New Year’s Resolutions: An Intellectual Approach to Success!
Each year 45 million Americans go on a diet with few achieving their weight loss goals and even fewer maintaining it. Half of all smokers try to quit with less than 10% managing it. One of the main problems is that all of us tend to be overly optimistic about what we can do and have unrealistic expectations. While “overconfidence” is helpful in competing against others, maintaining this attitude over a long period of time can result in loss of motivation and failure to achieve goals.
(Did You Know? Top ten New Year’s Resolutions: Have more fun, relax and reduce stress, spend more time with family, eat better, exercise more, reduce spending, save for financial emergency, make more time for yourself, reduce debt, and number ten, lose weight.)
What is the secret to success? Besides having more realistic goals, NYU psychology professor Peter Gollwitzer believes in preparation. Preparing for a challenge or temptation allows you to handle it in a manner that is consistent with your objectives. For example, if confronted with a sweet, automatically reach for an apple. If faced with exercising or not, do whatever exercise is comfortable that day knowing that you will do more intense exercise another day. By replacing your habit with a quick, easy alternative action, even overly ambitious goals can be achieved.
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