Don’t Give Up On Giving Up!

Most of us seem to have given up on giving up – In a study of over 2000 adults, 75% of them said that they didn’t make a New Year resolution in the previous year. This trend was much more prevalent in those aged 55 and above than amongst the under 24s.

The research also found that for those who did make a resolution, only 5% of people successfully were continuing with the new habit almost a year later.

But before you give up on giving up, it’s worth noting that people who do make resolutions, (even if they break them), are ten times more likely to make changes in their lives than ‘non-resolvers’.

Change can be Life or Death

A medical study often stops my clients in their tracks when I share it with them. When doctors tell heart patients, they will die if they don’t change their lifestyle habits, only 1 in 7 were able to make the change needed to live.

Even when it is a matter of life and death, science helps us to understand that wanting to change is something we often experience, but actuallychanging something is hard.

Change is hard – but it’s simple to explain why

We like identifying change we want to make and telling people about our intentions – it’s the implementation bit that our brain doesn’t like!

In fact, the news on this is quite grim. Our brains are pre-wired to hold onto habits – even if they are not good for us and might lead to an early demise.

By contrast, a neuroscientific concept called “neural plasticity” has identified that it perfectly possible to change and adapt – even when we are 101. Research suggests that the people that do adapt and change are over-represented in people earning higher salaries and living longer lives.

This means science doesn’t say we can’t change. It says we choose not to.

Here’s the top science- backed tips I share with clients to up your chances of success:

Beware of ‘false-hope’ syndrome

Change is really hard. It requires you to create a new neural pathway in your brain for it to become something you ‘just do’ automatically. Change requires fuel that your brain is wired to be stingy with – imagine you have Scrooge-like ‘cognitive miser’ in your head. Appreciate you are extremely likely to fall off the wagon or fail many times before you succeed in wiring in a new habit. If you appreciate that at the outset, you can plan for the long haul and normalise the guilt, disappointment or shame that is likely to come with not succeeding first time.

Prepare for change to be tiring.

Volunteers were sent into a room with plates of radishes and cookies. Some were told to resist the cookies and just eat radishes. A second group were told to eat whichever they wanted. They then tackled a puzzle afterwards. Those who hadn’t had to spend mental energy resisting the cookies persevered for twice as long on the tricky puzzle as those poor souls who had been on the radishes.

The ‘month’ is a myth

A 2010 UCL study found that on average it takes 66 days for a new habit to become automatic (for one poor soul in the research group it was 254 days!) The myth of it taking a month came from a misquoted study in plastic surgery about how long it took people with a new limb to adapt to it. So don’t give up. Our research found that people who stuck with a new habit for two to three months were mostly continuing with it a year later.

Watch out for your ‘lies

Your brain is a pattern machine. So, whilst the ideaof a ‘new you’ is exciting – say getting up 15 minutes early to do a yoga app, your brain will experience ‘cognitive dissonance’ as soon as this clashes with an established pattern of behaviour– say having your alarm go off at 7 and checking your news apps.  We can usually manage the clash for a day or two – the excitement about the new thing outweighs the pull of the old. After that your brain wants a quick and sneaky way to not expend energy on maintaining the new habit. It’s best bet is to use the ‘current moment’ bias we have and to find a quick ‘lie’. “I need all my energy to focus at work and I didn’t sleep well. I’m better off having another 15 minutes sleep…” The excuses will be clever and bespoke – it is your brain coming up with them!

Avoid “don’t,”, “won’t,” and “can’t,”

Ever told yourself to stop worrying and get to sleep? Or wondered why a child touches a hot plate when you have explicitly said ‘don’t’? Our brains are weird. We aren’t very good at paying attention to the instruction part of those type of sentences. One study found that insomniacs actually sleep better when they are told to try to stay awake.

If you tell yourself, “I don’t need a glass of wine to mark the end of my working day, sadly all your brain has heard is WINE. You can’t help but think about wine after that. We aren’t very good at thinking about or doing two things at once. Make the most of your brain’s hatred of multi-tasking and arrange to do something else you enjoy when you finish your working day instead.

Be Specific and Create New Patterns

Find ways to make a new habit as specific AND as quick and easy to do as you can so you don’t have to think about it. Saying “I’m going to do more exercise in the new year” may not work. Putting your work-out gear, not your work-gear out the night before, just might work because putting the work- out gear away without wearing it requires effort!

I have used the same science to drink more water in my day. I have 2 glasses by my bed at night – one for in the night sips and one entirely for the morning that I have now programmed in to drink before I get out of bed.

Notice your self-talk

Psychologists did some research where they got people to imaginethey had done something really bad. They got a comparator group to imagine they had done something really good. They then let both groups loose on a room full of biscuits. Who do you think ate the most? They repeated the test and got people to do a maths test after a period of optional practise. The people feeling low did worse on the test because they didn’t practise and they ate double the amount of biscuits.

This is with imagined events – not real ones. So just start to think about what happens when you have real stuff going on that you feel bad about. Is it really any surprise you can’t hold off the biscuits or find the energy to plan for something you want to achieve?

Remind yourself of the facts

The researchers in the biscuits and maths experiment found that more information helped people make better decisions. When they put up a sign to tell people that eating more biscuits wouldn’t make them feel better, most people didn’t eat them. When they told people that opting out of the maths revision may make them feel worse not better in the long run – bingo – most people got on with the practise and did well in the test.

So that note on your fridge or that post-it on your computer to remind you of what you want to do/not do and why, can help.

Expect to Fail

Resisting something we enjoy takes conscious brain energy. The simple truth is that we only have a finite amount of conscious energy. If we have had a particularly busy day making lots of decisions or we have been socially excluded from something and feel upset about it, that uses the same fuel sources up – meaning we simply have less fuel available to help us resist a biscuit or get to the gym. We can exert self-control when we are tired, but we will usually choose not to.

If you know this science, you might notice your brain weaving a lack of fuel into a ‘lie’ – “Come on, treat yourself to a night off, you’re shattered”. Now you are armed, you can prepare for the lie. A quick rest of your mental resources can work wonders. Stop thinking for a minute. Shut your eyes, don’t look at your phone or take a walk outside. You will be amazed at what 5 minutes of not thinking can do in order to refuel you enough to resist temptation or give you the energy to do the yoga.

Safety in Numbers

We are social creatures. When we share our hopes and plans with others, we are more likely to stick with them. So share what you want to achieve with someone – ideally someone who can help you to identify your ‘lies’ and remind you to have a  5 minutes rest beforeyou go to the gym – rather than pouring you a glass of wine and agreeing with you that you should put your feet up!

Why do you love things that aren’t good for you?

Seeing habits as good or bad sometimes isn’t helpful. One “bad” habit might actually be a really effective way of keeping up something else that it ‘good’ or at least important to your sense of who you are.

For example, you might pride yourself on being fun loving, spontaneous and sociable. When a friend asks you round for a cuppa and cake you always say yes – you might think it rude or not in keeping with your fun-loving side to say no – or suggesting a walk together instead.

Sometimes we can subconsciously undermine establishing new habits because we are worried that we might lose something of ourselves. We might not have consciously thought that saying no to cake = you secretly think you are becoming boring. It can be worth digging into your subconscious with a professional coach or therapist if you have tried and failed – and really do want to change something.

Don’t give up on giving up

Remember, ‘neural plasticity’ proves anything is possible – sometimes we have to just find a way to get out of our own way!