Just two short months ago, 20% of us promised to live a healthier lifestyle and lose those extra pounds we gained at Christmas. 12.3% promised to work on making life improvements, and 8.5% of the population vowed to work on their bank figure. With that being said, more than 58% of us make new year’s resolutions each year. So why do only 8% of us feel that we have achieved our resolution by the time December comes around?
Timothy Pychyl, psychology professor at Carleton University in Canada, argues that although resolutions are made in effort for one to reinvent themselves, people aren’t ready to change their habits, as otherwise, they would have created a resolution on any day of the year. Sure, new year can be used as a way to motivate oneself, but quite often, we tend to make unrealistic goals and expectations to reach, as Dr. Avya Sharma explains.
The Clever Bit
No matter what, we know that quite often, new year’s resolutions do not stick, and so it’s been thought we must essentially ‘re-wire’ our brains in order for our aims to be more successful. Recent research has shown that habitual behaviour is created when thinking patterns, that create neural pathways and memories, become the default when one is faced with a choice or decision. Therefore, when we try to change our default patterns by ‘just not doing it’, it is, in effect, strengthening it.
Re-wiring
So how can the average Joe just ‘re-wire’ their habitual circuits, to make those resolutions stick?! We’ve drafted up some points to stick by:
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