Transforming Your New Year’s Resolutions into Year-long Habits

• This is the big challenge, right? We have the best of intentions as we resolve to do things differently at the beginning of the year. Aware of our weaknesses, we promise ourselves that things will change this time. We are realistic. We know the fallout if we don’t move forward and we hope that will motivate us. Poor health, obesity, poverty, and more will ensue if we don’t change our lifestyle.

We’re wrong. Self-control doesn’t last. Immediate challenges trip us up and we fail. Moreover, we tell ourselves that we blew it and we won’t achieve our goals. Negative emotions abound: discouragement, despair, and worse.

What to do this time?

Skip all the neuropsychology and research to go straight to the guy who built on those. James Clear did it. He did the homework. He did the work learning what current brain and behavior research tells scientists and distilled it for us in his book Atomic Habits.

He also walked the talk. He practiced what he preached. He’s a New York Times best-selling celebrity author and speaker as a result.

He’s distilled healthy habit making it into four rules. Take your New Year’s resolutions and apply his rules so that your behavior changes.

Reward works so set up rewards so that the desired behavior is repeated. If that means moving a dollar from your savings account into your treats account each day that you exercise, do it. Figure out rewards that work for you and set up your system to reward yourself.

Positive emotions cultivate habits so don’t focus on the negative and punishment of bad habits. Work with what works. The carrot.

So make your rewards for desired behaviors obvious, attractive, and easy to achieve. And make the positive behavior immediately satisfying. Those are the four rules.

That means moving that dollar each day, not just at the end of the week. A person needs immediate satisfaction to repeat that behavior, not delayed rewards.

Each of these four rules or laws has some helpful corollaries that help imprint and reinforce them. Create rituals. Stack your habits so they become routine; in other words, one should follow another so they cue the next one. Prepare your environment so doing the habit becomes easier. Group things together so that you go from one to the other. Automation will help so use technology to prompt you and move you from to the next.

This is not a fancy system. It’s designed by you and based on the realities of human nature per science. It’s not hard.

Look for interviews with Clear on podcasts and YouTube videos so you get the ideas. And then listen or watch them again to reinforce them. He’s realistic and entertaining so you won’t get bored or discouraged.

You don’t have to read the whole book although I do recommend it. Atomic Habits is easy to read and comes with free printable versions of habits cheat sheets and more.

You can turn resolve into action and move from resolution to execution this year. James Clear will help you.