HOW TO KEEP YOUR RESOLUTIONS
This may be familiar to you: It is the first day of a new year, and you decide to be a better person than you were the year before. You make a list of resolutions – for example, to exercise more, be kinder to your annoying neighbor, or spend less time on social media. You achieve some of these goals and abandon others. And when the first day of the following year arrives, you find yourself making resolutions again.(lines 1–5)
Of course, you are not alone in setting goals at the beginning of the year. The custom is found in many cultures, and it also goes back many centuries. For example, there is evidence from ancient Rome that people began the new year expressing their intention to improve their behavior. And in present-day Japan, people start the year in the same way.(lines 6–9)
Interestingly, setting goals on a meaningful date does seem to help people follow their plan. According to a recent survey in the USA, for example, about 70% of the respondents who made resolutions on New Year's Day were still keeping them two months later. But why do people choose a significant date for setting goals? After all, they may want to make changes on any day of their lives. And why does choosing a significant date actually help many people?(lines 10–14)
The answer to both questions seems to be that special dates create the feeling of new beginnings. There are major dates in our lives when we take on new roles with new responsibilities. For example, we start a new job, or become parents. At such times, we realize that we need to change and improve, and we often manage to. But according to Prof. Katy Milkman and her colleagues, more common dates can have the same effect. Any date that we see as significant – a new year, a new month, our birthday – creates in our mind a break between "before" and "after." Such breaks can be very motivating because they make us feel that we can move on from the past and start something new.(lines 15–22)
However, some experts doubt that being highly motivated at the beginning is sufficient to produce long-term effects. "While a significant date may help you start the process, it can be very challenging to stick with your plan over time," says psychologist Melissa Finnegan. "Success often comes from combining several effective strategies. One, for example, is to reach your big goal gradually by setting small, less demanding goals along the way. Another is to get support from friends when things are not going well. Do all this and you might find yourself running a marathon, or finally completing the Spanish course you started twice before."(lines 23–29)