Suze Orman Doesn’t Like New Year’s Resolutions. Here’s What She Recommends Instead

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Don’t set resolutions for yourself without checking out her advice. 

If you’re looking ahead to 2023 and planning your New Year’s resolutions already, you may want to think twice — at least according to finance expert Suze Orman.

Orman recommends against resolutions and says she isn’t a fan — mostly because many people fail at the New Year’s goals they set for themselves. Her distaste for resolutions doesn’t mean she thinks you shouldn’t take steps to improve your financial and personal life, though. She just has a different suggestion for how to approach that task.

You may be hoping to finally pay off that credit card debt. Or perhaps you want to bulk up your savings account balance or accomplish other life-improving goals during the upcoming year. Whatever your goal is, you may want to take a look at how Orman suggests you accomplish it.

Orman says you should do this instead of making New Year’s resolutions

Orman made clear in a blog post that New Year’s resolutions often cause nothing but problems.

“I think it puts too much focus on making goals at a specific time of year,” she said. “Most resolutions that start in January tend to be broken or stalled before March. And then you spend the rest of the year beating yourself up for not achieving your resolutions.”

Rather than falling victim to this common trend, she urges that you look “at every day as an opportunity to be kind to yourself,” and remember that “every day is an opportunity to be the person you want and are meant to be.”

While this may not seem like actionable advice that would help you accomplish specific objectives, Orman explains how to implement this philosophy in your life. Specifically, she suggests:

Searching for ways to make positive changes, even if things haven’t gone as planned.Remaining firm in your beliefs.Carefully considering your actions to make sure you’re always focused on whether they’re kind, necessary, and true.Putting “people first. Then money. Then things.”

If you keep these basic truths in mind throughout the year, they can guide you in making better money decisions (and life decisions) long after you might have given up on your New Year’s resolutions.

Should you listen to Orman’s advice?

Orman is absolutely right that many New Year’s resolutions aren’t successful — especially if you aren’t passionate about achieving them or don’t have a concrete plan.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t set goals for yourself to accomplish in 2023, though. In fact, if you pick one or two things you really want to achieve and make a detailed plan to follow through on making them happen, you stand a good chance of breaking the curse of broken resolutions.

What you don’t necessarily want to do, though, is tie these goals to the new year and put so much pressure on yourself that you give up as soon as you don’t stick exactly to the plan. “There are always challenges, disappointments, and setbacks,” Orman states.

If you follow Orman’s advice and look for ways to make smart choices throughout the year to better achieve your objectives, and you treat each new day as a chance to succeed, you’re likely to end up far better off than if you make the traditional New Year’s resolutions that fade away once the ball has dropped and the champagne has been finished.

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