Skip the Resolutions: How Counselling Can Create Lasting Change in the New Year

by Ho Shee Wai

Director / Registered Psychologist

Skip the Resolutions: How Counselling Can Create Lasting Change in the New Year

Every January, millions of people promise themselves a fresh start—only to feel guilty, stuck, or overwhelmed just weeks later. If you’re tired of repeating the same cycle each year, you’re not alone. Real, sustainable change doesn’t come from resolutions or willpower. It comes from understanding yourself more deeply. Before setting another goal you won’t keep, discover how counselling can help you make meaningful, lasting change that aligns with who you truly want to be with Psychologist, Ho Shee Wai.

• Why do most New Year resolutions fail?

  Most resolutions rely on willpower instead of insight. When stress rises, the brain returns to old coping patterns. Without understanding emotional triggers, new habits simply don’t stick.

• How can counselling help me stick to my goals?

  Counselling helps you explore the “why” behind your behaviours, identify emotional blocks, and develop tools for long-term change. Instead of forcing motivation, therapy builds clarity, regulation, and sustainable habits.

• Is counselling more effective than self-help or resolutions?

  Self-help tools can inspire short-term motivation, but counselling offers personalised guidance, emotional processing, and accountability. This combination leads to deeper, more lasting behavioural change.

• What types of issues can counselling help with in the New Year?

  Counselling supports a wide range of goals—from emotional regulation, anxiety, and burnout to improving relationships, coping with stress, and breaking unhelpful patterns that resolutions cannot address alone.

• Do I need a big problem to consider counselling instead of resolutions?

  Not at all. Counselling is helpful even when you simply want clarity, growth, or a healthier direction. Many clients come to therapy not because something is “wrong” but because they want the new year to feel different from the last.

Yes, we’ve come to the point of year where we reflect on how the past year had been for us and vowing to do better with the start of a new year. For those who had set New Year’s Resolution, we are not unfamiliar with the pattern of beginning with a lot of conviction and passion, slowly losing steam the next couple of weeks, and running out of steam come February. We’re then left with feelings of guilt, disappointment and self blame for our lack of discipline. This happens regardless we are setting goals for our physical health, finance, mental health, career, or relationships. In this blog we look at how can we create lasting change through counselling

Why New Year Resolution Doesn’t Work

People start resolutions with sincere intentions. Yet most resolutions fail by February. Why? It’s not a motivation problem—it’s a psychology problem. Let’s look at the problem with resolutions.

Resolutions Rely on Willpower, Not Insight

Often time resolution is an impulsive decision promoted by the festive mood and external stimuli. It did not come from careful self reflections and insights. Therefore the actual execution of the resolution relies on willpower. Research has shown that will power is insufficient to sustain change. This is especially so when life stress increases, it leads to old patterns returning.

Unrealistic or Vague Goals

Are you guilt of setting goals like: “Be healthier,” “stress less,” “be more patient”. Nothing’s wrong with these goals except that they are too broad to sustain. Without structure, the brain returns to habits.

Resolutions Ignore the Root Cause

What we don’t realise with resolution is that our Behaviour = coping + emotional history. Without understanding our triggers, whatever change we made is temporary.

Shame and Self-Criticism Sabotage Progress

When people “fail,” (as expected with any new behaviours), they feel discouraged. This creates a cycle of guilt leading to avoidance leading to giving up.

Dramatic Change vs Gradual Habit Building

Another reason resolutions fail is that they depend on sudden, dramatic change rather than gradual habit-building. Our brains are wired to prefer familiar patterns, even when those patterns no longer serve us. When we try to overhaul our lives overnight, the nervous system interprets the shift as a threat, triggering stress and resistance. This is why sustainable change requires emotional safety, small steps, and ongoing support—conditions that counselling naturally provides far more effectively than traditional New Year resolutions.

Resolutions Often Aren’t Aligned With Personal Values

People choose goals based on trends, social pressure, or comparison. This may or may not be aligned with their personal values and how they want to live their lives. The truth is meaningless goals don’t last.

The Psychology Behind Change (a.k.a. What Actually Works)

Change Requires Self-Awareness, Not Pressure

It is important for us before we attempt any change to understanding emotions, beliefs, and past experiences  in order to sustain progress.

The Brain Needs Small, Repeatable Wins

Our brain works on a very primal reward-punishment basis. For change to take place, we need to take tiny, consistent actions build new neural pathways linking to rewards (tangible or emotional e.g., feelings of success and achievement).

Emotions Drive Behaviour More Than Logic

Often when we decide to change, it’s a logical decision. Without emotional insight, habits revert. Logically we know smoking is bad for us. But what is more effective is when we have a health scare where we thought we might be having cancer when the decision take roots. However it is not possible create an emotional incident to kickstart our brain all the time. Luckily our brain doesn’t differentiate between actual experiences vs internal processes. It is equally effective if we can get into an emotional state via our insights and processing.

Accountability Matters—but not the “shame and blame” kind

While it is important for the change process that there is accountability. However, often people swing to the other extreme and try to shame and blame ourselves into change. What is required instead is supportive, compassionate accountability which changes outcomes.

How Counselling Helps Create Lasting Change

You Understand the “Why” Behind Your Patterns

Going into Counselling or psychotherapy with a counsellor, psychologist or psychotherapist helps you explore past experiences, emotional triggers, and beliefs. Find out “Why do I react this way?” is the foundation for real change.

You Learn Coping Skills That Replace Old Habits

How many of you have been successful when you attempt change by deciding to “not” do something? In counselling or psychotherapy, you will learn new coping skills on emotional regulation, boundary-setting, communication skills, stress or distress tolerance from a professional counsellor, psychologist, or psychotherapist. These shape behaviour far more than “motivation.”

You Create Goals That Fit Your Values

In the exploratory work of counselling or psychotherapy, you tailored and designed goals that align with your personal values, not social pressure, not comparison. Being aligned with your values lead to longer term sustainability while you work towards being the person you want to be, according to your own values.

You Build New Patterns With Support

The benefits of counselling or psychotherapy is you regularly engage in weekly reflection and small behavioural shifts. Your Counsellor, Psychologist, and Psychotherapist acts as your as guide, not judge. It helps create a support environment of accountability, where change becomes gradual, compassionate, and realistic.

You Break Shame Cycles

Counselling or Therapy helps people accept slip-ups without self-blame. Instead, your psychologist, counsellor, or psychotherapist help you work through reasons for failure and come up with strategies that help you get to your goals. In short, shame decreases motivation; compassion increases it.

Final Thoughts: Choose Growth, Not Pressure

New Year resolutions are about performance. Counselling is about transformation. Real change grows from insight, support, and emotional clarity—not from a calendar date.

If you feel stuck repeating the same patterns each year, counselling can help you understand what’s beneath those struggles and create change that lasts.

Book a session with our Counsellors, Psychologist, Psychotherapists, Career Coach and Parenting Coach at The Counselling Place and begin the year with clarity, support, and genuine transformation.