HARNESSING CREATIVE MOMENTUM

How to learn from the New Years Goal Setting and Quitting cycle

New Year is a moment of reflection—and often, resolve.“This year will be different.”Cue the New Year’s resolution: Next year, I will finally do X. X might be a goal around fitness, health, career, relationships—or something bigger.

Creatives do this too.

Not only in January, but at any point in the year, there’s a moment when we decide: I’m going to write that script. Produce that project. Start on that new direction in my acting career. So what can we learn from the rise—and fall—of New Year’s resolutions?

Quite a lot.

What the data actually says

Most New Year’s resolutions don’t survive the year, or even the month of January!

Only 8–9% of people who make resolutions achieve them by year end (Ohio State Fisher College of Business, Forbes Health)

And the drop-off is fast:

• The average resolution lasts 3.74 months

• 23% quit in the first week

• 43–64% quit by the end of January

• 80–90% fail and quit by mid-February

• The second Friday in January is often dubbed “Quitter’s Day” Longer-term studies paint the same picture. A large-scale Swedish study (PLoS One, 2020) found:

• 77% still going after 1 week

• 55% after 1 month

• 43% after 3 months

• 40% after 6 months

Just 19% still going after two years

Why creatives should care

Swap “New Year’s resolution” for “creative project” and the pattern looks uncomfortably familiar.

How many scripts, plays, films, albums, or ideas are started with passion—and quietly abandoned weeks later? The question isn’t why we start, but what gets in the way of finishing.

The research points to three major culprits:

1. Unrealistic goals

2. Lack of planning

3. Relying on willpower alone

But there’s good news. Studies also show that specific strategies dramatically increase success rates—sometimes up to 55–59%, compared to the usual 8–9%.

These strategies include:

1. SMART goals (and why most goals fail before they start)

Many goals—creative or otherwise—are born from frustration with the current situation. They sound like: “Stop being lazy” - “Don’t procrastinate” - “Don’t waste time”. This is a problem.

Research consistently shows that approach-oriented goals (“do X”) outperform avoidance goals (“don’t do Y”). In the PLoS One study referenced earlier, approach goals had a 58.9% success rate, compared to 47.1% for avoidance goals.

Your brain needs something to move toward, not just something to avoid.

There’s also the issue of vagueness. A goal like “don’t be lazy” is impossible to track. When have you succeeded? How do you know? Confucius put it neatly: “Man (also person) shoot at nothing, sure to hit it.”

A SMART version of “don’t be lazy” might be: “Walk 10,000 steps a day and complete 20 continuous push-ups by 31.01.2026.”

Now the goal is:

Specific

Measurable

Achievable

Realistic

Time-bound

More importantly, it gives your brain a clear target. You know what you’re working toward. You know when you’ve hit it. And that clarity—more than motivation or willpower—is where real follow-through begins.

2. Get Support + Accountability

There’s a reason Modern Rituals runs a Support + Accountability Group.

Research is clear: people who set SMART goals and receive support—either one-to-one or in a group—are significantly more likely to succeed than those who go it alone. John Norcross’s longitudinal studies show that social support is a strong predictor of long-term follow-through, even after six months.

Sharing your goals with people you trust changes everything. They hold you accountable. They reflect your blind spots.They make it harder to quietly quit and justify it to yourself.

3. Self-Belief

“If you think you can, you can. If you think you can’t, you can’t.”

Belief doesn’t guarantee success—especially on your preferred timeline (that's a whole post in itself!). But a deep belief that it’s impossible guarantees something else: you won’t persist long enough to find out.

The research backs this up. Norcross identified self-efficacy as one of the strongest predictors of persistence. People who believe they can continue are far more likely to keep going—especially after slips.

Which inner state would you rather work from?

4. Stimulus Control + Reward

Your environment matters.

Successful goal-setters actively shape it—removing obstacles, reducing temptation, and rewarding progress along the way.

Think of a baby learning to walk. Parents generally don’t leave obstacles in the path and hope for the best. They clear the space. They don't berate the child for failing after the first, second or third attempts. They celebrate every step.

It works the same for us.

Norcross’s research shows that successful resolvers use stimulus control, reinforcement, and rewards far more consistently. Reinforced habits mean you show up even when motivation dips—and setbacks appear.

5. Plan for Setbacks (and Build Resilience)

Setbacks aren’t a sign you’re failing.They’re part of the process.

In the studies, successful resolvers averaged 14 slips over two years. The difference? They didn’t quit. They bounced back.

Expect the wobble. Don’t dramatise it. Treat lapses as data, not defeat.

Resilience is simply returning to the habit—again and again.

6. Start Small + Habit Stack

Don’t try to win the race in the first week.

Big, dramatic efforts feel heroic, but they rarely last. Small, repeatable actions do. The tortoise wins every time in the story.

Starting small reduces overwhelm—one of the biggest reasons people quit—and makes consistency far more likely. Daily, manageable actions compound into real momentum.

7. Track Progress

What gets tracked gets sustained.

Use whatever works—journals, apps, groups, check-ins—but track something. Research shows that regular monitoring and feedback maintain momentum.

If you set a goal on January 1 (or any day), put it in a drawer, and never look at it again—what do you think happens next?

Bringing it together

SMART goals. Planning. Support. Accountability. Tracking. Resilience.

Combine these and you move yourself out of the 80–90% who quit—and into the minority who finish. Whether it’s a New Year’s resolution or a creative goal like completing the first draft of your feature, the principles are the same.

Much of what you’ve read here is built directly into how the Modern Rituals Support + Accountability Group runs. We meet virtually every weekend to set goals, stay accountable, and support (and challenge) each other along the way.

Get in touch for more info.

Bonus Tip

What really helps goal setting and creative projects is to TAKE ACTION immediately once you have set the goal. So, in honour of that, read on for another way you can bring the above philosophy into your life, by directly affecting how you go about your creative work.

This month's "Book of the Month" is invaluable for this. BOOK OF THE MONTH

Deep Work

- Cal Newport

Makes a strong case for focus as a competitive advantage.

In a distracted industry, attention is a form of power.

In Deep Work, Cal Newport defines this term as:

“Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.”

For many creatives—and high achievers in all fields—immersed, focused time on a single pursuit has produced extraordinary results. Cal mentions that decades of research in psychology and neuroscience shows that the state of mental strain that accompanies deep work is the necessary ingredient to improve your abilities. Think George Bernard Shaw sitting in his shed at the back of his garden and writing classics like Pygmalion, Major Barbara, Mrs Warrens Professions, Arms and the Man and more. Think Carl Jung and his huge body of work. Think Virginia Woolf who wrote in a private room in her home, free of all distractions.

"The ubiquity of deep work among influential individuals is important to emphasise because it stands in sharp contrast to the behaviour of most modern knowledge workers-a group that's rapidly forgetting the value of going deep."

If such deep work was necessary for them to stand out in their highly competitive fields back in less distracted times, how are we going to manage in a modern world where distraction is in-built and highly profitable?

The rise in use of communication tools like email and WhatsApp, various social media sites and the 24/7 newscycle along with continuous access to these on smartphones and computers has fragmented most of our attention into slivers. Here’s the stats:

• The average person checks their phone about 49 - 80 times per day

• People spend roughly 3 ¾ – 4 h 45 min per day using their phones on average globally.

• Average total screen time is higher — about 6 h 40 min per day worldwide (7 h for U.S. adults!!)

• Half of all phone screen sessions start within about 3 minutes of the previous one ending — showing very frequent return-to-phone behavior.

• People often check phones within minutes of waking or before sleep.

• For younger groups (Gen Z), screen time can exceed 7 – 9 h per day when including all devices. How is it possible under these circumstances to get anything of creative depth done?

Newport has a solution. He outlines 4 rules with practical strategies:

Rule 1 - Choose a “depth Philosophy” to fit Deep Work Into Your Life

1. Monastic

Eliminate all shallow work / distractions entirely

You do not do anything other than the task at hand. That means you are unreachable for the period of time dedicated to the task. Imagine writing for 6 hours with small breaks in a day, not having looked at your phone once.

2. Bi-Modal

Alternate long deep periods of focused work with shallow

 You break up a day with a mixture of longer focused periods like 2-3 hours with shallow periods where you check your phone, emails socials in between.

3. Rhythmic

Schedule fixed daily deep blocks

 You know you have for eg. 3 time periods this week of between 2-3 hours. You schedule your deep, focused work for these sessions.

4. Journalistic

Fit deep work into gaps

 You have a side job, and can only manage small parts of a day to get to your screenplay. Take them and go deep for those smaller portions of time.

Whichever one you choose, build rituals (fixed locations and routines) and embrace boredom to train focus.

Rule 2 - Schedule Breaks

It is imperative to 
schedule breaks from focus (for distraction) instead of breaks from distraction. Think about that for a moment. Practice productive meditation (think deeply while walking) and resist constant stimulation to strengthen concentration.

Rule 3 - Quit Social Media (or Drain the Shallows)

Newport suggest applying the "craftsman approach": Only use tools if benefits outweigh costs. How can you systematise and batch shallow tasks to minimise them? Quit low-value social media is one of his ideas.

Rule 4 - Work Like a Monk - Fixed Schedule Productivity

Ruthlessly protect your time. End work at a fixed hour to force efficiency and ensure downtime for recovery. This one is good for workaholics. The rest is worth more than the extra hour of work.

The ability to perform deep work—professional activities done in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive limits—is becoming increasingly rare yet extraordinarily valuable.

Ultimately, Newport is calling us to intentionality - bringing focus and depth to our work, in order to produce something that a distracted world cannot help us achieve. It’s also a path to a more satisfying life in a very shallow world.