Seattle Culture

Keeping Your New Year’s Resolutions

Washington state residents are surprisingly disciplined

By Rob Smith January 10, 2024

GettyImages-462317413-16-9-2000x1125-min

This article originally appeared in the March/April 2024 issue of Seattle magazine.

Jan. 12 is National Quitters Day. That’s when most Americans decide to ditch their New Year’s resolutions.

That most likely doesn’t apply to you, because Washington leads the nation in “resolution longevity.” We are the state most committed to keeping New Year’s resolutions. 

A new survey says state residents on average remain committed to their resolutions for the entire year, three times more than the average American. Almost six in 10 state residents make resolutions, with the most popular being enhancing savings, reducing spending, and improving fitness and nutrition. There’s a financial incentive to keeping on: The average cost of a failed resolution is $500.

Hawaii ranks a distant No. 2, at just seven months.

As for National Quitters day, a 2019 study by Strava, a social network for athletes, found that about 80% of people who make New Year’s resolutions give up by the second week of January (that’s later on this week if you’re counting). Two-thirds quit by the end of the month. 

According to Nationaltoday.com, the first New Year’s resolutions began about 4,000 years ago with the ancient Babylonians. That’s a lot of years of blowing off goals.

Personally, I’ve never made resolutions, meaning I have avoided failure for decades. I resolve to keep doing that.

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