Why 88% of New Year’s Resolutions Fail and How Habit Formation Can Help
Many people started the new year determined to break old habits or establish new ones. Although the year is still young, they are discovering just how hard it can be to change habits. According to Baylor College of Medicine, 88% of people who set New Year’s resolutions fail before the end of January. “The Epoch Times” offers four tips to help turn resolutions into habits that last.
Be patient. A main reason why people forsake new habits is that they start to think the new habit isn’t doing any good. They’re not seeing the results that they hoped for. But the truth is that we’re often not being realistic about how long it takes to effect real change, so we have to be patient and remember that time will bestow rewards for what we do now. Recent research shows that habit formation typically takes between 59 to 154 days, far longer than most people expect. Time is our friend, not our enemy. Rather than focusing on a lack of current results, we should take courage from realizing that we’re on the path to immense change, as long as we stick with it.
Habit formation – one at a time
Form one habit at a time. It isn’t necessary or even feasible for most of us to develop multiple new habits all at once. Suppose you focused on a single habit for an entire month, not skipping a single day, but not worrying about all of the other habits you want to form. You likely would have enough repetitions to develop a pretty good habit. Metro Voice News reports that while many people set multiple goals simultaneously, focusing on one meaningful change at a time leads to better success. With that month under your belt, you then could turn to the next habit on your list.
Change the situation. Willpower can be built up through repetition, like any other habit. But sometimes a better strategy for sticking to a resolution is to create an environment that minimizes opportunities to break a good habit or fall into a bad one. According to Metro Voice News, 70% of resolution-makers aim to quit bad habits, making environmental changes crucial for success. Concretely, this means taking actions ahead of time that support your habits. For instance, you might remove social media apps from your phone to prevent you from wasting time on them — that way, you won’t even have the option to do so. Or if you want to exercise more, you might schedule it on your calendar and prepay a gym membership or class so you’re already committed in terms of both time and money.
Find like-minded people. Accountability partners offer an extra boost of challenge and inspiration and often make the activity more fun. One of the best ways to maintain a habit is to find people who will hold you accountable. This flows from the social nature of human beings. We gravitate toward the behaviors we witness in the group that we belong to. So if you want to make a good habit or crush a bad one, find like-minded people who already behave the way that you want to behave. Create or join a positive culture.
The Epoch Times
