Your resolutions can become a reality if you set your sights realistically, even embarrassingly, low.
New Year’s resolutions may be the most widespread behavioral experiment ever attempted—a great unsupervised trial in overconfidence. Every January, millions of us make bold predictions without data, adopt strategies without feedback, and sign up for gym memberships that quietly autodraft until we notice the charge sometime around the Fourth of July. I’m no exception. Last year, I resolved to swim in the ocean off Boston every month. That lasted until March, when the water was so cold, my face went numb and I started swallowing seawater because I couldn’t tell my mouth was open. At that moment, the version of me that made the resolution and the version that had to carry it out officially filed for divorce.
The data are clear: Most resolutions fail. Why? What does that failure reveal about human behavior? And—I can’t resist—is there an optimal New Year’s resolution?
The good news is that social science has answers. The bad news is they aren’t the answers anyone wants to hear. But if you’re willing to treat self-improvement the way you’d treat an investment—anchored in evidence, calibrated to incentives, and adjusted for your cognitive quirks—you can dramatically increase your odds of success.
Continue reading the entire piece here at The Wall Street Journal (paywall)
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Roland G. Fryer, Jr., a John A. Paulson Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, is Professor of Economics at Harvard University, an entrepreneur, and co-founder of Equal Opportunity Ventures.
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