The brain is to blame - Why New Year's resolutions fail – BRAINEFFECT

We resolve to lose weight, quit smoking, exercise more, and so on. For many people, the new year is like a deadline to change, to work on themselves, and improve. Entrenched behaviors are reconsidered, and new, ambitious plans are forged. On the one hand, that's a good thing—but on the other, reality quickly catches up with many, and all their resolutions are thrown overboard. We want to help you make this year different. You can do it and make your resolutions come true; you just have to know how.

On behalf of the health insurance company DAK-Gesundheit, the Forsa Institute has been surveying more than 3,000 men and women nationwide since 2006. Nearly 40 percent of respondents make annual resolutions. However, at least half, or – according to research by British psychologist Richard Wiseman – almost 90 percent, fail to keep them. Brain research tells us why this is the case and also offers clues as to what can be done about it.

Willpower is responsible for solving abstract problems

To actually carry out a resolution, you need a certain amount of willpower, and that willpower is located in the cerebral cortex directly behind the forehead, the so-called prefrontal cortex. This region of the brain isn't just responsible for willpower; it's also involved in short-term memory, the ability to focus on something, solving abstract problems, and probably much more. The prefrontal cortex is therefore quite busy. An experiment at Stanford University in California aimed to investigate this fact. Neuromarketing professor Baba Shiv divided several dozen students into two groups: one had to memorize a two-digit number, the other a seven-digit number. The students were then offered two snacks to choose from: a piece of chocolate cake or a bowl of fruit salad. What do you think happened?

The students who were asked to remember the seven-digit number were almost twice as likely to choose the chocolate cake as those who were asked to remember the two-digit number. Professor Shiv interprets this to mean that the prefrontal cortex was so busy memorizing the seven-digit number that it could no longer muster the willpower to choose the healthy dessert over the unhealthy, high-calorie one. If this is true, it would mean that our willpower is so weak and the prefrontal cortex so busy that just five bits of additional information are enough to make us abandon our good intentions.

This little experiment shows that we shouldn't blame our lack of discipline when we fail to keep our resolutions, but rather that our willpower simply isn't strong enough due to the nature of our brain. And now that we know why good resolutions usually don't work, let's take a look at what might help us.

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How to implement New Year's resolutions

Professor Roy Baumeister, a psychologist at Florida State University, sees willpower as a kind of muscle that can be strengthened through training. He asked a group of students to pay attention to better posture for two weeks, thus encouraging them to practice mental discipline in this area. These students subsequently performed significantly better on measures of their self-control than subjects who hadn't paid attention to their posture.

1. Train your willpower

Kelly McGonigal is an American psychologist and author who has become known in recent years through her presentations at TED and Google Talks. In 2005, she received the Innovation Award from the International Game Developers Association. In one of her Google Talks presentations on the topic of "Training Willpower," she mentioned the following 5 ways to achieve your goals.

Improve your sleep and meditate! It's been proven that the area of the brain responsible for remembering our goals and values is affected by sleep. If you suffer from sleep deprivation, your memory capacity decreases.

Don't be so hard on yourself! The harder you are on yourself and punish yourself when your willpower isn't enough, the more likely you are to fail again next time. So don't be so hard on yourself and treat yourself more humanely. This will make it less likely that your willpower will fail again.

Get in touch with your future self! The more you identify with yourself, the more often you'll make decisions that will bring long-term benefits.

Anticipate your own failure! Many studies show that people who consistently pursue their successes are ultimately lazier and take more time off. However, people who don't shy away from failure suffer less from setbacks. So try to accept mistakes and learn from them!

Train your tolerance! People who are better able to control their emotions and unpleasant situations tend to achieve their goals in the long run. So pay close attention to how your body feels and learn to tolerate the unpleasant feeling.

Kelly also says that in moments when you're desperate and desperately need willpower, you're fighting a battle between two different forces: short-term and long-term. In moments of low energy and high stress, you automatically have little willpower, and then short-term willpower wins the battle, and you give up. The solution lies in making friends with and identifying with long-term willpower. So, practicing willpower seems possible, even if it's the hard way to stick to resolutions. But—let's face it—it probably won't work that way alone.

2. Only one resolution - not several

If your brain is already overwhelmed by just a few numbers, how much more so will it be if you take on several projects at once, like quitting smoking or losing weight. This way, you won't be able to concentrate 100% on any one goal, and you'll quickly lose focus. Instead, set just one resolution and do everything you can to achieve it.

3. Set achievable goals

A resolution like "I want to lose weight next year" is far too vague and guaranteed to backfire. It's more promising to set small, achievable, concrete goals and ultimately reach your goal in manageable, individual steps. This gradual change to your daily routine will give you repeated small successes and, above all, the feeling of being in control at all times. It's advisable to write down the big goal you want to achieve and break it down into smaller, intermediate goals, each with a deadline. For example, do you want to do more exercise? Then sign up for a 10k race, for example, and make a plan for how you'll get fit enough to finish by the time of the event.

4. Maintain motivation through rewards

The most important thing is: Don't use your resolutions as a stick to drive you somewhere. Instead, block out the negative aspects of your plan and focus on the positive impact these small changes will have on your future life. Then reward yourself for every successful step, every small victory; this is important for motivation and self-confidence. Even small interim successes cause your brain to release dopamine , a neurotransmitter that continually boosts your motivation.