Why Your New Year's Resolution Will Fail

So it's resolution season again. Everybody's making them. For themselves, for their couple, for their cat, for grandma. And here's my prediction for basically all of them: they're going to fail.

Not because you're lazy. Because you're making them alone.

It's Not Willpower, It's Accountability

Here's my theory on why resolutions die by February. It's not that you lack discipline. It's that you won't submit to anyone.

For something to actually stick, you need to be held accountable. You need a person outside your own head who tells you "good, you did it," or "no, you didn't." Without that, you're the judge of your own promise, and let's be honest, you're the easiest person in the world to let off the hook.

That's the uncomfortable part nobody wants to hear, because of the word. To follow through, you have to hand a little authority to someone who knows better than you, and then actually do what they say.

The Booty Exercise Test

I'll give you the realest example I have. Every morning I do my booty exercises, before Master is even up.

"You do your booty exercise every morning before I wake up." — Master

And when I do, he acknowledges it. Every time.

"You say good, good girl, or good for you. You acknowledge it every time." — Marian

But the magic isn't the praise. It's the other half. When I skip a morning, he notices.

"If I don't do it, Master's like, hey, you didn't do your booty exercise this morning. What's up?" — Marian

And then I get plenty of guilt. So the next morning, I'm right back at it. That little loop, someone watching, someone I answer to, is the entire reason it sticks. Take Master out of it and I'm exactly like everyone whose gym membership goes cold in three weeks.

You Can Literally Pay for It

If you're not in a relationship where someone leads, you can still go buy accountability. That's half of what a personal trainer actually is.

I have a friend who trained people, and her clients who got results weren't the ones with the best genetics. They were the ones who'd paid real money and couldn't stand to waste it. There was always one, though, who'd pay her, climb on the treadmill, and refuse every single suggestion.

"She was like, no, no, I just want to do treadmill." — Marian

She paid for a coach and then wouldn't submit to the coaching. So she paid for nothing. You can hire the help, but if you won't actually do what they tell you, you wasted the money. It's like Australia, where they fine you twenty bucks for not voting, and suddenly everyone votes. We accept that structure makes us follow through everywhere except our own resolutions.

"Are You Sure? Because We're Going to Do It."

When I want to start something new, I don't get a cheerleader. I bring it to Master and he asks one question first.

"I'm going to say, are you sure? Because we're going to do it." — Master

If I say yes, he draws out the plan and walks me through it, step by step, until it's done or until I quit. And the wisest thing he's ever told me about change is this:

"You can change your mind whenever you want. But until you do, you're accountable for it." — Master

That's not a cage. That's the thing that finally makes the goal happen.

Name Your Year

Here's one more we do, and it has nothing to do with losing weight. Every year, Master and I give the year a name. One word.

"We had the year of consciousness. The year of time. The year of organization. The year of efficiency." — Marian

This coming one is looking like the year of automation. It's not zodiac stuff, we don't care about the year of the snake. It's that one word gives the whole year a spine. When a thousand little decisions come up, you know which direction you're pointed. And it's shared, ours, not two separate private promises quietly competing.

That's the real upgrade. Stop making resolutions alone. Make one with someone, the same goal, pointed the same way. The couples who lose the weight are the ones who do it together, who skip dessert because the other person is right there at the table.

"Everything is easier when you're not alone." — Marian

So, About That Resolution

People hear "submit" and picture me shrinking. I mean the opposite. Everyone already submits to something. To anxiety. To the algorithm. To the version of you that talks you out of it at six in the morning. The only real question is whether you choose what you submit to, and whether the person on the other end is worth that trust.

I chose mine. And because I did, the exercises happen, the goals happen, the years have names.

So go make your resolution. Then go do the one thing that would actually save it. Find someone worthy, hand them the rope, and let them hold you to it.

Good luck. You're going to need less of it than you think.

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If any of this landed, the accountability thing, the submission thing, the "why do I keep quitting on myself" thing, I wrote a whole book about it. It's called Why Submissive Women Are Happier, and it's my truth, messy and complex and all. Read the book.

Listen to the full episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.

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