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Too Small To Fail New Years Resolutions - E84
57 Plays1 month ago
By February, 80% of New Year’s resolutions have already failed.
Trying to overhaul your health all at once - better sleep, perfect diet, daily workouts - almost always ends in disappointment and quitting. Life gets busy, willpower fades, and motivation vanishes, leaving you feeling stuck and frustrated all over again.
This episode uncovers why big, sweeping changes backfire and shares a smarter, data-driven approach to building habits that actually last. Forget hype and guilt, the conversation is all about making goals so small they’re impossible to fail, and why that’s the real secret to transformation. The next 16 minutes could rewrite your entire strategy for change, and it all starts with the person behind these proven results.
In this episode you will learn:
- Why most New Year's resolutions fail and how small changes are more effective than big overhauls.
- The power of setting goals that are "too small to fail" for long-term health gains.
- How to choose one key area of healthspan to target for the biggest impact.
- Why tracking progress with clear data beats relying on feelings or willpower.
- What a "minimum enjoyable action" is and how it keeps you moving forward.
- How simple, steady wins build healthy habits and lasting identity change.
Resources
- Connect with Andrew on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mandrewmcconnell
- Follow Alively on Instagram for regular updates and insights: https://www.instagram.com/alively_official
- Learn more about healthspan from Andrew’s blog: https://www.mandrewmcconnell.com/blog
This podcast was produced by the team at Zapods Podcast Agency:
Find the products, practices, and routines discussed on the Alively website:
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Transcript
Introduction to Health Resolutions
00:00:00
Speaker
When people make resolutions, they usually try to fix their entire life overnight. I'm going to sleep eight hours. I'm going to eat no outside sugar. I'm going to lift weights four days a week. I'm going meditate every morning. It's a recipe for disaster.
00:00:11
Speaker
That is like trying to juggle five chainsaws at once. You don't even know how to juggle balls yet. You're going to drop all of them and you might lose an arm or two in the process.
00:00:23
Speaker
This is the Home of Health Spam podcast, where we profile health and wellness role models, sharing their stories and the tools, practices, and routines they use to live a lively life.
00:00:37
Speaker
Hello, and welcome back to the Home Health Spam podcast. If you are listening to this on the day it releases, it is February 2nd.
Why Resolutions Fail
00:00:47
Speaker
Now, depending on how your last month went, this date might feel like just another Monday.
00:00:53
Speaker
or it might be a guilty reminder. In the fitness and self-improvement world, we have officially passed a grim milestone on the calendar. Sociologists and data analysts often refer to the time period we just went through as Quitter's Day.
00:01:08
Speaker
There's a famous and frankly, pretty depressing statistic that floats around every single year. By February, approximately 80% of New Year's resolutions have been completely abandoned.
00:01:19
Speaker
So the gym that has been packed for the last month or so will now have plenty of space and time for you to expand as all the others have quit.
00:01:30
Speaker
So maybe you resolve to lose weight, to sleep better or go to bed earlier, maybe even run a marathon this year. And then life happened. Work got busy, the kids got sick, or the motivation just evaporated.
00:01:45
Speaker
And now here we are in February, and for the vast majority of people, the new year new me is already over. But I want to reframe all of that for you right now.
00:01:57
Speaker
If you were part of that 80%, if you've already fallen off the wagon, have good news. You didn't fail because you're weak. You didn't fail because you lack discipline or willpower.
00:02:10
Speaker
You failed because the method was broken. The traditional way we make resolutions, relying on hype, massive overhauls, and sheer grit, is designed to fail.
00:02:21
Speaker
It fights against human biology. It ignores how your brain actually builds habits. So here's the deal.
Transforming Resolutions into Strategies
00:02:29
Speaker
We're not gonna write this year off.
00:02:32
Speaker
We're not gonna wait another 11 months for the next January to just try again the thing that has never worked for us in the past. Instead, we're gonna start fresh today, right here, right now.
00:02:44
Speaker
But we're gonna do it differently this time. We're going to apply the Alively principles. We're going to trade willpower for data, and we're going to trade hustle for strategy.
00:02:56
Speaker
If you give me the next 10 minutes or so, I'm going to show you how to set a goal that is literally too small to fail, but also powerful enough to transform your health by the end of the year.
00:03:09
Speaker
Let's dive in. So let's look at the trap we all fall into. We live in a culture that worships the phrase, go big or go home. We think that for a resolution to count, it has to be massive. It has to be painful.
00:03:24
Speaker
If you haven't run in five years, the resolution is I'm going to run five more and miles every single morning before work. If you have been eating takeout every single night, the resolution somehow is I'm going to do a strict 30 day juice cleanse starting tomorrow.
00:03:39
Speaker
We rely entirely on willpower. Here's the thing about willpower. It's just a battery. It drains. In January, that battery feels fully charged.
00:03:51
Speaker
We've had a break over the holidays, we're ready to go. by February 2nd, the battery is dead. And when the willpower runs out, the behavior stops. This is because massive changes trigger massive resistance.
00:04:08
Speaker
Biologically, your body loves homeostasis. It loves stability.
Sustainable Health with Alively
00:04:13
Speaker
When you introduce a radical shock to the system, like starving yourself or training like an Olympian when you aren't one, your brain doesn't see that as getting healthy.
00:04:23
Speaker
Your brain perceives that as a threat to your wellbeing. It creates friction, it creates pain, and your brain is wired to avoid pain. So every morning when that alarm goes off for the five mile run, your brain is actively fighting you.
00:04:39
Speaker
It's convincing you to stay in bed. And eventually your brain wins. You quit, not because you're lazy, but because you tried to fight millions of years of evolutionary biology with a temporary burst of motivation.
00:04:53
Speaker
And this brings us to the Alively philosophy. At Alively and here at the Home Healthspan, we fundamentally reject the idea that you have to suffer to get healthy. We don't believe in muscling through or white knuckling your way to health and longevity.
00:05:10
Speaker
We believe in data, we believe in focus, and we believe in actions that are actually sustainable. If you hate the process, you won't stick with the process.
00:05:22
Speaker
And if you don't stick with it, you don't get results. It's that simple. So we stop trying to be heroes for two weeks and we start trying to be consistent for a lifetime.
00:05:34
Speaker
But how do we do that?
Effective Habit Formation
00:05:36
Speaker
start by making the action so small, you literally cannot say no to it. So let's get into the solution. This is the Alively framework, the exact same logic we use to build our technology.
00:05:50
Speaker
And it's the logic you are going to use to rebuild your healthy habits. The first step is to isolate the variable. When people make resolutions, they usually try to fix their entire life overnight.
00:06:03
Speaker
I'm going to sleep eight hours. I'm going to eat no outside sugar. I'm going to lift weights four days a week. I'm going meditate every morning. It's a recipe for disaster. That is like trying to juggle five chainsaws at once.
00:06:15
Speaker
You don't even know how to juggle balls yet. You're going to drop all of them and you might lose an arm or two in the process. In science, if you want to understand what works, you change one variable at a time.
00:06:29
Speaker
We need to apply the same logic to your life. So right now, and want you to pick one specific area of your health span to improve. Just one. Is it your sleep?
00:06:41
Speaker
Is it the movement of your body? Is it your nutrition or body composition? Is it your stress levels? Or maybe it's your social connection.
00:06:53
Speaker
Don't say all of them. Don't even say more than one. If you try to fix everything, you fix nothing. Give yourself permission to put the other categories on maintenance mode. Pick the one area that if you improved it, you would get the biggest return on investment right now.
00:07:11
Speaker
Let's lock that in Once you have your focus, we're going to now move to step two. We're going to measure what matters. There's an old business adage that is absolutely true for your health as well.
00:07:23
Speaker
You can't manage what you don't measure. Most people fail at resolutions because they rely on feelings. They say, I want to feel healthier, but feeling healthier is vape. On a bad day, you might feel terrible, even if you're making great progress biologically.
00:07:38
Speaker
We need to take your feelings out of the driver's seat and put data into the driver's seat. So you need to pick a specific metric that ties to the focus area you just chose in step one.
00:07:52
Speaker
If you pick sleep, maybe it's the amount of deep sleep you get a night if you track at that level of granularity, or maybe it's the total amount of sleep you get at night, or how consistently you go to bed at the same time.
00:08:05
Speaker
If it's movement, maybe it's your daily step count or the number of days or minutes that you get to the gym do a workout each week. If it's your cardiovascular health, maybe it's your resting heart rate.
00:08:20
Speaker
There are metrics within any of these pillars and they can be measured easily with wearables like your Whoop or your Oura Ring or Apple Watch. ah Blood work is easier to get than ever thanks to function and superpower and so many others. But pick something very specific.
00:08:35
Speaker
When you have a hard number, you have a scoreboard. You stop guessing. You stop wondering if it's working. You look at the data and the data tells you the truth. So pick your focus, pick your metric.
00:08:49
Speaker
Now, how do we actually move the needle on that number? That brings us to step three. This is the secret sauce.
The Power of Small Wins
00:08:57
Speaker
This is the difference between a resolution that lasts two weeks and a habit that lasts lifetime.
00:09:03
Speaker
We call this the minimum enjoyable action or MEA. Notice I didn't say minimum viable action. I said enjoyable. Here's a definition.
00:09:14
Speaker
You need to find an action that is too small to fail, but crucially must also contain a spark of joy for you. Let's go back to the running example. The old way says, I'm going to go run five miles at 5 a.m.
00:09:29
Speaker
That is big. That is painful. When the alarm goes off, our brain says, no we're not. The minimum enjoyable action is I'm going to put on my running shoes and walk to the of the driveway and listen to my favorite song.
00:09:43
Speaker
And my favorite song I can only listen to on that walk down the driveway. That's it. That's the whole goal. Takes a few minutes. It requires zero effort and it gives you little boost. The only way to hear that delightful song that you love so much is to get up, put on your shoes and walk down the driveway.
00:10:04
Speaker
And here's why it works. It bypasses your brain's resistant radar. Your brain isn't afraid of walking down the driveway and it's looking forward to listening to your favorite song. By doing this, you're effectively hacking your own physiology and psychology.
00:10:21
Speaker
You're proving to yourself every single day that you're the type of person who shows up. You're shifting your identity before you worry about the intensity. And that leads directly to step four, the compound effect, or what I like to call the psychology of winning.
00:10:39
Speaker
Human beings are wired to love winning. When you set a goal that's too small to fail, like walking down your driveway and you actually do it, chalk up a win.
00:10:49
Speaker
You check the box, you get a hit of dopamine. You feel successful because you are. And guess what? Success is addictive. When you consistently win at your habit, you start to crave that feeling and want more of it.
00:11:04
Speaker
You stop dreading the workout and start looking forward to the win. And here's the magic. As you stack these wins day after day, and to naturally want to do more. You get to the end of the driveway and think, I'm already here and the song isn't over.
00:11:19
Speaker
Might as well just walk around the block. But, and this is a big, but you only build on the action when the previous step feels automatic. Don't rush this.
00:11:32
Speaker
If walking to the driveway feels hard one morning, just walk to the driveway. That was the win that counts. but eventually it will become boring. It will become too easy. That's your brain telling you you're ready for the next step.
00:11:46
Speaker
That is how you transform. Not by sprinting until you collapse on February 2nd, but by taking small, enjoyable steps that compound and into massive results over time.
00:11:58
Speaker
Now, I know what some of you might be thinking right now. You're thinking, okay, walking to the driveway sounds nice or doing one push-up sounds easy, but I want real results. I'm an adult. want to see my body change.
00:12:11
Speaker
You might feel like easy means ineffective, but I need you to hear this. This isn't just a nice-sounding theory. This isn't just self-help fluff. We see the proof of this method in the hard data every single day.
00:12:26
Speaker
When we look at the Alively user base, people just like you who decided to stop guessing and start measuring, the numbers are staggering. The majority of Alively users see greater than a 20% improvement in their chosen metric in their first month alone.
00:12:41
Speaker
Let that sink in. A 20% improvement in your resting heart rate, your sleep efficiency, your activity levels in just 30 days. And here's the kicker.
00:12:52
Speaker
They didn't get that result by grinding themselves into the ground. They didn't get it by suffering for four weeks straight. They got it because they were consistent. They stopped the cycle of boom and bust where you work out for three hours on Monday and then you can't move until Thursday.
00:13:09
Speaker
They replace that with small, smart, consistent actions that they could actually stick to and that they do actually stick to. The data proves that consistency beats intensity every single time.
Long-term Healthspan Strategy
00:13:23
Speaker
And that 20% bump, it's just the beginning. So I want you to project yourself forward. Today's February 2nd. The hype of the new year is gone.
00:13:35
Speaker
The gym, as we said, are quieting down. But if you adopt this too small to fail approach today, where will you be in 11 months? Imagine waking up next January while everyone else is hungover, scrambling to write down the exact same resolutions they wrote this year, feeling that same sense of panic and regret, and somehow magical thinking that this year will for the first time be different than every year before it.
00:14:03
Speaker
You will be different. You won't be starting over. You'll be continuing and building. You'll have 11 months of compounded data, 11 months of small wins stacked on top of each other.
00:14:18
Speaker
You have built an identity that's unbreakable. You won't be someone who tries to be healthy. You'll be someone who is healthy. That's the transformation.
00:14:31
Speaker
That is the difference between a New Year's resolution and a healthspan strategy. So here's your challenge. Do not turn off this podcast and go about your day. Please take 60 seconds right now to do this.
00:14:45
Speaker
First, pick your area. Is it sleep, movement, nutrition, and body composition, your mindset, or social connection? Just pick one.
00:14:57
Speaker
Number two, pick your metric within that. What number are you going to watch? Give yourself a scoreboard. Number three, define what your minimum enjoyable action for that metric will be.
00:15:16
Speaker
What is the thing that is so small and has just enough joy in it that you can't say no? Write it down. Put it on a sticky note on your bathroom mirror. Put it on your calendar.
00:15:27
Speaker
Or get the Alively app and we'll help you. We don't need a calendar to tell us when we're allowed to change. We don't need to wait for the ball to drop in Times Square. We start today.
00:15:40
Speaker
We start small. And then we keep going. Don't wait for the new year. Don't wait for 2027. Your health span starts now. Go make it too small to fail.
Taking Action with Alively
00:15:54
Speaker
Thank you for joining us on today's episode of the Home of Healthspan podcast. And remember, you can always find the products, practices, and routines mentioned by today's guests, as well as many other Healthspan role models on Alively.com.
00:16:06
Speaker
Enjoy a lively day.