As we enter a new year, it’s difficult to avoid the topic of new year resolutions. While some will be hitting the gym from January, many will fall back on the argument that years are just arbitrary measures of time, and aren’t particularly meaningful for making resolutions. If you’re going to start something (or stop something) then why not do it when you think of it?
I’m a fan of new year resolutions. Yes, they’re arbitrary, but as life goes speeding by, it’s nice to have a marker, and a time to pause to design the life that I want to live. Without taking conscious decisions to cut out what’s not working and to add new things that might, it’s easy to end up in a life set by everyone else’s priorities, not your own.
Here’s what I want to do in 2020
keep my phone out of my room
go vegetarian
cultivate some new friends
read 26 books
write more
create more memories with my little brother
Having resolutions is great, but sticking to them is the real challenge. The science of behaviour change is crucial to ingraining new habits in our lives, so if you’re going to write some resolutions, make sure you create a plan for HOW you’re going to achieve them too. Here are some things to think about.
MAKE IT EASY
Reducing resistance to the behaviours you want to develop is critical, and will mean you need less willpower to complete them successfully each time. The best way to make behaviours easy is to design an environment that makes it hard to NOT behave in the way you want.
If you want to keep your phone out of your room at night, put your charger in the kitchen. If you want to read more, keep your book somewhere accessible. If you want to spend less time on social media, block them on your phone/computer using an app like Cold Turkey, Freedom or Self Control.
BE ACCOUNTABLE
Systems of accountability are crucial, because it’s often easy to let yourself down, but harder to break a commitment you’ve made to someone else. Simply telling a friend or family member what you’re committing to, and asking them to check in on you can be a really successful strategy, if you can’t rope them into committing to the new resolution with you.
Rather than someone else, you can use someTHING else too. Blogs or journals are a great way to stay accountable. Or you can use something like Stickk, which is a website that will donate to an anticharity (a cause you despise like the NRA or Trump’s re-election campaign) on your behalf if you fail to fulfil your goal.
MAKE IT REWARDING
I was at a school last year where I asked a Year 12 group who had the longest snapstreak going with a friend. One student had a 912 day snapstreak. Even if the worst were to happen tomorrow and that student’s house burned down, I can guarantee they’d still send a snap to keep that streak going. Seeing that little number climb up and up is rewarding, and something no one wants to let go, thanks to a little thing called dopamine.
Dopamine is the chemical your brain releases when you do something fun or rewarding. But it’s not just released AFTER you do something, it’s released beforehand, when you’re thinking about doing it, and is what makes addictive behaviours addictive. If you do something rewarding like recording your success at your new habit, you’ll get that little hit of dopamine next time you think about doing it again.
I use an app called Streaks which gives me some nice gamified animations for every streak I add to, but you can use any habit tracker, a whiteboard or week planner to keep track of your goals and make them fun.
MAKE IT SPECIFIC
A couple years ago I decided to try and run a marathon. That meant training. Lots of training. But when it came to actually getting out there, I’d wake up in the morning and tell myself that I hadn’t slept too well, so I’d go for a run after work instead. Then I’d get home and tell myself I was tired from work, so would run after dinner. Dinner would come and go, and I’d find another excuse to put it off a bit more, and before you know it, the day was gone.
If you don’t have a specific WHERE and WHEN plan to implement your new routine, you'll have to keep drawing on your willpower to decide at every moment ‘am I going to do it now’, and it just won’t happen.
I decided that the time for going for a run was twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, once I got home from work and changed out of my work clothes. At that specific moment, I couldn’t put it off anymore. That was the time and place it had to happen, no more procrastinating, no more justifications.
Making your resolution EASY, REWARDING, SPECIFIC and ACCOUNTABLE is the best way to ensure 2021 doesn’t start with the same resolutions all over again.In the spirit of accountability, what are the resolutions you’re committing to this year?