The Seven Rules Of New Year’s Resolutions

The first rule of New Year’s Resolutions is …

You Do Not Talk About New Year’s Resolutions

New Years Resolutions Celebrations Fireworks

According to a study by Peter Gollwitzer (PDF, When Intentions Go Public, Psychological Science pg 612), announcing your intentions towards your goals publicly can make you less likely to actually do the hard work to follow through on your intentions.

The Experiment:   Gollwitzer had a group of law students rate a series of statements from “definitely yes” to “definitely no”— statements like: “I intend to make the best possible use of educational opportunities in law.”

He then had them do one of two things: either drop the questionnaire anonymously into a box (keeping the intention private), OR go over their answers with an experimenter (publicly discussing their intentions).

The researchers then measured the students’ actual effort by asking them to participate in some complex legal analysis, and telling them to to work as hard as they could.  The students were free to quit whenever they wanted.

The Results: The surveys showed all of the law students were highly committed to a career in law, but those who kept their surveys private stayed at the task longer than those who had publicly discussed their intentions.

The second rule of New Year’s Resolutions is …

You DO NOT Talk About New Year’s Resolutions

According to the same study by Peter Gollwitzer, not only can publicly announcing your intentions lead to complacency (as discussed in the above), but it can also lead to a falsely inflated self image.

The Experiment:  Students wrote out three specific things they intended to do to help them become successful attorneys. such as “I intend to read law periodicals regularly.” The students were once again divided into two groups:  one shared their intentions with other law students, while the second group did not.

Then they took a test that unconsciously self evaluates how complete you feel. They were shown five photographs of a Supreme Court justice, varying in size from quite small to large, and they were asked: “How much do you feel like a jurist right now?” This procedure has been tested, and shown to reflect that the more complete a subject feels, the larger the picture they will pick.

The Results:  In similar fashion to the prior experiment, subjects who had publicly announced their intentions tended to select larger images, consistent with a larger self-image. Stating their intentions made the subjects feel like more complete, and this inflated self-image can lead to being less hard working.

The third rule of New Year’s Resolutions is …

One Resolution At A Time

Finger_hand_index_point_singleOne of the interesting things I discovered in my research about how to improve will power was that your willpower is a limited resource. There are a number of experiments (and a very in depth discussion of the topic) in that article, but briefly I’d like to touch on one specific research study I mention in that article (Mark Muraven, Dianne M. Tice, and Roy F. Baumeister, PDF Self-Control as Limited Resource: Regulatory Depletion Patterns ).

The Experiment:  Subjects were divided into three groups and told to write down their thoughts. One group was told to think about a white bear and express their thoughts, a second group was told NOT to think about a white bear (suppress their thoughts) and a third group was given no specific instructions as to what to think about.  In addition, the first two groups were instructed to put a check mark in the margin every time they thought about a white bear. Following this, all three groups were asked to solve anagrams to test their willpower, and told they could stop whenever they wanted.

The Results:  The group that were told to suppress their thoughts of a white bear (exercise willpower) fared the worst on the second part of the experiment.  The group that did not have to exercise their self-discipline and was free to express their thoughts performed 53% better.

Interestingly, this is one of the key points made in Zen To Done by Leo Babauta:  focus on building your productivity system by changing one habit at a time. .

The fourth rule of New Year’s Resolutions is …

You Write Down Your New Year’s Resolutions

When I previously discussed whether the Harvard written goals study was a myth, I came across another study by Gail Matthews (Summary of Recent Goals Research, PDF) that did show the value of written goals.   I invite you to read the prior article for a full discussion, but very briefly:

The Experiment:  149 subjects were divided into groups, some of which wrote down their goals and some didn’t.  The types of goals selected included completing a project, increasing income, and increasing productivity. At the end of four weeks, subjects were asked to rate their progress and the degree to which they accomplished their goals.

The Results:  Mean goal achievement was 52% higher (6.08 versus 4.28) for subjects who wrote down their goals.

The fifth rule of New Year’s Resolutions  …

You Commit Your New Year’s Resolutions To A Friend

In the same study discussed previously by Gail Matthews, the experiment included other groups which further divided the group that wrote down their goals.

The Experiment:  One group merely wrote down their goals, while another group was asked to formulate action commitments. A third group wrote down their goals, formulated action commitments and sent their commitments to a supportive friend.

The Results:  Somewhat surprisingly, the group who wrote out action commitments actually underperformed the group that merely wrote down their goals.  While I don’t know the reason for this, I speculate it might be due to an overwhelming todo list.  The group that wrote out action commitments and sent their commitments to a supportive friend outperformed both these other groups, by approximately 5%.  However, the true power of having supportive friends becomes clear when you consider the next rule.

The sixth rule of New Year’s Resolutions is …

Have Your Friends Keep You Accountable

report_progressThe Experiment: In the same study discussed previously by Gail Matthews, the experiment included another group – this one wrote down their goals, sent action commitments to a supportive friend and provided their friend with weekly progress reports.  We can compare this group with the group that did all the same actions except for the weekly progress reports.

The Results:  The group which combined all these strategies and provided their weekly progress fared 18% better  (7.6 versus 6.41) than the group that did not send weekly progress reports.  These numbers may be understating the case however – when self reporting progress on a goal, a 7.6 to me is a high level of progress, whereas a 6.4 may be completely unacceptable.

For a great discussion on accountability groups, you may want to consider a book by Pete Mockaitis I recently read entitled Team Up:  Becoming Accountable to Your Dreams.

The last rule of New Year’s Resolutions is …

If You Are Serious About Making The Change, You Have to Make New Year’s Resolutions

A study conducted in 2002 asked subjects whether they made New Year’s resolutions or not – and then followed up with them on their progress.

The Experiment: Subjects were divided into two groups – 159 who set Near Year’s resolutions and resolved to make a change, and 123 individuals who had similar goals to the first group, but did not resolve to make the changes.  The researchers then followed up via telephone for six months to see how the subjects fared.

The Results: After 6 months, those who set a resolution were 10 times more likely to stick to their goals than the non setters (46% versus 4%). So if you want to make any new changes in your life this year, you absolutely should resolve to make the change.

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  • It's so nice to hear people talking about helping each other. Thanks for the hope... this will help me meet my resolution.
  • Sid,

    Terrific blog. In regards to this specific post, It really depends on what the goal is. In a professional (e.g. business) setting it's usually better to publicly state the goal. It's a funny thing but when you do this around co-workers, especially ones you met with regularly - the goal gets brought up. For personal goals I think the key is to do whatever will help you reach the goal. You can state something publicly and still blow it off, so that isn't terribly effective. Recently I set a goal to create a new blog. It involved a lot of technical work I was not comfortable with. I stated it publicly (a personal goal) but did it because the people I stated it to were able to help me through issues I had. Had I just told my mom, while that would have been "publicly stated" she wouldn't have helped me other than maybe to say "how is that blog coming" and I would come up with some excuse why it wasn't going somewhere. I couldn't do that with people that knew more than I did technically. I also have created some other goals important to me that I have not shared publicly with anyone. I write them down and review them daily and I am succeeding with them. Why? Because I am holding myself accountable for those and no one needs to now that other than me. Great topic and conversation, thanks.
  • Thanks Sid!
    The results of these tests were often counter-intuitive. To me, this underscores why approaching the achievement of your goals is not a from-the-hip exercise. There really are skills to learn and techniques you can utilize that can make success in life so much easier.
    I certainly learned a lot from this. Keep up the great posts!
    All the best,
    Hugh
  • This is a really rich discussion! To tell or not to tell?! I think the post and the points here are dead on. The risk of telling is that you already begin to associate as though it had happened, feel the benefits, then slack off. (Though I've often wondered if those law students were just overly-confident in themselves and then later felt the harsh results of not following through on their plans?) The benefit of telling is that you've got someone to kick your butt along the way and ensure you do what you say. So, there are definitely some nuances.

    ...but If you crave a black-and-white answer, I think Zig Ziglar has an interesting take on this. "If it's a 'give up' goal (e.g. stop smoking) tell everyone. If it's a 'go up' goal (e.g. get promoted) tell no one."
  • Nice post, Sid (I particularly love the Fight Club analogy)! You've clearly pulled together a lot of research here - some of it confirms stuff I had a gut feeling about (like staying accountable to a friend) but some of it (like not bragging publicly) is new to me.

    I've sometimes been told that it's a bad idea to talk too much about a new novel before you've written the first draft (or at least a reasonable amount), and I guess that's for a similar reason: talking about it can take away the energy and excitement that should go into writing it.
  • Hi Ali,

    Thanks!

    I have heard it's a bad idea to talk about a novel too much as well, but
    writers are strange people with strange ways ;). Kidding, kidding. I bet it
    is related though. Talk too much about what an awesome novel it is going to
    be, and you already feel accomplished - and the flip side, when I think I
    have a really amazing idea, but then sit down to write and it doesn't sound
    so amazing anymore, I get discouraged - and perhaps as a result, don't work
    as hard editing and proofreading it.
  • adamsnider
    I was wondering the exact same thing. This list seems a bit self-contradictory.

    EDIT: This is supposed to be a reply to Sandra...not sure why it isn't nesting like it should.
  • Hey Adam,

    Thanks for your comment. No idea why it isn't nesting. I replied in detail to Sandra and Qrystal above =).
  • Rob
    The key to effective New Years resolutions is:

    1. Be focused: focus your energy and enthusiasm on completing one resolution at a time
    2. Be organised: plan to complete the easy resolutions first, pick the low hanging fruit; this gives you confidence and boosts your ability to go onto tackle the more difficult resolutions
    3. Be flexible: sometimes things won’t go as planned, don't be demodulated
    4. Be specific: use SMART goals; create a concrete action plan use proven habit techniques.
  • Hey Rob,

    Thanks for jumping into the discussion! Great points!
  • mney
    Looks like someone watched Fight Club :)
  • Fight Club? No no, total coincidence! ;)

    I watched the movie, the book has been on my toread list for sometime. Perhaps this will be the year I read it!
  • I only skimmed the first actual research article, and maybe I'm just stupid, but I am confused. Rules #1 & #2, don't talk about your New Year's resolutions. Rules #5 & #6 are, talk to your friends about your New Year's resolutions. I don't get it? Is the idea that you are supposed to hide your resolution from everyone except one or two close friends?

    FWIW, I've also found it is better in general not to talk about your New Year's resolutions, goals, etc. For some reason, when you make it public, 1) you DO feel like you've accomplished something already and so you don't work as hard on it, and 2) because it's public, you feel more ashamed about your setbacks, which makes it harder to bounce back, whereas when it's private, you feel like you only have to answer to yourself, so there's no sense in hiding from your goal. Same goes with having a friend keep me accountable--it doesn't work, just makes me want to hide from my friend. Motivation needs to be intrinsic.
  • You're right, more accurate subheadings would be "You don't publicly brag about your resolutions" and "Have a friend keep you on task"

    But then it wouldn't sound like Fight Club =P

    ;)

    And as Qrystal noted, I think the difference really is in talking about the big resolutions versus talking about the discrete steps being taken. If I tell someone I'm going to go running today, and follow up with them, then I'm more likely to go running. If I tell them I'm going to start training for a marathon this year, maybe people will give me validations just for setting such a goal - and now, given the validation, perhaps I'll just go eat Cheetos instead of running =P
  • That's what I'm saying though. Multiple times I have tried to use a friend to keep me accountable--meeting a friend in the morning for a snack to make sure I don't stroll into my office late. Or telling a friend I plan to finish a certain amount of writing by tonight, and asking them to keep me accountable, etc. It doesn't work. It really doesn't. I just end up hiding from my friend or (irrationally) resenting them. They become sort of the personification of my problem. And then when I fail, I feel even more ashamed, and I start avoiding both the goal and the friend. Whereas, if I just keep my goals to myself, there's less shame in failure, and more internal motivation to succeed.
  • Maybe you just need friends who do not stir up contempt and resentment ;)

    I actually have had really good results with people keeping me accountable.
    I think though part of it may be whether they are supportive and give
    validation, or only give you negative reinforcement when you don't do
    something. I could see myself avoiding someone if everytime I saw them they
    were just apathetic towards my success, but looked at me with disdain for
    falling short

    When I workout on days I don't feel like it, I literally talk to myself in
    the mirror and congratulate myself for going and working out. I am sure it
    would be more effective with someone ELSE telling me how awesome I am for
    going in spite of how I felt, but I'll take what I can get.

    Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go tell myself how awesome I am for
    taking my vitamins even though I don't especially like it =P
  • You said what I was going to say! :) Your guessed conclusion makes sense though: share only with close friends, not with the whole world.

    I picked something this year that isn't personal enough to worry about sharing publically, because it's more about the process than the details. My Resolution is to pick three Most Important Tasks (MITs) each day, and then do them. The details of each day, I'll keep those private, but the actual quantifiable part I'm totally cool with sharing. And I think it will help me to do it, because by telling people, I'm reminding myself that I really want to be working on my MITs instead because they're Most Important to me.
  • Hi Qrystal.

    Have you read Zen To Done, or a fan of Leo Babauta's? =)

    I replied to Sandra in detail above, I think your conclusion makes sense. I definitely agree that talking about something I'm actively doing (MITs that day) helps keep them fresh in my mind as well.

    Thanks for your comment!
  • Great insights, especially NOT talking about your New Year's resolutions. Many people say when you want to change a habit you need to commit to it publicly, but this has never really worked for me. Thought I was the only one... glad a study has proved otherwise! Thanks!
  • Hi Miche,

    Thanks for your comment! I had a lot of fun writing the list up, I'm glad you enjoyed it ;)