If you’ve set some New Year’s resolutions going into 2026, you’re not alone. And if by the second Friday of January – known by many as “Quitter’s Day” – you’ve dropped those ambitions, you’ll also be in good company.

Every year, one of my goals is to read more. And every year, I end up instead with a growing tower of books by my bed, unused magazine subscriptions and higher screen time (unfortunately not because I’m reading ebooks).

Will setting up a donation to a rival footy team, political party you hate, or cause you passionately disagree with, boost your chances of hitting your New Year’s goals?Credit: Getty Images

Most resolutions, whether it’s eating healthier or exercising and reading more, are quietly shelved within the first month of the year. That’s despite conventional economics suggesting most of us should be sticking it out (after all, many of these habits are good for us, especially in the long term).

While a “rational” person – which economists generally assume we all are – looking to maximise their own personal gain would diligently make a habit out of getting in more steps or reading a few extra pages every day for the significant long-term benefit, that’s often not the way we behave.

As we know, economics is a way of simplifying human behaviour, and simply put, we’re just not that simple.

For example, we tend to place greater value on things that are immediate – or at least closer to the present – than those further off into the future, even if the future pay-off is bigger.

Reaching our fitness goals or building our dream body is cool, but so is that tub of ice cream sitting in the freezer and the air-conditioned living room we could watch our favourite TV series in. While the benefits of sticking with our New Year’s resolutions tend to take a lot of time (such as months of running to become fit enough for a half-marathon), there’s an immediate “reward” for quitting – such as........

© The Sydney Morning Herald