In praise of New Year's Resolutions - and how to stick to them

A simply exercise in reframing your goals can increase your chances of success

Hello,

Welcome to the first edition of 60-Second Psychology, which aims to provide digestible pieces of evidence-based advice that can help us all live better happier, healthier lives.

While I was mulling over the prospect of this newsletter, it seemed like a no-brainer to begin with the science New Year’s resolutions. According to the popular narrative, we start each January with the false belief that we can change our lives, while forgetting all the times we’ve failed previously.

The data suggests this is a little too pessimistic. A recent survey by YouGov found that 33 per cent of the people who made resolutions in January 2024 have managed to maintain them all, while a further 45 per cent have managed to keep at least some of them to the end of the year. That’s a lot of positive change!

We can increase our chances of success by changing how we frame our objectives. The first thing is to break a larger, vaguer ambition into smaller steps that can be performed at a specific time. Secondly, we should try to phrase these as “approach-oriented goals” rather than “avoidance-oriented goals” - that is, aim to adopt a positive new habit in our daily routine, rather than describing the need to eliminate a negative behaviour.

Imagine you want to lose weight, for instance. You might set your resolution like this:

In 2025, I will stop snacking on cake, and I will eat no more junk food for dinner.

But you’d be better off framing it like this:

In 2025, I will eat more nutritious, low-calorie dinners, and if I feel hungry, I will choose fruit for my snacks.

If I were planning on losing weight myself, I’d probably break this down further, with more details of the kinds of meals I’d want to cook and how I would fit that into my routine, but you get the general idea. Whatever your ultimate goal, try to frame it in terms of what you can do, rather than what you can’t.

Often, it’s simply a case of looking for a healthier alternative to the behaviour you’d like to reduce. Rather than deciding to eliminate time on social media, you might say you want to spend more time on Duolingo, for instance - a habit that should naturally reduce your mindless scrolling.

In one large survey by Per Carlbring at Stockholm University, participants who had set themselves approach goals were about 25 per cent more likely to have reached them by the end of the year.

I’ll return to the science of motivation and self-control throughout the year. In the meantime, I’d love to hear what goals you’ll be setting yourselves over 2025 - and the challenges you think you’ll face.

Book of the Week - The Bright Side by Sumit Paul-Choudhury

If the dark days of January are getting you down, I’d thoroughly recommend The Bright Side by Sumit Paul-Choudhury, who makes a strong argument for the power of optimism to bring about positive change. It’s out on January 2 in the UK, and January 7 in the US.

Here’s one of my favourite quotes:

One way to make the case for optimism is to acknowledge that there are things we don’t know, that some of those unknowns are positive, and that we have some ability to steer towards those positives. Optimism encourages us to seek them out. If, on the other hand, we have no expectation that our lot in life can be improved, we have no motivation to put in the thought and effort needed to improve it and those solutions go undiscovered. Failure becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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One final thought. For Christmas, I was given a book of essays (Il panettone non bastò) by the Italian writer Dino Buzzati, who describes a kind of collective amnesia around our festivities. We rejoice in generosity on December 25th, only to return to the same selfish egotistical beings we’ve always been by the 26th. “Why does our goodwill have such a short life?”, he asks. “Would it be possible to make it last a bit longer, once it’s settled inside us? Prolong it for days, weeks, months? Perhaps not until the following Christmas - that would be too long a road, but - what do I know - at least until spring.” Buzzati’s words brought to mind a wealth of research showing that random acts of kindness are not only good for others, but improve our own health and wellbeing. If you can afford to do so, treating someone to a small gift will bring you more happiness than treating yourself. It may even lower your blood pressure.

Thank you for reading! Please share this post if you think others might enjoy it. And if you’d like to describe your experiences or suggest ideas for future posts, please leave a comment or contact me with a private message.