Want to keep your New Year’s resolutions? Just ask science
It’s January and you’re extra motivated to tackle your goals. Get fit? Lose weight? These are two of the most common New Year’s resolutions, and their success relies on making daily changes to your life. However, to succeed, you have to disrupt your regular habits and exchange them for new ones. Unfortunately, we’re bad at doing both of these things. Research(opens in new window) has shown that most resolutions fail by mid-March. The truth is that losing weight or working out more are two things we really don’t want to do. Want to keep your resolutions past spring? Make activities such as these enjoyable by incorporating a fun element(opens in new window).
Are you having fun yet?
“One way to make pursuing a goal that normally feels like a chore more fun is to combine it with a guilty pleasure,” Katy Milkman, behavioural scientist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States, told ‘CNN’(opens in new window). “I call this ‘temptation bundling’. Consider only letting yourself watch your favorite TV show at the gym so you’ll start looking forward to workouts.” Apart from fun, another key to success is to set small, achievable goals such as walking for 20 minutes 4 times a week, rather than big and vague ones, such as simply saying that you’ll exercise more. These small steps and milestones will keep you motivated. Just as important, they release dopamine – a chemical that influences how happy we feel. Don’t keep the resolution to yourself, share with family and friends because they influence your willpower and self-control(opens in new window). Asking others about their recipe for success will help you achieve your own goals(opens in new window). Try talking to yourself, or rather, using your inner voice(opens in new window), to control your actions and to stay motivated. Why limit resolutions around the new year? For example, the ideal time to set goals for losing weight is in early October, before winter and the holiday season when people normally gain weight. This is what a study in ‘The New England Journal of Medicine’(opens in new window) revealed.
Motivating with money
If all else fails, cold hard cash and technology might work. Nothing like financial incentives to motivate us(opens in new window). Also, penalties(opens in new window) motivate us more than rewards. Apps such as stickK invite you to sign a contract with yourself and deposit money that you get back when a goal is reached. You name a referee who monitors how you’re doing. The money goes to charity, or even a friend, if you fail.