Win on Quitters' Day

January 19th?is the day to renew a New Year’s Resolution?

I just had an argument with a friend about New Years’ resolutions. I think they work. He said they're useless.

It turns out that we're both right. Sort of. A study with over?1000 people found that more than half stuck to their New Year’s resolutions after a year. In a bit more detail: those who tried to avoid things (“no more chocolate”) were not as successful as those that were approach-oriented (“I’m going to go the gym more often”). And those who had social support (one meeting per month from a researcher to follow up on progress) were even more victorious.?

Still, almost half of the people in the study?failed?to follow through with New Year’s Resolutions.

Data from Strava of 800 million activities was able to identify the exact day that?New Year’s Resolutions are abandoned: it’s January 19th. They call that day "Quitters' Day". (Quitters' day is not always January 19th,?it depends on the year, but it’s around then.)

January 19th?seems to be the day that our willpower and optimism wane. Days are still short, work gets tough, and swimsuit season seems far away. It’s around the time of Blue Monday. Nineteen days is also a few days short of the 21 days allegedly required to form a new habit. In fact, there’s not much science behind the 21-day rule. It takes different people different amounts of time to form a habit, and the?average time seems to be 66 days.

But 66 is just an average, it can range from 18 to 254 days, depending on the individual. We can't be certain just how long it would take any individual to form a new habit--it could take just a few weeks or a year.?What we can be certain about is that one more day of any good habit is, well, a good thing.

The moral of the story is that if you’ve abandoned your New Year’s Resolution, now's a great time to renew it. If you’ve reached today successfully: keep going for another day! If you didn't make one because you thought they didn't work, reconsider. Choose an approach-oriented goal and, get support, and there is every chance you'll succeed.