4 Psychological Ways to Stick to Your New Year Goals
The truth is, most of us aren’t great at sticking to new year goals…
A 2021 study found two-thirds of people give up their new years resolutions within the first month.
The study also showed even if people say the resolution is important or they will remain committed in the face of obstacles, they still don’t stick to their new year resolutions.
Sticking to our new year goals is extremely hard. We often start with a lot of hope and optimism, but that comes crashing down very quickly.
Life gets in the way, a change of circumstances happen or we simply lose motivation because the goal was a lot harder than we initially thought.
However, the reality is, you not only need to create a goal, but you also need to learn how to stick to it. Otherwise, you’ll be in the two-thirds of people who give up within the first month.
Instead, we can use psychology to help us stay committed to achieving our new year goals.
1. Use Implementation Intentions
Many of us think motivation is the most important factor in helping us stick to our new year goals.
We often hear the phrase “I need to get motivated” so frequently.
However, an important research study reveals that increasing our motivation is not the only way to help us stick to our new year goals.
Research randomly placed people into three groups. A control group, where they were asked to track how often they exercised.
A motivation group — people were asked to track their exercise and read helpful information on the benefits of exercise. They were also told how exercise improves heart health.
The final group was the motivation strategy along with implementation intentions. This involved people creating a plan/statement of when and where they will exercise. The statement was: “During the next week, I will partake in at least 20 minutes of vigorous exercise on [DAY] at [TIME] in [PLACE].”
They found 91% of the third group managed to exercise at least once a week. In comparison, within the control and motivation group, less than 40% of the people managed to exercise at least once a week.
In short, stating exactly when and where you will take action on your goal each week is more powerful in helping us stick to our new year goals.
To apply this psychological technique, each week write down:
“I will do [BEHAVIOUR], on [DAY] at [TIME] in [PLACE].” For example, if my goal was to learn a new language, I would write, “I will study Arabic, on Tuesday at 7pm for 30 minutes in my room.”
Make sure to update this implementation intention each week to keep it at the forefront of your mind, which can help you stick to your goals.
2. Change Your Appraisal Of Your Goals
Setting and sticking to any goal is stressful.
When we experience this stress, we can perceive it in multiple ways. Two common ways we do this is either seeing the stress from the goal as a challenge or a threat.
The danger becomes when we appraise it as a threat. This can lead us to drop our new goals quickly. If we perceive the stress from the goal as a threat, we see the situation leading to failure and that we don’t have any coping strategies to get us through it.
A study found people perform differently towards tasks associated with their goals when their appraisal of stress is manipulated.
When people appraised the stress as a threat, which highlights risk and failure, they performed less well than when they appraised it as a challenge, which highlights opportunity, success and self-growth.
To implement this psychological trick, you need to prime yourself to appraise the stress from your goal as a challenge.
This all starts with how you set your goal. For example, if you have a goal to lose weight in the new year, how you word it is important.
A threat would be: My goal is to lose 20lbs over the next 6 months because right now I’m unhealthy and I don’t look good.
A challenge would be: My goal is to lose 20lbs over the next six months because I want to be healthier and feel better. I can do this by eating more healthy and doing exercise three times a week.
This goal will be stressful. But, if I word it in a way that gives me an opportunity to grow and add in coping strategies (as a challenge), I’m more likely to appraise the goal in a more adaptive way, rather than a threatening way.
And that’s exactly what can help you stick to your new year goal, rather than being scared off by it.
3. Sign A Contract With Someone
We tend not to tell others our new year goals, just in case we don’t achieve them.
If we don’t tell anyone, then it’s easier for us because others don’t know we haven’t achieved the goal.
If people don’t know this, then we feel better.
But what if I told you that making your new year goals more explicit to others can actually help you achieve them. Would you tell others then?
A study asked older adults to complete a health contract with health educators. Simply having a contract with health educators meant others knew about the older adults exercise goals. There was even a section in the contract regarding social support. Older adults enlisted the help of others to support them in achieving their new exercise goals.
The results found 80% of the older adults who had this contract achieved 75% of their exercise goals.
Also, nearly 70% of older adults reported that social support helped aid them in achieving their new goals.
Essentially, if we tell people about our goals, which could be through setting a contract with someone or telling them so they can provide some social support, the chances of sticking to our goals increases dramatically.
It’s a way of holding you accountable but also giving you a push when needed.
To implement this third psychological trick, draft a short contract with your closest friend or family member. You can include different actions you will do to help you achieve the goal.
Or, simply tell people close to you about your goal(s).
You have a greater chance they will support you and an increased chance of sticking to it too.
4. Look At The Process Of Your Goal
A new year goal shouldn’t be about the destination point.
That’s where most of us fall over. Psychologically, when we set a goal, even if it’s very realistic, it can seem so far ahead.
For example, if a goal is that you want to earn $1000 from freelancing in 6 months, going from $0 to $1000 in 6 months can feel astronomical.
By viewing the goal in this way, you put a mountain between you and the new year goal.
Of course, it becomes easier not to stick to your new goal because it just seems so far.
A cool study examined how a metaphor can help with sticking to your new year goals. They asked people to think about attaining their goal as either a journey, reaching a destination or no metaphor at all.
They found those who saw achieving their goal as a journey were far more likely to stick to their goal, achieve it and continue with behaviours associated with the achievement of their goal after they attained it.
In short, a great psychological trick is to view the goal as a process, not as achieving a certain endpoint that can seem lightyears away.
To implement this, determine small checkpoints that can help you achieve the overall goal and write down the journey of the goal.
With our example above, small checkpoints could be after the first month I want to earn $100. After the second month, I want to earn $300 etc. When it comes to the journey, I could write down actions that will get me through this journey. That could involve pitching, networking, writing on other platforms to get noticed etc.
All this informs the journey and helps you get in this psychological mindset, rather than simply thinking of the endpoint of your goal.
Final Comments
New year goals are a part of us all. But, so many of us fall short so quickly.
The simple reason is that we haven’t learned how to stick to the goal. It’s like we hope for the best when it comes to attaining our new year goals.
Fortunately, using a bit of psychology, we can learn how to stick to our new goals to help us achieve exactly what we want. Keep these four psychological tricks in mind to help you stick to your new year goals:
Use implementation intentions.
Change the way you view the stress from attaining your goal.
Sign a contract with someone.
View the process of your goal rather than it being an endpoint to reach.
Happy new year everyone and I hope these tips help. Let me know how you get on!
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