Make it stick
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In resolving to be better at something or set new goals, January is widely regarded as one of the worst times of year. About 80% of people who set resolutions and make pledges on the first day of a new year are said to abandon them by midfebruary, say some researchers. And time management firm Franklincovey says one-third of resolutions don’t even make it past the end of January.
Self-improvement, in any form, is said to be a proclamation of ownership over one’s destiny — hence Shop Talk safely holding off until February (1!) to write about the valiant effort for new leafs and the like.
In setting and keeping resolutions we’re told not to treat a marathon like a sprint and to steer clear of thinking too much (and doing too little) at the risk of failing. It happens to the best of us: if you don’t do X by Y, you’re a total loser. We’re also told that in order to stick, goals and resolutions need to be “smart” (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound).
And we certainly all got the memo that to reach goals, make new habits or change existing ones, you have to first develop a habit that will guide you to the right actions.
The best time to do this, say researchers from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, is on temporal landmarks. In what has been dubbed the “fresh start effect” by Wharton professor Katherine Milkman and her colleagues, we tend to motivate ourselves better on dates that Milkman has done consulting with conglomerates including Google, where she coaches employees to engage in healthier behaviours.
In her first study, which analysed Google searches for the word “diet”, she found that these were most frequent at the beginning of a week, month or year.
The daily search volume for “diet” associated with the start of the week was about three times as large as the uptick in search volume caused by The New York Times publishing an article about the successful clinical trial of an experimental diet pill. The search volume for the term actually decreased over the course of each week, month and year.
There was a gym study, too. Along with evaluating temporal landmarks on shared calendars, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania were also able to look at how gym attendance responded to personal milestones like birthdays.
Visits to the gym increased drastically at the start of a new semester, as well as the beginning of a new week, month, year and after a student celebrated a birthday — with the notable exception of 21st birthdays.
I think most people will appreciate a less punitive approach towards goal pursuit (and the ensuing spiral of procrastination and guilt). So if you want to get more sleep, read more books or start flossing regularly, just pick a transition point that can be viewed as a fresh start. Go on.