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How to Keep Your New Year’s Resolution

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We all have things about ourselves that we want to change. But we know from past experience how difficult it is to make those changes. We try a lot of different methodologies to overcome the difficulty. These methods aren’t always backed up by science, and leaving science out of our goal-setting calculations is a bad idea. When we use the knowledge others have gathered before us, we stand on the shoulders of giants. So what do we know about behavior change?

Timing isn’t everything

One popular method relies on the superstitious magic of timing. A lot of people set New Year’s resolutions every January first. The timing is perfect. Most of us have been hacking steadily away at last year’s good habits for the past three months. We’ve been eating Halloween candy, Thanksgiving dinner, Thanksgiving leftovers. And we have no reason to start eating right and working out after Thanksgiving because the December holidays are right around the corner. Not to mention the effect all this cavorting around has on our wallets, so when January rolls around it seems natural to take a look at the shamble you have been making of your life and say “Let’s turn this whole sucker right around!” But setting goals and sticking to them provides quite a challenge.

In one study conducted by British psychologist Richard Wiseman, 52% of people show confidence that they are going to be able to accomplish their New Year’s goals. (Half of us know we will not make it to the end of January.) However, only 12% of those studied maintained new habits to the end of the year.

Setting more than one goal for the New Year does not do you any favors. If you set multiple goals, you are less likely to accomplish any of them. What accounts for this discrepancy between how people think they will behave, and how they do behave? As usual, no easy answers exist to solve the problems. However, science provides a few facts to make thinking about it a little easier as you consider willpower and habits.

Willpower is a limited resource

First, willpower is not an endless resource. In a now classic study, Roy Baumeister at the University of Florida found that people who were forced to undergo a test of their will (experimenters told them to eat radishes instead of chocolates when both were available) did not persist as long when given an unsolvable puzzle as control groups. Researchers determined that this was not an effect merely related to physical tiredness. Apparently, we maintain a “stash” of willpower in the brain. Sadly there is little we can do to restore it on our own.

To make matters worse, we experience tests of willpower in our daily lives that have nothing to do with our goals. For example if I use up willpower to keep me from yelling at the other drivers on my way to work, then I cannot spend willpower on my New Year’s resolution to lift weights. What can you do? Apply your will power where it counts most: in the formation of habits.

Some actions take more willpower than others

Think about when you drive your car for example, or brush your teeth. These activities take almost no willpower or even thought for that matter. If you could exercise like you brush your teeth, or shovel down green leafy vegetables like you drive your car, it would seem that any New Year’s resolution could be accomplished with relative ease (because you don’t have to rely on your limited will to accomplish it).

Habits happen in a loop

Easy enough, but how do we form habits? In his book The Power of Habit, New York Times writer Charles Duhigg presents what he calls a framework for habit change. This framework works off what a habit is, a cue followed by a routine which leads to a reward. He refers to this system of behavior as the habit loop, and his recommendations deal with each part of the cue, routine and reward.

Identify a behavior

First, either in creating a habit or trying to break an old one, identify the routine in question. What behavior do you want to change? Maybe you want to start eating healthy. Or you might want to stop binge-watching netflix. Whatever you want to change, start with the behavior itself. When we start with the behavior, it becomes easier to see the other parts of the loop.

Test different rewards

Second, look at the rewards the habit provides. In particular he says that experimenting with different rewards for your behavior will provide key insights into how you are currently motivated. When we imagine ourselves in the future, we almost never do it accurately, so it is important to treat your future “tempted” self as a kind of experimental subject. For example if you smoke, you would try just going outside for about 15 minutes (to see if you are really smoking just to get out of the office for a while), or trying a patch (to see if it is really just nicotine itself you are craving). This information is invaluable in determining a plan to change your habit.

Identify your cues

Third, Duhigg suggests that you ask yourself a series of questions once a craving hits (or when you “become inspired” to execute your new habit) to determine what cues you are currently responding to. Where are you? What time is it? Who else is around? How are you feeling? What were you just barely doing? The answers to these questions can reveal a clue about the cues that you need to build a stronger habit, or bring an old habit down with intelligence.

Make a formal statement

Finally, with all these details established your should come up with a formal statement about the habit you would like to have. As you craft your goal, include a cue, a routine, and its reward.

Conclusion

When we try to make changes in our lives, we know that it will be difficult. Don’t try again with the same methodology each year and don’t rely on willpower! Instead, rely on the research of behavior change scientists. By taking a targeted approach and using our limited willpower wisely, we can put ourselves in that 12% of people who manage to accomplish their New Year’s resolution.

Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Muraven, M., & Tice, D. M. (1998). Ego depletion: is the active self a limited resource?. Journal of personality and social psychology, 74(5), 1252.
Duhigg, C. (2012). The power of habit: Why we do what we do in life and business. New York: Random House.
Wiseman, R. (n.d.). New Year’s Resolutions Experiment. Retrieved December 31, 2014, from http://quirkology.com/UK/Experiment_resolution.shtml

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