New Year Resolutions

With the holidays over, many of us are looking forward to the New Year. There is something so exciting about starting a new chapter, and the promise of the new year really brings out our inner dreamer. Aware that our habits and our lives are always up for improvement, the new year gives us a fresh start and a space to make change happen.

So we make resolutions for the new year. We always have full confidence that we will achieve them. However, most of us will fail. Again. Just like last year. Sorry to be a bummer, but it's true. So why? Why do we fail achieving a goal that we find so exciting and that seems very realistic? Let's talk about the psychology behind New Year resolutions.

Kaitlin Woolley from Cornell University and Ayelet Fishbach from the University of Chicago have recently published some new research that investigates New Year resolutions. They found-

55.2% of resolutions are health related with 31.3% to exercise, 10.4% to eat healthier and 13.5% to have healthier habits.

34.4% of resolutions are work related with 20.8% wanting to save more money, 12.5% vowing to get out of debt and 1.0% wanting to be more organized.

5.2% of resolutions were social goals with 2.1% wanting to spend more time with family and 3.1% simply wanting to enjoy life more.

Their study, which was published in the journal, "Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin", found that participants thought that enjoyment and importance mattered for how successful they would be at sticking to their resolution moving forward.

The researchers found that only enjoyment predicted long-term persistence when committing to a resolution. Meaning that most of us make a huge psychological mistake assuming that we will reach our goals simply because it is important to do.

What really matters is how much enjoyment we find in our efforts to start a new routine in an attempt to make changes to our life.

In understanding the psychology behind New Year resolution it is also important to consider why we don't just see to it that we take care of ourselves every day of the year. Why do we choose the new year to eradicate the negative and usher in the positive?

A new investigation by Professor Seppo Iso-Ahola called "Conscious-Nonconscious Processing Explains Why Some People Exercise But Most Don't" reveals why we don't work out when we know we should. It boils down to grasping what happens when we have to start thinking about our decision to exercise. While this can apply to anything, lets just focus on exercise for a minute.

A huge predictor for success in a fitness resolve is how much of your decision to exercise involves conscious back-and-forth over thinking about what you should do and what you want to be doing. But once you establish a new routine these dueling thoughts slip below the consciousnesses and you begin to think about them less. It is then that you start to reap the benefits of exercise, like improved mental health, well being and brain function.

So the fight is basically over freedom to do what you want in your leisure time. Given that a sense of freedom is the defining characteristic of leisure time, anything that threatens that, like needing to exercise leads to a strong psychological resistance.

Professor Seppo Iso-Ahola suggests that important health-promoting behaviors cannot be perceived as a choice to be selected from leisure activities. They must be viewed separate from leisure activities and as something that must be completed no matter what.

The psychological trick needed is for your resolution to become a forced "choice".

This means that you will have to do things to set yourself up for success and follow through regardless of conditions. In terms of exercise that means not hitting snooze and missing your pre-planned early morning run, or enlisting others to exercise with you so that it is harder to back out of it. You will need to make adjustments to your environment to encourage these new behaviors.

The bad news is that it is tough to establish new habits, but the good news is that once you do establish a new positive habit, it will be hard to shake it.

Another finding in the first study I mentioned found that instant gratification and not delayed rewards often decided resolution success. When you obtain short-term pleasures from making changes these changes are more likely to become pleasurable habits.

So forcing yourself to do something only because it seems like it's good for you instead of choosing to do something that brings you pleasure is not going to work.

In short, the journey from conscious decision to unconscious habit weighs heavily on finding new pleasures instead of sticking to old ones. When we make New Year resolutions that incorporate something that we want to change we are more likely to reach our goals.

I have a few resolutions for 2020 and most revolve around treating myself better and finally tackling a book project that I have outlined.

What are your resolutions for 2020?