How to Make New Year’s Resolutions Stick
The neuroscience of change, fear, and envisioning the future
By Joshua Freedman
Why do New Year’s resolutions nearly always fail? And what can we do to make them stick, and form new habits?
A lack of information, or data, is not the reason fail to keep New Year’s resolutions. We know salad is healthier than fries. We know where the gym is (and maybe we bought the membership). It’s emotional. It’s about the root motivation. And the problem with most New Year’s Resolutions is that they get the emotional motivation wrong because they are driven by fear and failure.
by Joshua Freedman
The Death Spiral of Fear and Failure
Most New Year’s Resolutions are grounded in fear and failure, and there are 3 main problems:
- They’re about what’s wrong with us
- They’re absolute, and…
- We set impossibly high bars.
“I am finally going to get in shape.” “This is the year I’ll write a book,” “I’m going to call my mom every single week.” Full of aspiration and the wonder of the turning of another year, we jump in: This year will be different.
Then, life happens, and we slip. “We’re really ad at setting reasoable goals,” Amy Cuddy told Business Insider. “And when we don’t meet an ureasonable goal we fill ourselves with feelings of axiety ad lower our self-worth.” And that confirm our worst fears: “I knew it. I’m just never going to _____.” Faced with the absolutism of our “resolutions,” we’re in a dichotomy of continual success or instant failure. It’s the sudden-death-playoff round, every day. So our stress rises. Our adrenal systems kick in. We become more fearful.
Feelings that arise from our focus on problems, such as fear, anger, jealousy and shame, are, indeed, powerful motivators. They are connected to survival, and trigger our brain & body to focus on the problem. They motivate us to protect and survive the short-term threat.
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The key to New Year’s Resolutions is to get the emotions right so you can sustain motivation – because emotions are drivers.
This is useful if your goal is to build a wall around your heart. To step back from compassion into self-protection. To narrow your vision toward survival. It’s why so many politicians love to stir up these feelings: They make us, individually and collectively, weak and manipulable because they motivate us away from innovation, risk, and collaboration. Yet if we want to stretch our wings and grow individually and together… aren’t these the very resources we most need?
Then, when we experience failure, we intensify our sense of failure. “Not only am I overweight, I can’t even keep a simple New Year’s Resolution.” We increase our own misery, and the next year, pay for an even more expensive gym membership.
From Fear to Envisioning the Future: How to Make Resolutions Stick
Since resolutions based on self-shame and fear-of-not-being-good-enough put us into that trap of narrow vision, maybe we need the opposite. Instead of focusing on what’s wrong and inadequacy, what if we focus on what we most want in the world? What if we get out of the self-imposed isolation and step into the larger world that needs us?
Look around. Not at the headlines, but at real people. Not “somewhere out there,” but on the streets of your own. Listen to the song from Moana, and ask yourself: What’s calling you? Hey, it’s New Year’s, give yourself a moment to dream bigger. What if? What if the world needs you… what does it need you for? What if you could make one thing out there better… what would it be?
Now, dig into that vision. Draw a picture. Stay up all night writing like Jerry McGuire. Sing it from your rooftop. Have coffee with old friends and tell them the story. Make a metaphor. Go for a long walk on the beach and talk with your dog. There’s no secret recipe, no trick. Just a process of strengthening, clarifying: Feeling the vision growing. Keep asking yourself, Why? Why does this matter? What will it look like, feel like, sound like to make this difference?
This process is like winding the watch-spring of your future self. By making the vision clear enough to feel, you give it power. In this wonderful RadioLab show about change, neuroscientist David Eagleman talks about this process of making a deal with our future selves. Essentially, he says that emotions motivate our action, and if the emotions pushing us to option A are more powerful, we do that. But if we want to get to option B, we need to turn up the emotional energy — increase the “valence” of that vision. We have to increase the emotional energy of the future vision so that it’s more powerful than the old triggers.
3 Questions to Tap Into Sustainable Motivation
How can you be sure that your motivation is coming from a place of optimism and possibility, instead of fear and failure? The worksheet below, and this blog post, suggest 3 powerful questions you can ask yourself to get and stay motivated.
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Practicing on Purpose: How to Step Forward
Then, instead of making a resolution like, “I’ll go do X things every day,” ask yourself open questions, such as:
- What are the building blocks toward that vision, what are micro-steps along the way?
- What are SOME of the steps I could take to make small improvements toward that vision?
- What could I grow or strengthen in myself that would support me to support that vision?
Then consider the opportunities: When and where do I get chances to practice leaning in that direction?
Malcolm Gladwell famously wrote about the power of 10,000 hours of practice. Unfortunately, he misquoted the research, and there is no magic about the number of hours. But the KIND of practice matters greatly. It’s not about, “today I failed in my resolution,” it’s, “I have 2 minutes: How can I use this well Right Now?”
Vision Catalyzes Change: Our Vision of Practicing
What happens when the vision becomes real, when individually and together you can feel it pulling you? At Six Seconds, a few years ago we adopted a new vision: We are working toward a billion people practicing emotional intelligence by 2039. At the start, it evoked big questions, and in turn, these questions energized us to transform:
- What is emotional intelligence, and how do you practice it?
- Who are the people, and what do they need?
- What kind of organization can support people in this kind of practice?
As so often happens, when we see differently, change unfolds. This vision has transformed our organization. Just for example: We closed all our for-profit offices worldwide and recommitted to building a global community. We restructured our roles and teams creating opportunities to engage, such as our volunteer Network Leaders and global free collaborations such as the UN Universal Children’s Day. We rebuilt our products to create streamlined EQ certification training. We refocused our own practice and learning. But none of these was “a resolution.” None was, “we’re doing something wrong, we have to fix ourselves.” They are all examples of practicing, energized by a vision that feels compelling.
Resolved
Here are New Year’s Resolutions I wish for all of us:
Revel in Possibilities. What if we could all see the future a little more clearly each day?
Experiment. When you screw up, don’t beat yourself up, we’re all here practicing with you, we are a community of practitioners.
Treat Learning as a Journey. Hopefully we’ll all get many chances to try again, so each day, learn some more, practice more carefully, and keep growing.
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Explore three essential motivation questions & tips for coaching yourself
- Coaching Through the Emotional Recession: Three Practical Tips for Trauma-Informed Coaching - May 1, 2024
- Knowing Isn’t Coaching: Three Emotional Intelligence Tools for Professional Coaches - April 3, 2024
- Coaching Down the Escalator: 3 Emotional Intelligence Tips forCoaches to Reduce Volatility & De-escalate Conflict in a Polarized World - March 6, 2024
This year will be different.
already reading the articles is a learning, then the comments widen the vision. This also creates a new beginning. Thank you all.
Beautiful article.
I believe that everyday is a start of a new year, a new begining. By living our vision and practicing how this vision looks, sounds and feels, we keep it alive and more compelling. And by by clarifying all the steps needed, the road feels more within reach.
I love what you wrote Amina – yes! It’s like when the moon is just rising and it’s so big you can almost touch it 🙂
Resolution is same as setting goals, so the first step to fullfiling resolutions is to decide on realisable resolution or goals. It is easier to be quiet about your goals so that anxiety will not set in to hamper your progress; as my people would say: “what a man wants to do is in his heart of hearts”, he only works at it quietly!
Josh,
I enjoy reading each issue of 6 secs.
Today I thought I world share my take on New Year Resolutions since they are ineffectual and a misnomer for the majority of people. The word Resolution is actually the action phase of the root word Resolute. It is the application side of what Resolute. Resolute = is a Nautical term for “Stay the Course, To Hold Fast to the path, or the destination, To not deviate or to change course.” So I find that people do not have have the Resolute spirit (in general) to stay the course that they started. So in essence Resolutions are not real since there is a lack of Staying the Course, to the end to fully Go the Distance (using a boxing term). It is not that they do not have good intentions, they do. Yet are easily swayed off course and do not make their destination. This is one reason that many couples and individuals quit counseling or jobs, or relationships, or their word.
It is similar to Making Promises. Promises make the other person feel good, or to continue to believe in them and the person. They also help the person making the promise to feel good and better about themselves at least for a moment. Think about the times that you have promised to do something or help another or even yourself, since when the marker (if you will the promise is called in) people have had every excuse in the book to be unable to to full fill the Promise. This is similar to New Years Resolutions. Her is where EQ can help. Because not Staying the course, Not being Resolute, can create emotional chaos. One of the skills to develop id “Be a man/women of your word.” I believe this is important to Emotional Intelligence, EQ, being that resolute person, a person of your word.
Thought I would share this with you.
EQ
Five Life Agreements
AGREEMENT 1: BE IMPECCABLE WITH YOUR WORD
When you stand by and follow your word (not promises) you build Integrity, creditability and more important BELIEVABILITY.
Remember that your word (s) and action (s)/inaction, have:
1) Power- A) Internal B) External
2) Influence- A) Internal B) External
What you do or do not do/ say or do not say not only affects you, yet also the people, places and things around you. Even what you don’t see. It is the ripple effect.
AGEEMENT 2: DON’T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY
A) Everything is not about you. It is more than likely about the way you are acting, or something another person is trying to project onto you.
B) People react or respond to your behavior, not who you as a person.
C) When you take things personally you assume responsibility that is not yours.
“Your Heart Is known by the path you walk.”
AGREEMENT 3: DON’T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS
A) Making assumptions set’s yourself and others up for conflict and chaos. This is no different than an expectation.
B) Assumptions are nothing more that faulty perception and beliefs. That you generally act on and create conflict and chaos.
AGREEMENT 4: ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST
Your best is first for yourself not others, they are the honored recipients of you doing your best.
A) Your best will change from situation to situation, as you learn from each experience,
B) Your best will change over time.
C) By doing your best you do not giver power or control of yourself to others.
AGREEMENT 5: BE SKEPTICAL, BUT LEARN TO LISTEN
A) Don’t believe yourself or others until you have listened. Most of our knowledge is based on faulty information, beliefs and or perceptions. Question yourself, ask for more information. Even decision you made has a little doubt (what is called second guessing).
B) Reasonable doubt used in our Courts is a good way to be skeptical without closing off others or being rude.
C) Do not just listen to the words, but listen to the intent behind the words. Do the actions or behavior match the words and situation?
D) All information has a kernel of truth and insight, yet from there anything can happen to it.
“Life (external) only intrudes, as long as we allow it”.
Eugene Cummingsm M.Ed, PhD-C, LMHP
Amen to that! Practice is the fun we do in life! Thanks Josh – Happy New Year!
Yes! Practice what you preach
Beautifully said and very true, new year is all about the change we want to keep creating within ourselves to feel better and do better for us and others. happy new year
Yes many people world wide take resulation to do something for society or community.
I have taken resulation
1)To complete my book and then published it. Also take copy write and published in many langueages.
2)Right my Enclopydia
Thank you Nehad – isn’t it amazing what we can create within!