How to Trick Your Brain Into Resolution Success?
Last week a dear friend asked me a question, and I’m going to ask you the same one: do you make New Year’s resolutions?
My answer is no. I’ve been on this planet long enough to have experienced my pattern of good intentions and so-so results when trying to make life changes in the middle of winter, my least-favorite season. What’s your answer?
No matter which side you’re on, Team Resolution or Team Go With the Flow, you’re in good company. About half of Americans make resolutions at the changing of the year, and the rest of us don’t. For those who do, only about 10% will succeed at their stated goal, and the other 90% will tap out this week or next.
Yes, most people who make resolutions give themselves two weeks or less before throwing in the towel. Turns out, the idea of change is much more fun than the reality of instituting that change. When you understand how habits form and are reinforced inside your brain’s architecture, this wave of mass January failure makes perfect sense.
...New Year's Resolutions and How to Keep Them
Do you even know what day of the week it is? This year, at least Christmas and New Year’s Day both fell on Mondays, so maybe they just showed up as regular three-day holiday weekends for you.
If you have a job that requires staffing 24/7/365, like first responders, health care workers, transportation industry, the media, etc., then maybe you even worked on one or both of the last two Mondays. If so, thank you! With three decades in major market radio, I know how it feels to be away from your family and friends on a major holiday.
Did you do the usual New Year’s resolution thing? Did you get up and go to the gym this morning, down a protein shake instead of a drive-through breakfast, and you’re on track to be a non-smoking vegan rocket scientist by this Thursday?
Yeah…I’ve put that kind of pressure on myself before, too.
Goals are wonderful – they keep us focused and moving forward. Behavior changes are often attempted this time of year in pursuit of a goal, AKA New Year’s resolutio...
How to Finally Ace Your New Year's Resolution...or Not!
Welcome to the first “official” workday of the new year. Around half of Americans make resolutions to start a new year, and of those, fewer than 10% will follow through and succeed at their newfound resolve. Of the other 90+ percent, most will quit this week. This.Week. Ouch!
Before you get all bummed out about the looming mass failure, let’s step back a bit and examine why the failure rate is so high. There’s interesting brain science involved, and I’ll make sure you’ll understand it perfectly.
The brain loves patterns. Humans can learn as fast and as much as we do because brains look for patterns, connect the dots, and voila! A new pattern is formed around the new information. That’s where language skills come from, math skills, driving skills…all the skills start out as a basic pattern the brain forms. If you’ve ever driven somewhere and realized that you don’t really remember driving because you were preoccupied with something else, congratulations. Your brain is very good at run...
