Why you should not make new year's resolutions and what makes you change

Don’t make new year's resolutions

Because doing so makes your brain think ‘relax, she is still on the couch and won’t do it anyway.’

 It might sound counterintuitive not to make new year’s resolutions list since many people make them. But how many people that you know follow them through the first three months? How many of your new year’s resolutions did you make and not follow up and felt shitty about in February already?

 There could be many reasons why new year’s resolutions don’t work. Unrealistic goal setting and short-term thinking amongst some of them. Both make us feel dissatisfied that we don’t have our goal yet and prevent us from seeing our progress to date.

 My personal favorite explanation that I’ve come across is in articles about neuroplasticity - brain’s capability to learn new and forget old habits through specific training for example, kind of like training your muscles.

The idea is that if you sit on your couch as a potato right now, you send a signal to your brain that says something like ‘relax, you don’t have to do anything, she will just sit here’. The moment you decide to do something, the brain gets a different message: ‘wake up, we’re moving! Send blood to the limbs so that she can stand up without fainting and move those arms and legs’.

The thing is the moment you decide you will do something in the future (that you could potentially do now already), the brain gets into a pattern where even if you plan your diet, fitness, or less time on social media, the brain will be used to a pattern of a couch potato. So even if you think you will do things after 1st of January, the brain will still think ‘relax, she was sitting here yesterday, she is sitting here today, she will sit here tomorrow’ (Actually the brain experiences in the now but you get the point).

So an essential thing to do is to change the pattern immediately! Disturb the pattern and do something differently. If you want to exercise more, get out of the couch right now and just jump up and down for a while, run up the stairs, do a few push-ups, do something! Your brain will have to learn that this is the new you, right here and right now so that your new brain pattern will guide you to that fitness center because it’s already used to you moving.

The idea is that for you to really follow through and do the things you really want to do, you have to become the person that does it – with that mentality – already now.

Become the person that does the things you want to do in the future now!

Learning new habits is also about making it easy for yourself – like picking the same time and a day of the week to do your exercises – so that your brain uses as little energy as possible to do that. In that way, your (subconscious) brain starts working for you. Our brain needs to use energy every time we do something new (that’s why it’s not so easy to change things or have conversations with people you disagree with).

What you (your subconscious brain) needs to change:

•  Enthusiasm – getting excited by what you will do will help you have the energy to do it
• Pattern – create a pattern (routine) to make your new habit easier (same time of the day or week or if you want to do something tomorrow morning, prepare everything for it the evening before so that your dreamy morning brain slips into the new habit as if it’s nothing)
• Change (at least a small thing) now - Take small and realistic steps NOW and do something differently to wake up that subconscious pattern to a new you.

It’s not easy to change ourselves, but if we plan to start tomorrow we just continue fooling ourselves every day into believing that tomorrow it will happen, things will change. There is only today so if you want to change things, at least prepare what you can today so that change is easier tomorrow, do something different today, wake up your subconscious mind to break that old pattern and be a new you!

 Have a great Christmas and happy new year being the new you!

 With love, Marta

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