Blue Monday Reality Check: Why Motivation Isn’t Enough for New Year's Resolutions
- Raemona
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
Today is Blue Monday – often labelled the most depressing day of the year – and if your New Year’s resolutions have already fallen off a cliff, you’re not alone. Martin Fairn shares why why mindset, not motivation, is the key to New Year success.
At the start of every year, millions of people make New Year’s Resolutions. According to a report in Statista, in 2026, a massive 59% of UK adults intend to eat healthier, while 56% want to save more money and 23% want to reduce stress at work.
The truth is, most will have failed by the end of January, because they rely solely on motivation.
Even those with the best intentions can’t feel motivated all of the time, but there is a skill that’s more directly able to support our good intentions, and most importantly can be learned and practiced by anyone: mindset development.
What is mindset and how do we develop it?
Your mindset is your set of beliefs that shape how you make sense of the world and yourself. It influences how you think, feel, and behave in any given situation, particularly those that are emotional, difficult or stressful. Our mindset determines whether or not we succeed in achieving our goals.
Mindset development is based on the idea that abilities can be learned and strengthened through dedication and effort. It encourages you to embrace challenges, power through setbacks, encourage feedback in order to learn, and see failure as an opportunity to improve.
Mindset development techniques help you to achieve control over how you think, react and perform well when it matters, mastering the deliberate shift from the overview to the detail, regardless of who you are or what situation you’re in.
Why does a more helpful mindset mean we’re more likely to achieve our goals?
Novelty directly activates the brain's dopamine reward system, which drives exploration and learning. This is why new things are often engaging, but as we become accustomed to them, novelty decreases, along with dopamine production, and our enthusiasm wanes. That’s when setbacks occur.
For example, your resolution to save more money is new and exciting so you’re taking your own lunch to work, making weekend plans that don’t revolve around spending and adding to your savings instead. But the novelty wears thin and before January is over, you splurge on an expensive take-away, which makes you feel like you’ve failed.
Someone with an unhelpful mindset throws in the towel and goes back to old habits.
Someone with a helpful mindset however, is able to recognise the setback, accepts it as a normal part of the process and regain control of the situation.
As well as handling setbacks, a helpful mindset means we can better handle pressure in the first place.
Those 23% of UK resolution makers who aim to reduce stress at work will be much more likely to have the tools to do so with regular work on their mindset.
Few things are more overwhelming than high stakes, approaching deadlines, and outside pressure from colleagues. It’s rare that we have control over conditions like these at work, but what we can change is our response to them.
With a more helpfull mindset, we can better interpret pressure and use it as a motivator rather than something that sends us spiralling – after all, diamonds are formed under pressure.
Mindset training in action - red vs blue
A simple but hugely impactful strategy for mindset training involves transitioning from a ‘red’ to ‘blue’ mindset.
To put it simply, a person in 'red' is out of control, stressed and thinking unclearly. The transition to 'blue' means you are calm, thinking logically and in control.
The aim is to recognise when you’re in a ‘red’ mindset and become equipped with the tools to bring yourself over to ‘blue’. That’s when you’re in the correct mindset to appropriately deal with high pressure situations, setbacks and challenges.
Last year Louis Alexander, an adventure athlete who ran a marathon on every continent, used Red2Blue mindset training to prepare. More people have been to space than have joined the ‘7 Continents Marathon Club’ – currently that’s about 400 people, so this was no small challenge.
As well as a feat of physical endurance, Louis had mental barriers to overcome. In many ways, the majority of Louis’ work and preparation was done at home before he left for the airport.
Louis said: “This is where my mindset development has provided the greatest advantage. The ability to stay present, focused and in control on a consistent basis during training camp at home, when there isn’t the excitement or adrenaline of being on an expedition, is pivotal.”
Mindset training is all about getting ready now, to be ready when you need a helpful mindset the most.
Whilst Louis’ challenge was more extreme than the New Year’s Resolutions of most Brits, the same principles apply. When novelty, adrenaline, or motivation run low, we need a resilient mindset to keep us pushing through.
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About the Author:
Martin Fairn, CEO of Gazing Performance, has spent more than 25 years working with elite athletes, C-suite leaders, schools and global organisations, helping people perform under sustained pressure while protecting their wellbeing and mental health.
