A simple hack for succeeding on your New Year’s Resolution!
Do you make New Year’s Resolutions?
Do you struggle with sticking to your resolutions after 1 week, 1 month of the whole year?
Do you want to improve on your goals, but for whatever reason always seem to procrastinate on them?
Tired of the typical advice? Are you looking for one simple hack that science has proven to be successful?
If so, this article is for you!!!
In the month of December, I made a more conscious decision to not be locked up in my office when I was working in the hotel industry. I made a considerable effort to walk around more, talk more with the associates, find out what the plans were for the upcoming holiday season and find out about what their new year’s resolutions were going to be.
I made a mental note of many of these conversations so I could always go back in the New Year and follow up. My favorite follow-up question was often asking for a progress report on their resolutions for the new year. It was no surprise by the end of January, that most people had given up, and the real stats backed this up as well:
According to a study, even less than 1 in 10 people are able to keep their New Year Resolutions for one complete year. In fact, 25% people give up on their New Year Resolutions within the very first week of making them.
As a Director of Human Resources, I was committed to my craft and felt compelled to help my associates do a better job in achieving their goals. I knew based on the science that if they made progress on their goals, their personal well being would go up which leads to higher engagement and less turnover. The question was what would the best advice be, that I could give and help them move forward on their goals?
Now, typical advice on moving your goals forward would include things like be prepare well beforehand, make smaller targets such as daily or weekly goals, be specific on your exact goal etc. Even though this was helpful, I was looking for ONE piece of advice I could share that will drive the biggest result.
Temptation Bundling:
According to Katy Milkman…
“Temptation bundling involves the coupling of instantly gratifying “want” activities (e.g., watching the next episode of a habit-forming television show, checking Facebook, receiving a pedicure, eating an indulgent meal) with engagement in a “should” behavior that provides long-term benefits but requires the exertion of willpower (e.g., exercising at the gym, completing a paper review, spending time with a difficult relative).”
The hack of temptation bundling as described above involves understanding your “guilty pleasures” and coupling them with activities related to your New Year resolution goals. An example could include a goal of exercising 4 times a week. However, you note that one of your guilty pleasures is watching your favorite Netflix series after work. So, you make a commitment that if you want to engage in watching “Homeland” for example, you can only do this if you go to the gym and watch while you are walking on the treadmill.
Does Temptation Bundling actually work?
Milkman and her research colleagues recruited 226 participants for a 10-week study on the effects of temptation bundling on exercise habits. Each participant was assigned to one of three groups with instructions to exercise for 30 minutes.
One group—the control group—was given gift cards as a reward for participation.
The second group was loaned an iPod with four audio novels of their choice and were told to only listen to these whilst exercising.
The third group—the temptation bundling group—were also loaned an iPod with four audio novels from a list of highly addictive books i.e. The Hunger Games and The DaVinci Code audio books, however, they could only access the iPod at the gym itself.
After the 10-week study period, Katy Milkman and her team analyzed the data to uncover the effects, if any, of temptation bundling.
Milkman discovered that the participants of the third group—temptation bundling group—visited the gym 51% more frequently than the control group.
In this study, Katy also discovered that we were more likely to start these goals at the beginning of a new time period such as a New Year, New Week or even after your birthday. So plan accordingly and reap the rewards of success!
Get Started!
To create your temptation bundle, simply grab a piece of paper and draw a line to create two columns.
In the first column, write down the activities you know you should be doing, but regularly procrastinate on. Examples include: household chores, emails, writing a report, reading, exercising and so on.
In the second column, write down your guilty pleasures or activities you enjoy.
Examples include: watching favorite TV show or sports, browsing through social media, eating at your favorite restaurant.
Once you’ve exhausted both columns of the list, create your temptation bundles by linking the activities you enjoy with those you should be doing.
Conclusion:
As you can see in the research study above, temptation bundling combines both short-term instant gratification today (listening to your favorite audiobook) with long term benefits (exercising) tomorrow! A WIN-WIN solution!
Whether you want to exercise, write or read more, temptation bundling could help you to stick to your New Year’s resolution over the long run, but in a much more enjoyable way!
Be sure to message me and let me know if this is something that you found helpful. Any feedback is most appreciated!
If you did find this helpful, I would be appreciative if you could share this with your friends and family. Together, we can increase our personal well-being and continue to get better!
Enjoy the upcoming holiday season, and continue to be safe.
My best to you and your loved ones!
Until next time,
Be well,
Coach Mumdoo
604-861-4288
Recent Comments