Could you guess how many of my 2015 New Year’s resolutions I kept? If you guessed ‘zero’ you would be correct. In my defense, there is more to it than quitting. And, if you have read other posts I have written you might be more clever, and guess that I kept zero of them because I made zero. [At least official New Year ones.]
It is nothing new to write about how New Year resolutions don’t work. But is it true?
Before you can say ‘champagne and confetti’ someone may have broken their NY resolution and that someone may have been you. There are a lot of those ‘someones.’ By mid-January most resolutions have been abandoned. At least that is the claim in most literature. One number often bandied about is a bit less than 160 million people a year can’t stay on track. So we are in good company. But why?
The Nay-Sayers
There are at least two camps of thought as to why New Year (NY) resolutions fail.
- Brain can’t handle the Load
You may have blamed your willpower or lack of sticktoitiveness (and yes, that is a real word). Partially you would be correct (minus any self-loathing). Your sticktoitiveness may be strained. The part of the brain that allows us to access our willpower also does much more. This section of the brain (the prefrontal cortex) helps us solve tasks, make moral decisions, evaluate short and long term choices, stay focused, access our working memory and govern social and physical impulse control
When you plop new tasks on it (read that as ‘resolutions’), you are gumming up the mechanism and increasing its work load. It’s like burning out a fuse using too much power. The extra load doesn’t actually burn out the function of the prefrontal cortex, but it can weaken your willpower.
A rather well-known experiment published out of Stanford looks at our brain in relationship to selling us stuff – a whole field called Neruo-Marketing. Prof Bab Shiv explained what he found from the study was that even small tasks could overload us, and deplete our willpower. (Published in Business 2.0 2006 May edition).
The description was given as follows:
A group of undergraduate students were divided into 2 groups. One group was given a two-digit number to remember. The other was given a seven-digit number to remember. Then, after a short walk through the hall, they were offered the choice between two snacks: a slice of chocolate cake or a bowl of fruit. What’s most surprising: The students with 7-digit numbers to remember were twice as likely to pick the slice of chocolate compared to the students with the 2-digits.
Specifically, the results from group one was that 59% of them chose the fruit salad; in group 2 (with more numbers on their mind) only 37% of them chose the salad. So why? Prof. Shiva explains it succinctly:
“Those extra numbers took up valuable space in the brain—they were a “cognitive load”—making it that much harder to resist a decadent dessert.”
The good thing is that your own prefrontal cortex is less like that burned out fuse and more like a muscle you can train to be stronger (even if that sounds counterintuitive to the statement above about working harder). Even delaying gratification is a part of this function. As long as we take it slow, evaluate pressures, we can at least avoid temptation more often – whether food, purchasing something or behaviors we claim are undesirable. Ah, hope you see I snuck in a ‘yay-sayer’ point.
- Resolutions Deny the Unconscious
Unconscious commitments to keep doing everything in your life so that it stays the same is the basic idea in a Psychology Today article by Michael Bader, DMH ‘Why Resolutions Don’t Work? (PT January 2011). His answer to that question about failure is because the resolutions deny the unconscious reasons we have for not keeping them, or for not changing. In the Happiness Trap I wrote about some of the ways to avoid these snares. We can’t change these supposed-undesirable things without understanding them more. Bader further points out that all of these issues are part of the structure – the building blocks of our identity. Almost don’t want to go there, Huh? It may be we have too many reasons (even if unconscious) not to change ourselves or change our ‘identity.’
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It is not our rational conscious minds that don’t succeed. Often we chalk it up to bad habits or ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.’ It’s the unconscious mind that is tripping us up and maintaining the status quo. This sabotaging unconscious mind seems harder to face than the things we don’t like about ourselves. Change doesn’t only come from years on the analyst’s couch. Yet, it takes work to look at ourselves honestly. Evidently we do have to be both compassionate with ourselves and be willing to seek deep inside for what truly motivates us.
The Yay-Sayers
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t profess to be in the inspiring ‘yay-sayers’ camp of believing in NY resolutions. While I like to be positive, I admit that I see such changes as quite difficult. I have my own approach to change that I will share in a moment. Understandably, part of me doesn’t encourage NY resolutions because by this age I realize I am not good at the tradition. Unless we view the actual tradition as making and then breaking resolutions each January. Then I am good! Well, as they say….’duh;’ of course that is why I don’t like them. Few of us are good at keeping resolutions or making change. Arguing on the other side, there are some very optimistic experts out there who disagree with me.
Daniel Ariely has long been a motivational speaker, having overcome some major personal hardships, and is considered a bit of a resolution expert. He makes good points that others may relate to. First he says that New Years IS a good time for resolutions, that it is a socially-acknowledged time for a fresh start, a brand new year that can be uplifting for us. As another way to encourage this change, he supports the idea of partnership, someone who will help you through a resolution. This is not new either, but perhaps it works better than I think (at least for those who aren’t loner-types). Bringing it into more modern times, he further promotes a site/app called StickK (http://www.stickk.com/) a type of social media site like Facebook to provide you these partners on a large scale. Lots of people to sustain the idea of ‘Stick to it.’ StickK also has an element of monetary motivation with wagering options.
Since the late 1980s, John Norcross, professor of psychology at the University of Scranton has been studying and tracking how people make and keep NY resolutions. One of the evaluative steps in their scientific procedure is to phone the participants every couple of weeks to inquire about their status or progress. I haven’t read the whole study but hope that there is some comparison between those participants and the ones they don’t call. It would seem that when you know someone is checking up on you, the success rate would be much higher. It is built-in motivation. Rather the same premise as the STICKK app above that Ariely promotes.
The point Ariely makes that strikes closest to home for me, and admittedly because this is what I already think, is don’t believe you are starting from zero. Take some small thing you do and expand on it. You won’t be perfect (as he reminds us we are ‘only human’). But while we aren’t perfect, we can be better. [For any of you aware of the 1% Solution, you will recognize that concept.] He also suggests trying different variations or versions of your resolution as one may work better than another. This too reminds me of a term (and a whole program based on it) when working with the disabled, called ‘Try Another Way.’ I always loved this. When someone was unable to perform some task, especially if you could see them attempting and failing in one way, your response was always, ‘try another way.’
MY ‘BETTER’ WAY
Notice that I say my better way. I don’t mean better than others, I mean anything just a little better than my current status. And if I have to Try Another Way, that’s cool too. For now, these are my personal rules that I believe are most helpful to encourage me to make a change of any kind. Hopefully they may ring true with you too.
- Anytime is the right time. Don’t confine resolutions to the New Year. If I make a resolution and I slip, it is just that – a ‘slip’ not a failure. I will start at another time, try another way or just start afresh from whatever point I find myself.
- Pick ONE SMALL thing. Work on ‘better’ not ‘best.’ Make sure your teensy-weensy objective has an action step (with a time frame) and phrase it in positive language. Avoid negative words like ‘don’t, or never, or stop’; concentrate on the positive words to accomplish the little step.
- Write it down. I used to have a mentor who said ‘if it isn’t written down, it doesn’t exist.’ Of course, he was talking about patient records, but I think it applies to any goal. [Desk calendars are good, but anywhere noticeable is fine – even on a smart phone.]
- Tracking progress on your itty-bitty step is vital – and itty-bitty progress counts. (Write it, read it, appreciate it, share it on-line, brag, whatever.)
- Plan the REWARD in advance.
More on #5 – My Favorite Part is the Rewards
Part of me is tempted to stay in the camp of no resolutions and just learn to be happy enough with my foibles. But then I would miss out on the very reason that lured me to write all of the above.
Everything being said, people make resolutions because they want something. Usually they want something to change (or at least they think they do). I contemplate resolutions periodically because there is so much room for improvements in my life. And certainly as I said, I don’t need the New Year to consider such changes. What I DO need is that reward! Not just the reward of succeeding, which may be crucial, but a real ‘pat-on-the-back’ reward as well. Maybe THAT is why so many resolutions don’t work – people don’t reward themselves enough. And maybe not soon enough or often enough either. I am not dismissing the qualities of being able to delay gratification, but only suggesting that this is not the time for it, when you are trying to change a behavior. As Mitesh Patel of the Center for Health Incentives and Behavior Economics (University of Pennsylvania) put it “people are motivated by immediate awards.” So we can encourage our tiny little improvements with great pre-planned rewards. A definite win-win, right?
I want to refer back to one of my favorite blogs, Rewards and Resolutions. If you missed that one, or the LONG list of wonderful rewards take another peak. Click here and scroll to the list.
If you have a suggestion not already on my list, be sure to share it (either here or email me personally). As I mentioned originally, included are examples of rewards (big and small) which might fit particular occasions, your mood, interests, pocketbook or personality. Make sure you commit to finding something to treat yourself with – now, THAT would be a great resolution on which to follow through.
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Credits: Title Image from SITES NO LONGER AVAILABLE : RussellWeber.com; MyBrainNotes.com
Perhaps you saw this article in NY Times, “The Happiness Code”: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/magazine/the-happiness-code.html?emc=edit_au_20160115&nl=afternoonupdate&nlid=60702729
It’s about a new, rather hip, rational approach to self-improvement. Workshops aim to use techniques of rational thought to “bring the emotional, instinctive parts of the brain . . . into harmony with the more intellectual, goal-setting parts of the brain.” Right now it is attracting Silicon-Valley types: ‘‘When you realize that people are complex systems — that we operate in complicated ways, but also sort of follow rules — you start to think about how you might tweak some of those variables.’’
Anyhow, I found it interesting!
Alice,
No I hadn’t seen this article, but I understand why you would have referenced it. It might be a rather complex system, but I hope others read it as well. It also might not be the ‘soft-touch’ of my suggestions, but an interesting ‘new’ approach that might help others.
Here were some of my favorite ‘sound-bytes’ from it.
• Experience can edit identity
• ‘We don’t advocate particular things that people should do. We just encourage them to look at the models that are driving their choices.’
• “We’re all prone to: the belief that avoiding bad news will keep it from becoming true.”
• One of the author’s summaries: “Many of CFAR’s techniques resemble a kind of self-directed version of psychotherapy’s holy trinity: learning to notice behaviors and assumptions that we’re often barely conscious of; feeling around to understand the roots of those behaviors; and then using those insights to create change.”
• “Think positive – only when it’s warranted by the facts.”
After the statements implying that the workshop felt like a cult; I was happy to see the author say this toward the end of her article: “Against all odds, the workshop had cracked open a mental window: Instead of merely muddling through, I began to consider how my habits might be changed.”
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Thanks for sharing this.
I really enjoyed reading this Barbara. I gave up making NY’s Resolutions many years ago. I think ?? I know myself well enof to be aware that the pressure I put on myself will backfire. My approach is to set very small goals AND not beat myself up when I don’t meet them. As a very wise woman I know told me, ‘you can always start your day all over again’…..works for me!!
And maybe you will start your day all over again just a WEE bit ‘better.’ Cheers.
Hey, there! I’m with you – I figure if I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, I can’t break them. My all-year resolution is to Thank God for every day (better than the Alternative!) of Life, and to do one, even small, kindness each day. Today, I baked Banana Bread and made fresh lemonade for Mauricio’s crew that are laying our paver driverway. Hope that’ll make them smile!
One kindness everyday! Love it. First it is a good goal, and then accomplishing it will make us feel better in more than one way. Terrific idea.