New Year, new you… except that maybe not so much here in Fayetteville, as we rank among the worst cities in the country for keeping New Year’s Resolutions.
Our good friends at WalletHub.com did the math, and Fayetteville comes in at number 176 out of 182 cities measured in a recent study.
“To determine where Americans are most likely to stick to their goals for 2023, WalletHub considered some of the most popular (and most commonly broken) resolutions to rank more than 180 U.S. cities based on their conduciveness to self-improvement,” WalletHub said in the report. “In each city, we looked at a total of 57 key metrics, ranging from exercise opportunities to income growth to employment outlook.”
The research showed that Fayetteville didn’t score highly in really any of the key metrics, coming in at 168 for Health Resolutions, 176 for Financial Resolutions, 148 for School & Work Resolutions, 141 for Bad-Habit Resolutions and 157 for Relationship Resolutions.
“People often fail at their new year`s resolutions because they often make them hastily without much or any forethought,” Dr. Anthony J. Greco from the University of Louisiana Lafayette told WalletHub. “Do what is reasonable and doable. Know that keeping the resolution will take discipline and honesty on your part. Start small. This will help prevent becoming discouraged.”
Raleigh is the highest-ranked North Carolina city on the list, coming in at 16, while Charlotte was 21. The cities below Fayetteville in the rankings were Dover, Delaware; Huntington, West Virginia; Augusta, Georgia; Gulfport, Mississippi; Shreveport, Louisiana; and Newark, New Jersey.
But what about the top of the list? Here’s a look at the Top 10 cities in the country for keeping their New Year’s Resolutions (since Fayetteville isn’t cutting it):