND EXERCISE Steve Stanulis, an actor, playwright and retired New York City police officer, needs to lose 30 pounds for work. Weight loss, not surprisingly, is a common resolution.
BEING BETTER The resolutions to make ourselves better at what we’re passionate about take discipline, too.
FINANCIAL CHANGES As to financial resolutions, Fidelity Investments, the mutual fund company, released what it called its seventh annual “financial resolutions study.” It found that money resolutions had increased.

So good luck this year, and if you fail, better luck in 2017.