Business

Every time a new year rolls in, we expect it to be different than the last. You’re probably saying, “this year is the year I’m going to lose weight” -- or perhaps you want to eat healthier, be more organized or spend more time with family. Unfortunately, according to a recent study by the University of Scranton, only 8 percent of people actually achieve their New Year’s resolutions. I’ll admit, looking back, I can’t remember a time I actually achieved a resolution myself. But why do we fail year after year?

Chances are the goal of your New Year’s resolution is to eliminate a negative habit or to form a new, positive one. Charles Duhigg, New York Times reporter and author of The Power of Habit (2012), argues that the problem is that people don’t fully understand how their habits work. Habits, he argues are composed of three parts: cues, routines and rewards. The cue can be a time a location or an emotional state – anything that triggers a certain routine. The routine is the behavior itself. Finally, there’s a reward which serves as the ultimate motivation behind the habit (but not always the motivation you would expect).

Duhigg gives an example his own (former) bad habit of eating a cookie every afternoon. He noticed that he craved a cookie around 3:00 p.m. every day and figured out that the “cue” was time.  His routine was to go to the cafeteria around that time and buy a cookie and talk to his colleagues. By analyzing the routine, he realized that the “reward” was not actually a cookie, but socialization. To change the habit, at 3:00 p.m. he would walk around the office and talks to his colleagues instead.  Now, he has a new habit of walking around the office at that time and his urge to eat a cookie has completely disappeared.

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