Do New Year's Resolutions work? Apply the correct science and they can

Do new year’s resolutions work?

Following a period of overindulgence during the holiday season many of us use the start of the new year to act as a catalyst for change and improvement and it is no coincidence that commercial breaks on TV have been full of adverts for slimming plans, nicotine patches and gyms over the last few days in the hope that we will subscribe to them to help us in achieving our new year resolutions.

As many of us will confirm from previous new year resolutions which we have set, after starting January with ambitious goals and life changes, our willpower will often sustain our new goals for a while, but as the weeks pass we may start to smoke just at the weekend and to be honest it is too cold to go running in February and eventually our willpower fails.

However as explained in previous articles willpower is a finite resource and will become depleted when we try and use it over a long period of time and to enable changes and to create new habits rather than relying on willpower we need to develop a more strategic approach.?

There is strong psychological scientific evidence in how we can create habits and if we apply this knowledge to our everyday behaviours we can make habits very easy to form and thus ensure our new year’s resolutions are fulfilled.

Our brain has developed a clever system to improve its efficiency whereby it can free up space to work on other things by making habits something we do without having to think about them. Think about how much little thought you put in to brushing your teeth every morning or the process you follow to clean your house etc. The main purpose of habits is to solve the problems of life with the minimum amount of energy and effort as possible.

So, let’s look at how the science works and try and apply it to our everyday lives.?

Psychological research has shown that a habit consists of three parts a cue, a routine and and a reward. The cue will act as prompt to trigger you to perform a routine, and the routine is the behaviour which we think of as a habit. Then the reward is the satisfaction which we experience from meeting some craving or need. These three components combine to create what is the habit loop.

For example, in pre covid times when I would regularly go to an office and return home in the evening. On returning after a day’s work I would slump on the sofa to watch the news and open a bottle of beer (maybe two!). Such behaviour was starting to influence the size of my belly so I needed to do something about it. I therefore needed to identify the cues and rewards.

Most of us will be aware of our habitual routines but we are normally oblivious to the cues and the rewards that tigger and reinforce them. Therapists who are able to identify cues and rewards enable people to quite smoking or no longer fear spiders an easy task

So to change my beer swilling habit I started to make a note and record the before and after of opening that beer on returning home – What was I thinking? What was I feeling?. After a few days observing I realised that the cue was the time of day and I’d walk in the house and open a beer and chat about my day with my wife.

To identify the reward was not so easy and I wondered was it the hit of an ice cold beer after a long day. I therefore mixed it up and exchanged the beer for a coke and then an apple. I then started to realise that the reward was none of these but more having a chat and sharing the days experiences with my wife and therefore it was the social interaction with family which was the reward. I therefore now come in from work and go for a walk around the block with my wife when returning from work and no longer open a beer(beers!) but still get the reward of social interaction.

Once we are clear on our cues and routines we can use them to positive effect. For example, I quit opening a beer but the cue of arriving home after a long day was to walk around the block – much better for the belly and no more beer cravings! The isolation of these bad habits can also be a useful technique in creating new ones and I soon moved on from going for a walk around the block to building up to manage a 10 km run.

Other things you can do is to engineer your environment so as to make the habit more likely to happen by making it easy to do, E.g. If you do want to exercise more ensure your exercise kit is all laid out by the door when you wake up so it is not hard to put it on. If you are trying to work at your desk but are distracted to check the ping of social media on your phone turn the phone off and lock it away in a cupboard for a set period of time to remove any temptation to look. Also make sure you reserve that bar of chocolate (or rewarding beer) until after you have completed your intended task – that’s your reward and as you repeat this behaviour it will become easier and easier to complete your intended task.

If this doesn’t work straight away the psychologists say that we should keep experimenting until the routine becomes a norm and failing for the first few attempts does not mean you are unable to change but rather you are learning what works and what doesn’t. You may need to revisit your cues and rewards and if you forget your routine it may be that the cues aren’t strong enough or alternatively you do remember the routine but are not very motivated to do it then the rewards will not be strong enough.

So, what might be your cue to study? Time of day maybe? and as a result you plan to get up an hour earlier to do it because you know this is when your brain is at its best. Your routine is that when you study you always do so in the same place and you also have a tidy work environment with your books open on the correct page to make it easier to start and your reward is whatever you want it to be – night out with friends? a Netflix binge? A cold beer?

Remember small specific actions are much more likely to become habitual and rather than say I am going to study more which is unlikely to turn into a habit because it is too general and vague. Consider I’m going to study three times a week which is slightly better but still not very specific. Maybe consider changing to I’m going to get into work early each morning and study in the board room between 7 am and 8 30am every day which is much more specific

So the key take away is that if we apply the three parts of the habit loop in trying to achieve our goals and be prepared to adapt and adjust our approach as needed we can be confident that our goals whatever they are will come to fruition

If you want to read more into the science of Habit forming two excellent books which you can explore more on the subject are :

• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg