New year means a year of new resolutions. According to the Pew Research Center’s 2022 survey report, 3 in 10 people worldwide make a New Year’s resolution. According to this report, some common resolutions are:
I will stop smoking cigarettes. I will exercise daily. I won’t eat junk food, I will sleep early, I won’t spend more, I will save money. new skill or hobby.
There’s nothing new that hasn’t been heard before, but every year people make these common resolutions and forget about them as the first month of the year passes.
According to the above report, there are more interesting facts related to these resolutions. Such as-
The real question is whether you made a wish, but how to stick to it. What to do to make it part of the routine. So let’s find the answer to this question.
So what’s your New Year’s resolution?
Let’s start with an example. Let’s say your New Year’s resolution is to walk for half an hour every evening after dinner.
Now, how to keep this little promise you made to yourself. Is there any scientific data on this? Let’s try to understand this.
What is the science of habit?
Dr. Andrew Huberman is a professor of neuroscience at Stanford University. This is how he explains the science of habit in very simple words.
Suppose you take a walk after dinner on the first day of the year. This action gave a feeling of success. Neurons in the brain emit happy messages. You felt good.
You repeat this process for the next three days, but the feeling of happiness and success you get from it gradually begins to diminish.
On the fifth day you forget to walk. On the sixth day, your brain starts looking for excuses to say that you are very tired today, that there is still work to do today. Let it be today. On the seventh day, a struggle takes place between the two parts of the brain and it takes a lot of work and effort to take a walk after dinner.
Just after 10 days, the resolution file was deleted from Brain’s desktop and went to the trash. However, this thought is not in the brain’s active memory.
How to integrate a habit into active memory?
The answer to this question can be found in James Clear’s best-selling book, “Atomic Habits.” He writes: “To make a habit part of your daily life, you need to focus not on the goal but on the process of getting there. »
For example, make a habit of walking after dinner. What do we need to do to continue doing this work uninterrupted for 365 days a year? Let’s understand it –
Goal: Take a walk every evening after dinner.
Process – Eat dinner on time, mentally prepare for the walk, wear shoes, leave the house and decide where to walk.
Understand the process-
According to James Clear, before deciding to take a walk after dinner, we must identify this process and include it in our daily habit.
For example, you must decide that dinner will take place every day at a fixed time. It’s not that one day you eat at 7 a.m. and the next day at 10 a.m. It may not be safe to leave the house for a walk if you have a late dinner. Therefore, dinner time should be set according to walking time. If you stay at home in comfortable clothes like boxers, shorts, nightie, you may feel lazy even thinking about wearing clothes while walking around. So this thing should already be decided in the mind. We’re already in t-shirt pajamas, so the added burden of changing clothes won’t weigh on the mind. Walking shoes are kept in front, reminding us that it’s time to walk, to video call, to come together. or at home. But any work like inviting a friend should not be scheduled at that time so that the brain is not distracted for any reason. When and how dinner will be prepared, what will be prepared, what things are needed. the whole process must be done in advance. Define and decide so that it does not happen that at the last moment the brain has to work hard to decide what to cook and what to eat for dinner today. Prepare or order dinner. For example, if you listen to a podcast while walking, decide in advance what you are going to listen to today. So that once you put on shoes and leave the house, the brain does not have to work hard to decide what to listen to today In which road or in which park to walk, in which direction to go, this also needs to be decided in advance. say The intention is for the brain to stay focused only on that task at that time. We told our brains to go for a walk after dinner. So, at that time there should be no other work that can distract the mind, tire it out and deviate it from its main goal. To do this, it is important to identify and facilitate this entire process in advance.
How long does it take for a new start to become a habit?
According to a study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, it can take between 18 and 254 days for a new thing to become part of our habits.
Science of motivation and repetition
Dr. Huberman explains that to turn anything new into a habit, it must become part of our active memory. For this, two things are necessary –
Repetition, that is, repetitive friction, that is, there should not be too much hard work or stress in this job.
Let’s understand it with simple words like this. Like we wake up every morning and brush our teeth. It does not require any effort and the brain does not feel stressed either. It does this job very easily. The reason is repetition. Because our brain is used to it. We’ve done it thousands of times. All the neural connections that make this activity possible are formed inside the brain. So, when brushing, the brain now operates in passive mode.
The two things are there: repetition and absence of stress.
But brushing a three-year-old requires a lot of work and effort because this activity activates his body’s limbic mode. The brain works hard to process it.
These 3 things should be done at the beginning of habit formation
According to James Clear, to integrate anything new into a habit, you must first do 3 things:
Like going for a walk after dinner. After four days, if you get bored moving on to day five, you will need to push yourself at that point. This will require motivation. Do this for that motivation-
Keep writing on the door of your house, on your study table, on your refrigerator why it is important to walk in the morning. Three big benefits for why you are trying to develop this habit. Such as-
This will maintain my health. My performance in the office will be good. I will be able to spend quality time with my partner or child every morning.
If limbic mode is activated, the action does not turn into a habit.
Dr. Huberman says that with motivation we can push ourselves to form a good habit, but if the body is in limbic mode while we do it, that is, it takes too much effort and that the body feels constant stress, then we should stick to it. . It cannot stay and it cannot become a habit.
In such a situation, we need to keep three things in mind:
Start small – Always start with a habit that is not difficult to form and can be done easily. Repeat this habit for 30 consecutive days.
Reward – After each small success, congratulate and reward yourself.
Self-compassion – There will be times when you fail. In such a situation, don’t curse yourself. Be kind to yourself and start fresh.
So try to follow this resolution in this new year. You will definitely achieve success.
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