Six in ten have failed to keep all their 2017 New Year’s resolutions

Matthew SmithHead of Data Journalism
December 26, 2017, 10:10 AM GMT+0

A quarter of those who made resolutions have failed to keep to any of them

As the end of 2017 approaches, thoughts turn to the year ahead and many Brits will be pondering their resolutions for the coming 12 months. Fewer thoughts, perhaps intentionally, will be turned to pledges made at this point last year, as YouGov Omnibus reveals that the majority of Brits who made resolutions have failed to keep to all of them.

When we first asked about 2017 New Year’s resolutions in the first week of January, 21% of Brits said that they had made them. Of those who had, one in five (22%) had already failed to keep to all their resolutions just six days into the year.

Fast forward to the 21st of December and only a quarter (27%) of those who made New Year’s resolutions had managed to keep to them all with one and a half weeks to go. By contrast, 64% have not kept to them all, while a further 9% said don’t know.

The crossover point appears to have been around early May – in mid-May 47% of those who had made resolutions had still kept to all of them, while 49% had blown at least one of them.

Among those who’ve not managed to keep to all their resolutions so far, only 10% have succeeded in keeping most of them. Around half (48%) say they’ve kept to some of them, while 39% say they kept to none of them (taken as a proportion of everyone that made resolutions, this means that about 25% of people have broken all of them this year).

Whether people have been successful or otherwise, the annual good intentions cycle continues unabated: a different YouGov survey conducted on the 19th December reveals that, again, 21% of Brits intend to make New Year’s resolutions for 2018. Good luck to them all!

Photo: Getty

Find out more about YouGov Omnibus research