It's January second. The tinkling noises you will hear over the next two to twelve weeks is the sound of 2012’s New Year's resolutions being broken all around you.
Year in and year out January is the month that gyms get the highest number of new members. Jenny Craig, Nutri-Systems and Weight Watchers all have their best months. AA and NA groups see more new faces in January than any other two months of the year combined, and on line book sellers deliver self-help books by the truckload.
And next year will be the same, because statistics tell us that by the end of March only three percent of the people who made resolutions will still be following them.
What makes us unable, year after year, to make the changes we know we need to make in our lives, for our health, for our families, for our careers? It's not what you think. It's not laziness, or complacency, or sloth. It's because making those changes is damn near impossible.
Scientist who study the brain don't agree on much, but one thing they all seem to line up on is that when we have done an activity or engaged in a behavior enough to hard wire it in our brain as a habit then it becomes incredibly hard to unwire. This was very useful back when our food hunted us while we hunted it and hesitation was the difference between eating supper and being supper. But in modern times it means that dropping twenty pounds so you'll have a shot when you ask out the hot redhead in the next cubicle it near impossibly hard.
Near impossible, but not impossible. Remember, three percent of the people that set New Year's resolutions are still living by them three months later. That begs the question- what is different about that three percent, what do they do differently than the vast majority? Studies have given us two answers.
The first is that the three per centers are goal setters who write their resolutions down and refer to them often. Many successful resolution setters tell of leaving Post-its with their goals on the bathroom mirror, on the refrigerator, on the TV screen. One man made his cell phone ringtone a recording of his resolution, to be reminded every time his phone rang. It is hard to settle back into the old habits when the new ones are staring you in the face wherever you go.
Secondly, the people in the three percent know that changing their own behavior is going to be an enormous undertaking. They approach it with the single-mindedness of a tired marathoner approaching a steep hill. One foot after the other, keep plodding, don't quit, don't stop, must not let up. No matter the difficulty or the pain, unflaggingly putting one foot in front of the other. Until finally the hill is crested, the old habit falls away, and a new one snaps in to take its place.
That's the sort of effort it takes to make changes in our brain's hard drive. Very few are willing to put forth that effort. But the ones that do find success.
If you made a New Year's resolution (and are serious about wanting to make the change), write it down so that it is always on the periphery of your thoughts. And start running your hill. Good luck- hope to see you on the downhill side
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