Boosting willpower and breaking bad habits
Boosting willpower and breaking bad habits
Raise your hand if you’re having trouble keeping your New Year’s resolution. Not to worry; you’re in good company. Recent data shows that four out of five people who vowed to reform bad habits will eventually break those promises. A third of this group will give up on their resolutions by Feb. 1, which is Wednesday.
So now is a good time to reflect on your 2012 goals and re-commit to your efforts. A Q&A posted with Florida State University social psychologist Roy Baumeister, PhD, offers insights and tips to help boost your willpower, which research suggests is limited, and break bad habits.
On the topic of things you can do to maximize your chance of successfully keeping a resolution, Baumeister suggests sharing your goals with others, tracking progress and findings ways to minimize decision-making. He says:
Social support and interpersonal pressure can help quite a bit. The most important thing is to keep track, day by day, of what you are trying to control. Keep an explicit, written record of how much you eat or spend or exercise. Sharing this record with others is also helpful.
Pre-commitment is another class of helpful strategies. When people choose what they are going to eat well in advance, they eat better than when they decide, impulsively, what and how much to eat on each occasion. Pre-commitment includes things like automatic savings plans that transfer some of your paycheck into a savings account, without you having to make a decision each time.
In the article, Baumeister echoes several key points discussed by Stanford health psychologist Kelly McGonigal, PhD, in this earlier Scope Q&A.
By Lia Steakley
Stanford University Medical Center
Photo by moMents fiXats
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* Stanford University Medical Center integrates research, medical education and patient care at its three institutions – Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford Hospital & Clinics and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.
** The above story is adapted from materials provided by Stanford University School of Medicine
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