Are you Ready to Strike a Bargain with Yourself: Resolutions in the New Year

​

Do you need help keeping your new year's resolutions?

 

Every year we get excited thinking about the new amazing productive person we will be this new year, yet after two weeks, we are back to binging tv and eating junk food. Why is this happening? Why do we do this every year? It's not like we don't want to change or even lack drive or motivation. So why, year after year, do we fail at keeping our new year's resolutions? Well, that's why I'm here,  to help you and give you new ways to approach your new year's resolutions so that you stick to them.

 

We’ll start with Jason Clear, the renowned author of Anatomic Habits, who explains how to achieve your goals and why they never stick. His book talks about the phrasing of dreams and how they alter your ability to stick to them. He writes about identifying your objectives. Now, this may sound weird and confusing but let me give you an example. Say you want to start incorporating running into your daily routine. You want it to become a habit, so instead of saying I want to run more, you say I want to become a runner. Can you see the difference? In the first example, the goal is not connected to your identity, but in the second example, the goal is about changing your identity; becoming a runner is the goal, not running more. 

 

Changing your mindset is just the start of how to change your habits. To solidify your habits, you must make them accessible. If your goal, resolution or practice takes a lot of effort, time and energy, you are less likely to do it. You must set yourself up for success by preparing. For example, my New Year's resolution was to read more. I set an achievable daily page goal of 10 to make my goal easy. I always bring my book with me, so I find more time to read and track my progress through the book. As you can see, I made my goal easy peasy lemon squeezy.  

 

Another technique is to group habits or, in other words, create a habit chain. You want to ground your practices in other traditions. With this technique, you create a structure for your habits, a daily routine that allows you to follow the steps with minimal effort. Here is an example of a chain routine. Let's say you wanted to incorporate stretching into your morning routine. 

1- wake up

2- brush your teeth 

3- make the bed 

4- stretch 

5- make coffee 

As you can see, stretching is grounded with your already existing beneficial habits, making it the pattern easier to stick to. 

If you are curious about Jason Clear and want to hear more of his tips and knowledge on the subject of goals, then you should read his book or watch this video that summarizes the book in 30 minutes. Anatomic Habits in 30 minutes. 

 

Many scientists believe that what causes people to fall back into their same old habits is the internal chemical wars at play in your brain. I’m sure many of you reading this article are familiar with dopamine, the chemical inside your brain that controls pleasure and satisfaction. Studies have shown that dopamine is released when someone does something they like or accomplishes, but it is also released when you sit around and watch tv, eat junk or scroll social media. Dopamine can cause the instant gratification effect, where your body is addicted to the instant feeling of pleasure. However, this causes you to forget about the long-term positive effects of a goal or objective because they don't cause a release of dopamine right away. This dilemma causes many people to struggle; many get caught between instant pleasure and long-term rewards. Despite how desperate the situation inside your head sounds, do not fret; it is not helpless. Many scientists believe that a simple bargain with yourself is the cure. You create a deal, so if you make a lousy hab, there's a consequence, a cost, you could say. This may sound odd, if not a little ridiculous, so let me give you an example. Every time you swear, you put a dollar in a jar.

As you can see, this simple technique makes you pay for your decisions. To strengthen the bargain, you reward yourself every time you do a good or healthy habit; an example is you read twenty pages a day for a week and get to watch the next episode in the current show you're watching. This simple bargaining with-yourself method is a way to replace the instant gratification you feel with instant regret. Although this method may sound a bit bizarre it is worth a try and even if it doesn't work you'll end up with a huge jar of one dollar coins ( you don't have to use the put one dollar-in-a-jar method the consequence can something different like doing fifty push-ups or even something more extreme ). 

 

The two methods I listed above may seem extreme or two complicated to deal with in your day-to-day life, don’t worry there are plenty of simple techniques to start with instead. The first one is to make your goals achievable. We all dream of becoming this amazing productive person, but when we try, it's too much to keep up with. So instead, start with one change to your life, something small and easy, like drinking more water or stretching in the morning. Number two is to write what you want to achieve on a piece of paper as clearly as possible; most of the time, people's goals are vague and ill-defined, making them as straightforward as possible will make your goals much easier to achieve. Finally, keep track of your progress, take before and after photos, and make a document every day where you check off a box when you did what you wanted to do. This tracking and putting little check marks in boxes causes instant gratification and gives you a minor dopamine hit even while you're working towards a long-term goal. 

 

With that last piece of advice, I leave you to your goals for the new year. I hope this helps you; the feeling of not being the person you want to be is truly dreadful. I hope one of the things I mentioned enables you to become the person you want to be, and don't be afraid to do your research and find new methods of reaching the goals that work for you. Happy New Year, and I wish you the best of luck.