Health-related pledges top the list
Key takeaways
- 19% of Britons say they intend to make New Year’s resolutions for 2026
- Young people are the most likely to be making resolutions, with 37% of 18-24 year olds saying they will do so
- Health pledges top the list of resolutions, with 23% of those making promises to themselves for the new year saying they intend to get fit or exercise more
- 38% of those who say they made New Year’s resolutions for 2025 say they have kept to all of them
As 2025 draws to a close, many Britons’ minds are turning to the year ahead and the opportunities the changing calendar provides for self-improvement.
One in five Britons (19%) say they plan to make New Year’s Resolutions for 2025. The younger Britons are, the more likely they are to be making an annual promise to themselves, with 37% of 18-24 year olds saying they will do so, compared to only 11% of those over the age of 65.
What New Year’s resolutions are Britons making for 2026?
Asking resolution-makers to say, in their own words, what their pledges will be for next year, finds health resolutions top the list.
Almost a quarter (23%) say they intend to get fit or to exercise more, while 17% say they want to lose weight and 11% say they want to eat more healthily. A further 10% gave more non-specific answers about wanting to ‘be more healthy’.
After this, the next most common resolution is to save more or spend less (7%), with another 4% saying they wanted to improve their financial management.
Elsewhere, 5% of people say they wanted to be a better person, or otherwise improve their personality or attitudes, while 4% say they want to make more quality time with loved ones in the next 12 months, and a further 4% want to find or change jobs.
How many kept to their 2025 New Year’s resolutions?
We also asked the public to cast their mind back to the beginning of the year and tell us whether they made New Year’s resolutions for 2025. One in nine (11%) remember (or admit to) having done so. Of this group, more than a third claim to have kept all of the resolutions they made (38%), while 33% profess to have kept to some, but not all, of their personal promises to themselves at the beginning of the year.
Only one in four (24%) admit to having failed to keep any of their New Year’s resolutions.
Previous YouGov research over the course of 2017 tracked how good at keeping to resolutions Britons were over the course of the year. The results that year found that just six days into the year one in five had already failed some of their resolutions.
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