January 1st, 2022.
It's a new year, a new beginning, and dang it,
this is the year you're gonna finally get in shape, cut back on caffeine,
quit Instagram, and start flossing at least once a day.
But now it's January 2nd. You skipped your run because it was too cold,
you've been on Instagram for an hour, and you're on your third cup of coffee.
But at least you flossed, right?
Wait, didn't this same thing happen last year?
Why is it so hard for us to keep our New Year's resolutions?
Are we all just that undisciplined? Or have society and
our own brains doomed us to failure?
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Last year, less than half of us stuck to at least one of our New Year's resolutions
and only about a third claim to have kept all of them.
>> I think oftentimes when people make their New Year's resolutions,
they're not really coming from deep within.
They're coming from the expectation that you should have a goal on January 1st.
>> That's Deborah Carr, a Boston University professor of sociology,
who's done research on social comparisons.
In other words, how your desire for
self improvement might come from comparing yourself to others.
>> We have a drive, it's not just a preference, but
this actual drive to compare ourselves to other people.
We never feel that we're doing as well as the Top 30 Under 30 or
Forbes' Millionaires Under Age 40 for instance.
>> Carr argues that social comparison is not a recipe for self improvement.
You're more likely to give up on your goals prematurely when you see people on
social media who make the same challenge look effortless.
Another reason people give up on resolutions is that humans aren't actually
very good at predicting how long something is going to take,
like learning a new skill or breaking an old habit.
Joe McGuire, a Boston University professor of psychology and
brain sciences describes this as directional bias.
>> So there's this directional bias to assume things will be faster,
I can accomplish more, in a period of time.
Or if I'm trying to stop something, if I'm trying to break a habit,
I'm not sure how long it's gonna take before that stops being hard.
>> Say I'm trying to--oh, I don't know-- stop looking at my phone all the time.
The habit that's reinforcing my social comparison problem.
Well, that would put me among the 13% of people who cite
reducing social media use as one of their resolutions.
But it turns out that breaking phone addiction might be tougher than you think.
Thanks to something called intermittent reinforcement.
>> When I take an action, and sometimes nothing happens, but
sometimes something really fun happens.
>> We all know that feeling, reaching for your phone in a moment of boredom on
the chance that you'll have gotten an exciting email or
someone will have liked your last post.
So how do you break the cycle?
McGuire suggests that making changes to your environment can help.
Like keeping your phone in a charger across the room, not in your pocket.
>> Sometimes just reaching for it and not having it be there is enough.
>> By the same token, maybe if I don't hide the dental floss at
the back of my medicine cabinet, I might actually reach for it once in a while.
And Carr's advice for sticking to your resolutions?
Obviously, stop comparing yourself to other people.
Carr suggests a better comparison might be yourself.
She calls these temporal comparisons.
>> What we can do is compare ourselves today with ourselves yesterday or ourself
one year ago or two years ago. If you see a pattern whereby you failed miserably but
you got back up and you fixed it and you learned a new skill set,
that's something that you can take with you to continue to problem solve.
>> All in all, we have reason to be optimistic.
So maybe you didn't keep your New Year's resolution past January 2nd. Guess what?
Tomorrow's another day, a whole new chance to try again.
Maybe tomorrow you'll reach for your phone a little bit less.
But to help yourself out, maybe think about putting it somewhere out of arm's reach.
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