Seven in 10 Americans are tossing out their materialistic New Year’s resolutions for 2021, according to new research.
The survey asked 2,000 nationally-representative Americans about their plans for the new year in light of the stress from 2020 overall and found 71 percent will be focusing on learning life skills or practical goals.
In fact, top planned New Year’s resolutions for 2021 aren’t focused on going to the gym or losing weight, but rather saving money for the future (62 percent) and learning a new skill (50 percent).
Conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Affirm, the survey also found that over half of respondents (54 percent) are planning to better budget in 2021 and another 49 percent are hoping to pay down debt.
Sixty-eight percent of respondents shared they want to move away from “traditional” resolutions to focus more on experiences — like spending more time with their family (53 percent) and traveling more (49 percent).
In fact, respondents plan to take an average of two road trips in the new year.
Nearly six in 10 (58 percent) respondents also said their 2021 resolution will be having a more positive outlook at life.
Reflecting on such a difficult year, it makes sense that respondents are approaching their 2021 resolutions differently — in fact, 65 percent don’t even plan on looking at these as “resolutions” but rather “intentions” for the new year.
Seven in 10 respondents also shared they don’t plan on setting harsh deadlines to achieve their new goals, but they’ll rather be checking in with themselves throughout 2021.
Sixty-two percent of those polled also said they can’t wait to tackle the new year with a fresh mindset and renewed motivation after feeling stagnant all throughout 2020.
And with this renewed motivation, 63 percent of those polled believe their personal finances will be better off in 2021 than they were at the end of 2020.
This also may be connected to the 43 percent of respondents who shared they learned to be more intentional about their purchases in 2020 and plan to take these experiences with them in 2021.
Even though respondents are feeling optimistic about 2021, 53 percent of respondents are worried they won’t be able to afford to pursue all of their new goals and resolutions.
In order to stay committed to their goals for 2021, 45 percent of respondents plan to set checkpoints throughout the year to measure their progress and 44 percent will create a game plan of specific steps for each of their new goals.
The majority of those polled (70 percent) also shared they don’t plan on setting harsh deadlines to achieve their new goals, but they’ll rather be checking in with themselves throughout 2021.