Rethink 2022 New Year Resolution

It’s that time of year again for the annual ritual. However, let’s take a pause to see how we are doing on it and what we should do differently this year.

Fun Stats: Success Rate

Let’s look at the success rate of keeping the new year resolution over time:

• Day 1, 100% of those who made a new year resolution are successful keeping it (because, well, you literally just made it)
• After 1 week, 75% are still successful (😭 25% failed right off the bat within the first week)
• After 2 weeks, 71%
• After 1 month, 64%
• After 6 months, 46%
• After 12 months, 22% are still successful keeping the resolution from a year ago

The first few weeks are critical, because the failure rate is the steepest. A quarter of people sank on the first week alone. It’s brutal! The longer you can hang on to it, the more likely you can keep it going even longer. Therefore, the following tips will help you stick to your resolution:

• Set a resolution that you are more likely to be able to keep at it for the first few weeks
• If you created an incentive plan for yourself, make it more frequent early on and gradually space out later

Fun Stats: Top Reasons for Failures

Let’s look at the top reasons for failures:

• 35% are due to unrealistic goals
• 33% are due to not tracking the progress
• 23% are due to forgetting the resolution altogether (🤬 dude, maybe your resolution should rather be “forget this resolution”, so you will succeed in fulfilling it each and every time 🤣)
• 10% are due to too many resolutions (🤯 Wut?! Maybe you should add one more resolution like “don’t make too many resolutions”. Oops, you just got one more. Sorry.)

The top failure cause is connected to the success rate story. If the goal is not reachable, when the rubber meets the road while you start implementing it, you will quickly feel you are getting nowhere closer to your goal. When you lose hope, you will stop, and never be able to pick it up again.

I Don’t Believe In Willpower

The stats are depressing. But don’t give up new year resolution just yet! I believe the issue is not the resolution itself, instead it’s the way we make them.

If you make a lofty goal and throw it at your own willpower, good luck with that, my friend! To be honest, I don’t believe in willpower! Let’s face it, even if you have relatively stronger willpower, it’s only a matter of time when you will deplete it and everything grinds to a halt. Also during that period, the closer you are to the willpower depletion, the more painful you will feel. Why torture yourself like that?

If you want to make consistent movement towards the direction you want, instead of willpower, depend on sustainable small goals, activities, or setups that are easy to achieve, easy to become a low effort enjoyable habit, and can accumulate over time towards something substantial. Ideally, you can create the setup that will promote your intrinsic satisfaction and motivation. It’s best if these small goals are measurable so you can feel the progress and satisfaction. Utilize gamification if possible, because most people react positively to it. Also new year resolutions don’t need to be glorious in my opinion. Sustaining another year of whatever great things you have been able to cling on to during the past year is a perfectly awesome new year resolution.

Retaining an existing customer is much cheaper than acquiring a new customer. Value your existing customers by maximizing their value and your CLV (Customer Lifetime Value) at the same time!

🕵 me connecting dots with Product Management

My Not-so-glorious New Year Resolution

If you care to read the boring and not-so-glorious stuff below at all, this is a snippet of my experiment after the above reflection. Will see if it works or not.

• Continue to keep a pair of running shoes under each of my desk both at home and at work. (visual cue to trigger activity)
• Push the Asics Nimbus over the 450 miles retirement line to unlock a new pair of Brooks Ghost 14. (gamification)
• Continue to click “publish” button on any media (no minimum length) at least once a month. (mini instead of lofty goal)
• Try one new media that contributes at least 6 clicks to the “publish” button goal above. (incremental mini goal)
• etc.

(source of the featured image)