New Year’s Resolutions: Which parts of Australia are most likely to succeed?
2023 is finally here, and it’s time for Australians to make their New Year’s resolutions. It’s the same story every year: we make New Year’s resolutions with great purpose and energy, but most of the time we won’t be able to stick to them. So we wanted to measure what resolutions Australians hope to achieve for the new year, and for how long they can sustain them.
Most common New Year’s resolutions in Australia
We surveyed 1,000 Australians across all states and territories to understand a bit more about their 2023 resolutions. We discovered that most Australians (25%) want to improve their personal fitness and nutrition plans, while 24.8% will focus on financial goals like saving money or making new investments.
Only 6.4% of respondents aim to grow their careers. Instead, 5.6% of them are planning to travel more, while 4.3% are hoping to improve relationships with family and friends.
Many Australians want to use 2023 as an opportunity to break bad habits. Of those surveyed, 3% wish to sleep more, learn a new skill (2.4%) or quit habits (2.4%) like smoking or drinking. There is also a minority who wants to focus on spending less time on social media (1.9%) or their spiritual growth (1.3%).
Our data also shows that Australians set an average of 1.6 resolutions each year. 55.8% of responders find setting up a New Year’s resolution to be beneficial, against 44.2% of them who consider it pointless. In total, 19.9% of Australians don’t make any New Year’s resolutions at all.
The most and least committed states and territories
According to our survey, we found out that Australians try to stick to their resolutions for an average of 3.7 months. By breaking down our data even further, we now can see which states and territories are the most and least committed to their resolutions.
The most committed state is New South Wales with an average of 4.9 months of committing to resolutions, following South Australia in the second position with an average of 4.8 months. Australian Capital Territory comes third with an average of 4.6 months while Victoria averages 4.4 months. Western Australia and Tasmania stick to their resolutions for an average of 4.2 months, and Queensland for 4.1 months.
What about the least committed one? In the Northern Territory, people stick to their New Year’s resolutions for no longer than 30 days each year.
Oops! Try it again: Why resolutions fail
Our survey showed that 69.4% of Australians don’t succeed in keeping their New Year’s resolutions or achieving their new goals of the new year, spending an average of A$262.76 on failed resolutions every year. Most of this is spent on nutrition experts, new gym memberships, new hobby equipment, or a course to develop a skill. Sadly, failing. So why do Australians fail to keep their New Year’s resolutions? Here is a list of reasons given by our responders:
- 39.1%: Lack of motivation
- 19.4%: Forget about resolutions
- 12.3%: Lose track of progress
- 9.2%: Lack of time to keep resolutions
- 4.3%: Set an unrealistic goal for themselves
- 1.2%: Set too many resolutions
- 14.5%: Other reasons
Methodology
We surveyed 1,000 Australian residents across the entire country. The average age of respondents was 35.8 years old. The average annual household income of respondents was A$100,620.
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