How To Achieve Your New Year ’s Resolutions, According To Psychology

By Emily Reynolds The excesses of Christmas have been and gone, and we’ve been met once again by January’s familiar call for resolution and goal-setting. For most of us, New Year’s resolutions are a mixed bag: whether we’re looking to get fit, become more environmentally-friendly, or just keep up a new hobby, there sometimes seems to be no rhyme or reason as to why some habits stick and others fall by the wayside almost immediately. But there are a few things you can do to make your new routines work, based on research into motivation, temptation and achievement. Here’s our digest of the ten findings that could help make that New Year’s resolution stay around until next December. Plan for moments of temptation, don’t just respond to them If you’ve ever tried to give something up, even for a short period of time, you’ll know just how all-consuming temptation can be. Skipping a session at the gym, letting your screen time creep back up, or flaking on plans when you promised you wouldn’t: it can sometimes feel almost impossible not to cave. And whilst we often put our ability to ignore these temptations down to our capacity to exercise self-control in the moment, actively planning for temptation may be better than just responding to it, as one 2019 study argued. Another, also published in 2019, found that more “planful” people were more likely to keep up their gym habit. Goal progress was far better supported by proactive rather than reactive strategies ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Feature The self Source Type: blogs