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Why your new year resolutions are not working （790 words）
By Anjana Ahuja
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Tradition dictates that each new year is an opportunity for self-improvement. Perhaps you have designated 2017 as the annus mirabilis in which you will finally become thinner, fitter or richer. In which case, you are likely to end the year with much the same midriff, vigour and bank balance as you had in 2016.
New year’s resolutions are not to be undertaken lightly — and certainly should not be popped out on December 31 with the same abandon as champagne corks. That is because they are about behaviour change, which is a difficult feat to pull off at any time of the year.
It is hard to pluck out a reliable figure about the proportion of people who stick to their good intentions, but one survey of more than 2,000 people found that 56 per cent do not.
This should not be surprising. We have all had ample opportunity over the past 12 months to reflect on our shortcomings, with few of us managing to achieve desirable change earlier. Why this inertia should suddenly dissolve in January has always puzzled me, which is why my new year’s resolution is usually not to make any.
It is not that my life does not require betterment — but, to a certain degree, I lack willpower. It is this precious commodity that is seen as key to whether the resolutions made on January 1 are adhered to.
Permanently overcoming my sweet tooth would be a resolution doomed to failure. Instead, I try to occasionally eschew a biscuit with my morning coffee. From such modest ambitions are minor triumphs fashioned.
Psychologists have long thought willpower was a finite resource that should be expended judiciously, on life’s most important challenges. Newer studies, however, are less confident about this assertion, implying that we may possess the capacity to be strong-willed in all aspects of life, from diet and health through to jobs and relationships.
Willpower, or self-discipline, is also often likened to a muscle — the debate is really whether the muscle is strengthened, or fatigued, by regular use.
The idea that willpower is a capacity with limits originates in classic studies that give participants two successive challenges, both of which require willpower, for example resisting delicious foods. Very generally, people seem to struggle more on the second task — an observation that has been traditionally explained away by the first task draining the willpower tank.
What works?
I asked Professor Norcross for his three top tips to Financial Times readers embarking on resolutions. His first recommendation is to track progress, on the basis that behaviours that are measured are more likely to improve, via reminders and rewards.
Second, he says, adapt your environment. My interpretation: if you want to rein in spending, don’t go to a casino. After all, cues are all around us, prompting us subconsciously to behave in certain ways. As Prof Norcross puts it: “Trigger healthy behaviours by hanging with prudent people, places and things.” For me, it means not having biscuits in the house.
His final tip? Expect to mess up. It may even help: “One of our research studies showed that 71 per cent of successful resolvers said their first slip had actually strengthened their efforts — they learnt from the mistake and recommitted.”
Psychologists haven’t completely cornered the market: economists can offer wisdom on behavioural change too. One of my favourite strategies is embodied by the website www.stickk.com. It was co-founded by Yale academics Dean Karlan and Ian Ayres, among others, and relies on two brutal behavioural truths: people do not like losing money (loss aversion), and they are likely to behave better when others are looking.
A person signing up to a “commitment contract” — such as keeping weight below a certain threshold — must agree to have it policed by a referee, and to forfeit a financial penalty if he or she falters. Sending forfeited cash to an “undeserving” recipient — for example, an overweight Trump supporter pledging money to the Clinton Foundation if the pounds don’t budge — is a particularly effective insurance policy against misdemeanour. The website claims to triple the chances of people fulfilling their promises.
If I really wanted to conquer the biscuit blight, I would probably try something along those lines: maybe a fiver for every furtive Hob Nob, with the proceeds going to the Kardashians. But I have got a leftover Christmas assortment to get through first.
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