8 Ways to Avoid Feeling Like a Chump at the End of the Year

Change is not easy unless you’ve just had a really bad life event and are desperate for something new. We all need as many useful tools in the toolkit as possible. Last week I wrote about the most proven way to change – commitment devices. If you want to change your results in any area of your life, here are some other useful suggestions from Wharton professor Katy Milkman’s new book,?How to Change:

1.????Stop over-rating yourself when it comes to your self-discipline, self-control, and willpower

The first hurdle to change is to tone down your self-deceit. We all tend to be overly optimistic and over-confident about our abilities to follow through on our good intentions. Then we get to late December and are ‘shocked’ that our health/finances/business/relationship with x hasn’t really improved at all! This is the first reason why.?

2.????“Isolate the weakness preventing progress.”

Milkman trained as an engineer so was wired to break down problems by trying to determine which part of the construction wasn’t functioning properly. I was struck by the comment that if you’re attempting to change outcomes, then the best thing to do is to ask: what’s the biggest obstacle? Interestingly, as I found in my work for?The 5 Habits to Mine Your Gold, Milkman says the enemy is often in our heads. (That can be a long story!)

Since writing the book, I’m also inclined to think that we are also not resourceful enough at solving our problems. We tend to operate on an autopilot based on a limited repertoire of solutions. It doesn’t help that we are constantly busy. Sometimes we will try another way but if it doesn’t work quickly, we abandon it altogether rather than keep experimenting until it does. I make this mistake quite often.

3.????Decide on a Fresh Start

One helpful way to get yourself to change is to pick a time to make a “fresh start”. January 1st?is the most popular, but others are after holidays, birthdays, major life events and even weekends.

When my new app community, Rising Star, launches very soon, I plan to run a Fresh Start live event every Monday – why not? A fresh start can be any time, but our heads usually need some better justification. Having said that, do you really want to wait until January, the next time Tony Robbins comes to town, or you move house again? Please, don’t wait.

4.????Add a spoonful of sugar

Focusing on the long-term benefits of your new health or investing habit is hard. Much sooner rather than later, you want to see some rewards. Milkman has some great advice: reward yourself.?Ask yourself: how can make this more fun??Can you ‘purpose link’: Watch your favorite Netflix show and exercise on your Peloton? Walk the dog and listen to your sports podcast or talk to a friend? Can you gamify your mundane task?

Making change can be hard. Who really wants to do another 200 pushups or read a 50-page journal article for work when it’s 8pm? It’s a great concept to ask: “Hmmn: what would be a spoonful of sugar for me?”

I’m about to embarrass myself but I’ve been hooked lately on the Gray Man book series by Mark Greaney. He’s this one-man rogue CIA agent who knocks off the evilest of bad guys around the world. He manages to get in these ridiculous pickles where he’s supposed to out-fight dozens of people at once or storm heavily guarded buildings on his own by parachuting through the chimney like Santa Claus only with a sack full of hurt. He should be dead by the end of chapter 1 in the first book, but somehow there are 13 books in the series so far! (I Just finished the fifth one) My point is these are night-time treats. Not exactly relaxing meditations! (I suppose I should work on my night-time ritual again.)

5.????Restrict your choices/commitment devices

This refers to things like setting up automatic savings plans or throwing away unhealthy food from your house so you’re not tempted to eat the wrong thing later at night when your self-discipline has run out. Last week I wrote about the best commitment device and?the most proven way to change: pay a fine to a cause you detest.?

6.????Sign and post a pledge

?Milkman tells of a study done on doctors at five primary care clinics in Los Angeles who were trying to stop unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions. One group signed a formal pledge and posted it in their waiting rooms. Remarkably, after 1000 patients had been seen with acute cold symptoms, researchers found that inappropriate prescriptions were cut by about?a third?compared with the control group who did not sign a pledge.

You might apply this by signing a pledge to your partner and/or children committing to a new health, financial or vacation goal.?Think about this for a moment.?If you posted your pledge on the kitchen fridge that you were going to achieve a specific health target or achieve a business goal so you could take the family on a vacation by x date, now you’d have multiple loved ones inquiring from time to time how it was going. Leverage???

7.????Create memorable cues to help you remember new tasks

Forgetting is often a reason for us not implementing a new change. It’s new so it’s just not top of mind. It doesn’t cross our mind. Milkman suggests that an out-of-the-ordinary reminder can work well. For example, you keep forgetting to call an ailing relative who just had surgery, so put one of your children’s bright red stuffed toys on the kitchen counter as a prompt.

If you’re trying to start a new habit, then do it the BJ Fogg,?Tiny Habits?way by making it small, stacking it to something you already have as a habit, and scripting it:

After I…(current habit)

I will…(add new desired habit)?

8.????Chunk down goals and avoid having too many

Another way to mess up trying to change is having 14 new goals that you’re working on and chasing all of them equally at the same time. Focus on one or two main goals. Then break those down into achievable segments.

There are seven really useful ideas here plus a reminder that we all over-rate ourselves when it comes to following through. I hope you use some of these and make this the year you really want it to be!

To change!

Matt

Copyright Matt Anderson, 2023