Blog
By: Katarina Gaborova
Have you experienced your favorite gym at the beginning of January? It’s busy, very crowded and you can hear people talking about their new training program as a part of their New Year’s resolution. That is not surprising because getting fitter and losing weight belongs to the two most popular New year’s resolutions. Starting anything new and keeping it up requires a couple of crucial skills. One of them is, to have a precise strategy (on what, how, and a specific time line) that we can execute the intended plan. The other, is to continuously exercise our will power. A gym seems like a great place to test both. Wouldn’t you agree? Now, go back to that same gym towards the end of December and you’ll find out that it became somewhat empty.
What happens to us in between all of those months? And how is it possible that according to Richard Wiseman, the professor of Public Understanding of Psychology at Hertfordshire University, only 12 % of us are able to stick to the desired, set goals. In his research, the remaining eighty-eight percent of a sample of 3000 people did not achieve what they originally planned to, despite of the fact that more than a half of them were very confident of succeeding.
I am pretty sure that most of us have been there, at some point of our lives. We may have made that decision to start a new year with an intention of a healthier life style, less smoking, or finally unpacking that last moving box. Especially since it has already been 3 years since our last relocation! Something happens and we fall right back into the old, familiar tracks
What can be the biggest challenge? …
We, human beings are creatures of our habit. As a matter of fact, our every day lives are run by them, 40% of the time. We get so set in our old patterns that many activities become a rooted automatic process for our brain. Starting anything out of “the ordinary” requires us to interrupt these old patterns and exchange them for the new ones. In general, we are great with coming up with ideas. However, keeping them or fully accomplishing them is more challenging, as it literally physiologically costs us more energy.
How to increase our own success rate of the personal goals? The best thing about creating a better self is that we do not need to wait until the beginning of the year. Let us utilize some of the scientific findings for our benefits:
Firstly, and foremost, today is the day to start ….
Here is how:
- Take a pen or a pencil and divide an A4 page into three columns. The first one would describe your “actual self” (how you see yourself currently as a person). The second one will include your “ought self” (as a representation of how others or yourself judges you ought to be). In the third column you can depict your ideal self (how you wish ideally to be). This idea was based on Self-discrepancy theory, which states that “people are generally motivated to reduce the gap in disparity between these different internalized parts of self”. Thus, our “ideal self” motivates us the most towards the desired change.
- You may have planned a few personal goals now. However, even if you plan a few goals, focus and apply only one of them at the same time. Here is a physiological explanation why. Our brain area of the pre-frontal cortex (situated behind the forehead) has been linked to the will-power. Focusing on two many changes at once has been found to put a constraint on this particular area of the brain. Thus, affecting decision making, regulation of emotions, creating thinking and they are all really important for our motivation. Almost like, if we are too overwhelmed, we are less likely to change anything at all. Because our will-power gets blocked. And a lack of a will-power is the number one reason for not keeping up the intended goal, according to a survey by American Psychological Association.
- Speaking of motivation, once we have a chosen goal we need to utilize a specific, achievable strategy with a designated time table. For example, scheduling a particular exercise plan (aerobics of 45 -60 min) on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays or as prescribed by a personal trainer. The more detailed strategy covering the dates, time, duration, intensity etc., the more likely we are going to stick to the plan.
- Practicing the goals or sub-goals regularly, if possible even every day, will turn the new activity into a habit. Not to mention, that we will improve tremendously at whatever we are doing. Here is how it works. Any routine behaviors (like driving a car, combing a hair) gets embedded in the more unconscious area of our brain, at the base of forebrain, called basal ganglia. This region is responsible for our habits, routines, and automatic responses. If we would like to bring on any new change, we need our conscious thinking (pre-frontal cortex) override the unconscious activity. This can be done by focusing consciously on the new tasks and practice them over and over again until they finally become automatized.
- Using visualization of achieving the goal successfully and applying as many visual, auditory, tactile etc. details as possible. For example, imagine that your goal is to improve your public speaking. Therefore, practice visualizing giving a speech in front of a very large audience. See yourself delivering the speech competently. Hear yourself speaking, your audience clapping, feel the pride as you are done with it. As I mentioned, we are stuck in the old ways, and as soon as we are applying any change, our brain is programmed to view it as a sort of a “threat”. Which may cause a rise of a stress hormone (cortisol). The blood gets drawn away from the prefrontal cortex further affecting our will-power. However, our visualization serves almost like a practice and as you know, the more we practice the more comfortable we start to feel.
- Getting support from those around us like the family, friends along the way. If we tell to someone what we would like to change we are more likely to stand behind our word. A support can also motivate us during the tough times, just in case we are considering to give up. Recording the progress may inspire us some more.
So, cheers to a New Year and please remember- time for the resolutions is now and every day…..