New Year's Resolutions Have Already Been Abandoned By One-Third Of Americans

We're almost two weeks into the year — which could only mean one thing: People are starting to fall victim to short attention spans and are abandoning New Year's resolutions left and right. To be exact, three in every 10 Americans has probably already thrown in the towel, if statistics from last year prove predictive.

Based on data collected by Statistic Brain in 2017, 27.4 percent of people typically abandon their resolutions within a week. Within two weeks of January 1, 31.6 percent of people will have ditched their goals.

January 14 is fast-approaching. Will you be one of the third that quit?

You went through all the trouble of selecting the resolution that was healthiest for you — but maybe after that first week you realized it wasn't so easy. Maybe you thought that by mid-January, you'd have this whole "new year, new you" think down pat.

You might have heard the phrase, "It takes 21 days to form a habit and just one to break it." Well, your odds might be worse than that. According to a 2009 study, it takes way longer than the rumored 21 days to break a habit — the average habit-forming time for the participants in this study was 66 days. The individual times varied between 18 and a staggering 254 days.

And a third of Americans quit before 14? No wonder no one sticks to their resolutions. That might not be your only problem — here are 15 other reasons your resolutions fail.