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Loughborough, 10 January (Dialogue) New year, new resolutions. It’s that time again. A recent survey revealed that almost 58% of Britons intend to make New Year’s resolutions in 2023, which is roughly 30 million adults. More than a quarter of these resolutions will be about making more money, personal improvement and losing weight.
But will we succeed? Sadly, a survey of more than 800 million activities by the app Strava, which tracks people’s physical activity, predicts that most of these resolutions will be abandoned by January 19.
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One of the main reasons the promises failed by the end of January was that they were vague. They focus on immeasurable qualities, such as being healthier, happier (without defining what that means) or making more money (without proposing amounts or plans).
Vague goals don’t give us enough direction. It’s hard to know which way to go if we don’t know exactly where we’re going. It is impossible to know how far we have to go to get there, what obstacles we have to overcome and how to prepare for them.
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We also often set ourselves unattainable goals because we want to challenge ourselves. There’s an inherent paradox — known as the “effort paradox” — about how much our brains love the thought of trying, but actually find it uncomfortable. We like to think that if we challenge ourselves to achieve a difficult goal, we will feel more fulfilled.
Another reason is that we are out of touch with our future selves – we are biased towards the present. This means that it is difficult for us to imagine the difficulties our future selves will face trying to achieve these resolutions.
We think of the now, desired destination, not the process or journey to get there. With such a narrow focus, it’s easy to visualize this end point as being closer to it than when we started our efforts.
lazy brain
To navigate the world, we develop mental shortcuts—habits. When these cognitive shortcuts are already fixed in place, our brains find it easier to act without much conscious effort or control. The longer we have these habits, the more ingrained are the cognitive shortcuts behind them.
For example, when we park ourselves in front of the TV at night, we may reach for the cookie jar without thinking – it becomes a habit. Or we hit the snooze button when our morning alarm goes off.
Our brains are lazy and want to minimize cognitive load – which means we repeat things we find pleasurable instead of considering many different and new options that may be more or less pleasurable.
It’s easier to take these shortcuts that don’t create as much resistance or discomfort. That said, some people rely on habits more than others, and they may find it harder to break them.
However, in order to achieve our resolutions, we often need to change these ingrained habits and alter the neural pathways responsible. But when our brains resist the discomfort, we’re tempted to return to something more comfortable. This is why we give up our resolve.
One aspect of this is known as status quo bias. We’re more likely to stay with the status quo—our existing mindset—than to insist on changing these habits, which take time and effort.
The more we focus on a goal rather than the incremental steps needed to achieve that goal, the more likely we will find it difficult to change our mindset and develop the habits needed to achieve it. It becomes a vicious cycle because the more we stress about something, the more likely we are to slip back into our comfort zone and use our cognitive shortcuts.
Areas in the back of the brain associated with automatic behavior are normally activated when we engage in habitual behavior. But to actively alter our neural pathways away from this activation, we need to engage multiple regions of the brain—including the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in highly complex cognitive tasks.
Changing our behavior involves coordinated crosstalk between multiple brain regions, including rapid communication between two specific areas within the prefrontal cortex and another nearby structure called the frontocular area, a study using neuroimaging shows , an area involved in controlling eye movement and visual awareness.
This places a great cognitive load on our brains, so we try to avoid it.
better way
Changing habits requires being aware of the behavior patterns we have learned over the years and knowing how difficult it is to change them. It’s impossible if you’re blinded by visions of a new, perfect you. But to successfully change yourself, you need to know who you really are.
It’s also helpful to set clear, achievable goals—like devoting an extra hour each week to your favorite hobby, or banning biscuits only in the evenings, perhaps with a delicious herbal tea instead.
More importantly, we need to appreciate and celebrate the journey towards our goals. Many of us tend to focus more on the negative aspects of experiences, which leads to stress and anxiety. But bad moods require more attention—it’s called negativity bias. The more we focus on the negatives in our lives and ourselves, the more likely we are to feel depressed while missing out on the positives.
The more we focus on the positive aspects of ourselves, the more likely we are to change our mindset.
So if you want to change, accept you for who you are — and understand why. If you do, though, you might even find yourself preferring to stick to the “new year, same old” motto. There is nothing wrong with that. (dialogue)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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