How to Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions for More Than a Week

Evidence suggests that within a week,

25% of us have failed on our resolutions.

A month later, half of us have.

And then you've got those annoyingly persistent 25

or 30% that seem to carry it on for years.

And we've been doing this research for decades

and the big revolution we have now is people tend

to do what they enjoy and not what they don't enjoy.

You're welcome for decades of research

for something as simple as that.

I'm Dr. Amanda Rebar.

I am Associate Professor of Psychology.

I'm here to help you make sense of new year's resolutions.

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Resolutions are really different from habits

but they don't have to be.

Resolutions are self-initiated plan to change,

whereas habits are how we do things day to day.

Habits tend to last the long term,

whereas resolutions tend to fade out.

To make resolutions that work,

you need to focus on the behavior rather than the outcome.

You need to make sure it fits within your life

and you're not forcing yourself to do something.

I mean, you need to find a way that it's satisfying,

fun or easy,

ideally all three.

[Voiceover] So let's start here with behavior change.

When we talk about behavior

really we think about it in two different ways.

We think of the initiation

so deciding to do that behavior and execution.

So once you decide to do something, how do you do that?

My favorite example of that is getting

in the car and deciding to go to work.

That's the initiation

and execution is maybe the route you take.

So the more we go through life, the more we go, okay,

this is connected to this, or this makes me feel this way.

And we reflect on those quite quickly

within a quarter of a second to make decisions

or to influence how we act or to how we feel.

And that's all a habit is, associative learning.

That's how we can change our own behaviors.

Think what's the reward that continuing this link

between me doing this behavior and whatever context I'm in.

Why does my mind think that this is a good thing to do?

[Voiceover] All that means is

that we need to make new habits.

So how does science say that we do that?

Rewards are really interesting because we're driven

by them if we like it or not.

So reward is kind of that catalyst or the helper

between doing a behavior once and making sure we do it

over and over again to the point where these habits form.

When you're trying to form a habit,

it seems really tempting to reward yourself

for doing the behavior, having a reward day

after you diet for seven days.

The problem with that is then you're shifting

from habit to goal-directed behavior or to an achievement.

You're doing it for something external

from the actual behavior,

which makes it more about self-control

than about just going through your day-to-day life.

[Voiceover] So how long does it take

to make your new habits stick around for good?

Every habit researcher dreads the question

about how long it takes to form a habit. [laughing]

And it's because it's really hard to know.

It's hard because people are so different from each other.

The evidence suggests between 21 days or three months.

It's not like running is gonna feel any different

once your habit's formed.

It's that decision to do it.

You don't have to talk yourself

into it as much as you may have when you started.

It's more just a natural part of of your day.

And that's really what we want

from a behavior change perspective.

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If you can make goals that are focused

on doing something as opposed to stop doing something else,

it's really valuable.

So trade out a behavior

for the context that seems to be quite triggering

for that habit.

It doesn't work to trade out bad behaviors

with behaviors that don't give you the same reward.

Some people will try to trade out smoking

for chewing a piece of gum or eating a celery stick,

and that's not gonna work

because you're not getting the same reward

out of that that you were from smoking, for example.

[Voiceover] Keeping track of our habits vary

person to person.

But for those taking a more high-tech route

is technology a benefit or a burden?

The role of technology is really interesting,

especially from a behavior change perspective.

Everyone has activity trackers, for example,

or everyone loves tracking their heartbeat or their sleep.

And if people find it supportive

in the way that helps them have an easier life

and more satisfying and fun, brilliant.

But the risk

of that is we could be monitoring ourselves to death.

If you're focusing so much

on a goal or watching the outcomes

in a way that makes you reflect so much

on it that you don't allow those naturally-occurring habits

to form, it's gonna be exhausting to maintain over time.

If it's stressful or

if it's making you feel guilty or ashamed, give it up.

It's not gonna help.

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I started researching physical activity

and it's really hard to keep people motivated

for a long time if they don't consider it part

of their daily lives or

if it's not who they see themselves to be.

You know, it kind of irks me

that a lot of the way we try to intervene

with physical activity is by educating people.

98% of the world knows that exercise will make them better

in some way.

We all know we should, for heaven's sakes.

So it needs to move beyond that.

We need to make it easier on people.

There's so much going on in people's lives.

[Voiceover] If you've done all three,

changing your behavior, making it fun

and making it fit into your life,

does that mean that you're guaranteed to be successful

with your New Year's resolution?

Some of my favorite evidence

in the habit field is we've tracked people's habits

across different types of behaviors, across weeks and month

and we found that those days where people

didn't do the behavior that they were trying

to become habitual didn't throw you off

but had no impact on how quickly those habits would form.

And I'd love that finding because it means we can be kind

to ourselves and it means it's okay to miss a few days

or it's okay to give into temptations

and just kick back on track the next day.

It's really important to remember

that when you're making a goal or a resolution,

you're not always gonna feel as motivated

as you do at that moment.

When you do set a goal or you do set a resolution, think

about how you can make that behavior

that you wanna do the easiest or the most satisfying

or the funnest option out of all the options you have.

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