{"id":30351,"date":"2026-01-02T14:53:04","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T19:53:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=30351"},"modified":"2026-01-02T14:53:04","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T19:53:04","slug":"faith-and-family-among-the-top-priorities-for-new-years-resolutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/01\/faith-and-family-among-the-top-priorities-for-new-years-resolutions","title":{"rendered":"Faith and Family Among the Top Priorities For New Year\u2019s Resolutions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As the book officially closes on 2025, a new YouGov survey<\/a> has found faith and family amongst the top priorities for New Year\u2019s resolutions. According to the survey, the majority of those surveyed (78%) described 2025 as \u201cgreat,\u201d \u201cgood,\u201d or \u201cok,\u201d for themselves personally. It was less optimistic for the country, with only 48% describing 2025 that way. Expectations for 2025 were somewhat tempered, with 75% expecting it to be great, good, or ok for them personally while 49% said the same for the country. 36% expected their life to be better in 2026 while 36% also expected it to be the same. Sixteen percent expected their life to be worse.<\/p>\n

For the country, 52% of respondents believed 2026 would either be \u201cone of the best years in American history\u201d or \u201cabout average.\u201d For their children, 23% believed the US will be better when their children grow up while 19% predicted it would be \u201cabout the same.\u201d Thirty-seven percent stated they thought it would be worse. Democrats expected 2026 to be terrible for the country at higher rate than Republicans (35% vs 6%) and Independents (35% vs 26%). Women also expected 2026 to be worse than men (27% vs 18%).<\/p>\n

Thirty-eight percent of respondents said they either love or like making resolutions while 44% said they dislike or hate them. Only 31% of respondents planned to make New Year’s resolutions for 2026, while 51% said they won\u2019t. Eight percent stated they believed making New Year\u2019s resolutions makes the following year \u201cmuch better\u201d while 24% stated they believed it made it \u201ca little better\u201d and 42% stated it made it \u201cno different.\u201d Honing in on the particular New Year\u2019s resolutions, the majority of the top ten focused on physical health in some way, with 25% stating their top goal was \u201cexercising more.\u201d Other health goals included \u201ceating healthier,\u201d \u201cimproving physical health,\u201d and \u201closing weight.\u201d Last year, according to YouGov, \u201cthe most popular resolution was saving more money, with 26 percent who were resolving to do this,\u201d YouGov said in an analysis, adding that \u201c22 percent said they were resolving to exercise more last year.\u201d Rounding out the top ten at 15% were \u201cspending more time with family\u201d and \u201cpraying more.\u201d The data comes from 1,104 adult US citizens from December 9-11. Broken down, Republicans were more likely than Democrats to cite \u201cpraying more\u201d as a resolution (19% vs 15%).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the book officially closes on 2025, a new YouGov survey has found faith and family amongst the top priorities for New Year\u2019s resolutions. According to the survey, the majority of those surveyed (78%) described 2025 as \u201cgreat,\u201d \u201cgood,\u201d or \u201cok,\u201d for themselves personally. It was less optimistic for the country, with only 48% describing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":30354,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nFaith and Family Among the Top Priorities For New Year\u2019s Resolutions<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A new YouGov survey reveals faith and family rank high in Americans\u2019 2026 resolutions, alongside health, hope, and cautious optimism.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/01\/faith-and-family-among-the-top-priorities-for-new-years-resolutions\" \/>\n<meta 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