“New year’s resolutions doomed to failure,” trumpeted a Guardian.uk headline this time last year. The article describes a study by psychologist Richard Wiseman, which found that not even one in four people “managed to stick to their resolutions.”
But we can learn from the minority who kept their resolutions. They “tended to have broken their goal into smaller steps.” This echoes the advice of David Allen, author of the best seller Getting Things Done.
Those successful with resolutions also told friends about their resolutions and rewarded themselves when achieving goals, reported the Guardian. Economist Tyler Cowen offers an intriguing way to combine these practices. If you resolve to exercise, you can “post a bond with your friend, your spouse, your exercise partner, or someone you won’t (or can’t) lie to. You lose the money if you don’t exercise according to a pre-arranged plan with well-defined quantitative goals.” Cowen suggests that gyms can be the “enforcer” by collecting “a bigger upfront fee and they pay us each time we show up” and complete specified exercise program.
If this sounds far-fetched, consider the success of similar strategies for smokers who want to quit. Known as contingency management programs, participants receive a reward when they stop smoking. Summarizing a study published this month, Local Tech Wire reports that “smokers will quit if rewards are right.”
This was published in the Boulder Daily Camera on January 1, 2011.
