How to Set — and Keep — Your New Year’s Fitness Resolution

Beads of sweat dotted Jorge Pascual’s forehead as he reclined on a gym bench, smoothly lifting and lowering two 35-pound dumbbells. The seated chest press works pecs, triceps and shoulder muscles to build upper-body strength. Pascual finished 10 reps, then returned to the cable machine behind him for the last exercise of his workout: Pallof presses with a rotation. Six on each side, his trainer directed. Pascual did eight.

“Good job, my man. That looked awesome,” trainer Cole Beliveau told him, punctuating his praise with a fist bump.

But Pascual downplayed his accomplishment. The 44-year-old finance officer is less sculpted than some of the other people who were clanging weights in the cavernous fitness center. His sturdy physique draped in a loose T-shirt and baggy shorts is more likely to read “dad” than “fitness fanatic.” His training is “nothing special,” he had said when he arrived at the EDGE fitness center in South Burlington that morning. “I’m sure you’ll find a lot of people here that [are] equally as committed as I am, if not more.”

But that December 23 workout was Pascual’s 107th of the year, seven more than he had set out to do. Keeping his 2025 New Year’s resolution puts the Richmond man in rare company. Of all Americans who make resolutions, just 1 percent manage to make them stick, according to a 2023 survey by Forbes Health/OnePoll.

Thirty-one percent of Americans planned to make a resolution this year, a YouGov survey found, and if 2026 is anything like recent years, most resolutions — 48 percent in 2024 — involve physical fitness. We vow to run, swim, lift, spin and hit HIIT classes. But two weeks into the New Year, some of us have already broken our resolutions. More than half will likely be abandoned by the end of March.

New Year’s resolutions are so notorious for crashing and burning that the second Friday in January — that came last week — has been dubbed “Quitter’s Day.” Keeping a resolution calls for modifying one’s behavior, and behavioral change, said nationally certified health and wellness coach Rebecca Schubert, “is so complicated.”

Pascual unwittingly did several key things that set himself up for success. First, he tied his fitness goal to a deeply held value: He is a competitive squash player who wants to stay in the game. At 44, he said, “if I want to be active playing squash, I have to do some sort of lifting routine to make sure my knees are protected, my joints are protected.”

Secondly, he set a specific, relatively modest goal: 100 30-minute gym sessions — roughly two a week. Then, he determined where the workouts would fit into his schedule, a sizable feat for the father of four young kids who works as finance director at Northeastern Reproductive Medicine in Colchester and Maitri Healthcare in South Burlington. “It was a lot of negotiation with my wife” regarding the deposit and collection of children, he said. His wife, Rachel Pascual, works, too.

Fourth, he hired a personal trainer, which made him accountable to someone. And finally, he tracked his progress. He recorded each workout in his planner, marking those he completed with a check mark and those he missed with an X.

Beliveau, director of personal training at the EDGE, told Pascual that he’s an inspiration: “You set the goal. You made the goal happen.” What’s more, Pascual did it despite tearing his meniscus during a squash game last spring and undergoing repair surgery in late September.

Asked what advice he would give others who want to establish a fitness routine, Pascual said: Just start.

Beginning with the New Year is “a nice gesture,” he said, “but if you don’t make it happen in January or February … don’t be afraid of starting in the middle of March.” And, he continued, “if you fail in March, maybe you start again in May. But start. Don’t wait until next year.”

Beliveau and other exercise experts offered additional tips. Frame exercise positively, suggested Connie Tompkins, associate professor of exercise science at the University of Vermont. Instead of saying “I have to exercise,” say “I get to exercise.” Appreciate having a body that can move.

“I’m not sure I would even call it ‘exercise,’” wellness coach Schubert said, “because ‘exercise,’ for a lot of people, has a negative connotation.” It can feel punitive, like a chore. Call it “movement,” she suggested, and pick one you enjoy, whether running, swimming or tap dancing.

Before committing, Schubert advised, assess your current routine and figure out where the time will come from. “It has to be realistic, and it has to fit into our life if we’re going to make it sustainable,” added the registered dietitian, who is the employee well-being program coordinator for Green Mountain Higher Education Consortium.

To cement an activity into a routine, trainer Beliveau suggests “habit stacking.” The term, introduced by James Clear in his 2018 book Atomic Habits, refers to building a new habit by attaching it to a current one: Before I stop for coffee on Mondays and Wednesdays, I will walk for 30 minutes on a treadmill.

For those inevitable days when motivation lags, Beliveau says, prioritize action. “Just do it,” as the Nike tagline urges. “If you take the action to do it,” Beliveau said, “the motivation will then come.”

Think about your future self, he tells clients — you’ll thank yourself for moving now. Beliveau is a slim, ginger-haired 24-year-old whose rapid-fire speech is as invigorating as his pithy advice. “Choose your hard,” he says. “It could be hard right now to go work out,” he explained, “but the other version of your hard is getting, maybe, diagnosed with that chronic condition, or not being able to walk as much, or having digestive tract issues because you’re not doing the hard earlier in your life.”

Buy fun workout clothes, advised Alison Maynard, who has exercised much of her adult life. “You have to be comfortable in what you’re wearing,” she said. Maynard, a 53-year-old administrator at the University of Vermont, hits the gym with a friend — an arrangement, she said, that makes it more difficult to back out and easier to find the will to push harder than she might otherwise.

Schubert has advice on workout wear, too: She sleeps in hers. Schubert lifts weights for two hours each morning, five days a week. “I sleep in my exercise clothes because I need to reduce any potential barrier that’s going to get in my way,” she said.

Still, she and others say, remember that life happens: Cars break down; people get sick. “Being perfect is not the goal,” Beliveau said. “It’s being consistent.” He gives clients the ratio 80:20. Strive to keep healthy habits 80 percent of the time, he says. “And then 20 percent of the time, let loose a little bit. It’s totally OK. We’re humans; we’re meant to do that. And that’ll keep you on your goals a lot longer.”

If 80:20 morphs into 20:80, or people stop working out altogether, they need to ask the right questions, Schubert advised. Don’t ask Why can’t I do this? “All that does is reinforce in their mind all of the reasons that they can’t,” she said. “Instead, if I wake up and I ask myself, How am I going to fit this walk in today?, my brain starts problem solving, and it starts finding ways for me to do that.”

At the end of his December 23 workout, Pascual opened his calendar, asked to borrow a pen and added the number 107 to the words “gym session,” which topped his agenda for the day. Then he drew a line through the entry, added a check mark and clicked the pen. “That’s it,” he said. “That feels great.”

Some may see Pascual’s meniscus tear as a failure of his weight training — after all, he embarked on the regimen specifically to avoid injury — but he remains positive. Exercising before and after the injury accelerated his recovery, he believes. “No doubt,” he said. On January 4, he played his first squash game post-surgery, “and I didn’t have any pain in my knee,” he said.

He’s made five resolutions for 2026: Play in one squash tournament, ski 20 times with his kids, read 10 books related to professional or personal development, go on 50 dates with his wife, and get to the gym to lift weights 100 times.

Seven Tips for Success

In addition to her weekday weight-lifting regimen, Rebecca Schubert takes her dog for a five-mile walk most days — longer on the weekends. “I think of myself as a person of integrity,” she said, “and that means doing it even when I don’t feel like it or no one’s looking.” Keeping a fitness resolution means adopting behavioral change. Schubert, a registered dietitian and nationally certified health and wellness coach, offered these tips:

1. Assess your current situation: Too often we jump into change prematurely, without first taking stock of what resources we have, such as time, money and environment. Spend a week or so doing an inventory of your life situation and consider how you can make physical activity fit into your life.

2. Get clear on your “why”: Many people say they want to be more active so they can have better health. That is not a strong enough motivator. Go deeper. What will better health allow you to do? How will better health impact your life? Answers to these questions will point you to what you value, and your values can help you persist.

3. Prime your environment: The environment plays a significant role in our behavior. Look around your home and workplace. What can you do to set them up to push you toward your desired behavior and away from behavior you don’t want to engage in? If you struggle to get to the gym after work, change into your workout clothes before you leave the office. You’ll be more likely to drive to the gym instead of home. If you exercise in the morning, pack your gym bag the night before. To avoid sitting too much, remove chairs where you don’t need them. Sitting will stop being the default.

4. Start small: Author Timothy Ferriss talks about the “minimum effective dose,” the smallest dose that will produce a desired outcome. Instead of trying to go big and overwhelm yourself, go small. Consider what your minimum effective dose would be.

5. Make it fun: Exercise doesn’t have to be a chore, boring, hard or painful. Instead of thinking of “exercise,” reframe it as joyful movement. Michelle Segar, who researches sustainable behavioral change, suggests that movement sticks when it feels good, not when it’s driven by obligation, guilt or weight loss.

6. Be flexible: Consistency comes from flexibility, not rigidity. Consistency does not mean doing the same thing at the same time every day. Life is rarely without curveballs.

7. Reflect on your success: Keep a log to track your progress. When you see yourself getting stronger, faster and fitter, your motivation and commitment will level up.

The original print version of this article was headlined “Good Fit | How a father of four young children set, and kept, his New Year’s fitness resolution — and how you can, too”

This article appears in The Wellness Issue • 2026.

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