Rethinking New Years Resolutions
Rethinking New Years Resolutions
By Adam Nash MA LPC
“The worst habits are things we can do over and over and over in rapid succession—eventually to our detriment. These behaviors are often fun and rewarding in the short term but backfire in the long run.” - Michael Easter (1)
So, it happened again. You made a New Year's Resolution, “I’m done drinking!”, “I’m gonna go to the gym everyday!”, “I’m gonna lose weight!”, and as the calendar turns from January to February you are very aware that you have failed. Once again your resolution did not even last till February. You have been drinking every night or skipping the gym or, even worse, put on weight. You started the year with a goal, a plan and a mission only to get two weeks into the year and be totally derailed by life. What should you do now? And what is it that leads to New Year’s Resolutions failing year after year and what does psychology say about goal setting and accomplishing a healthier lifestyle, both mentally and physically. Lets take some time and rethink New Years Resolutions.
Understanding Dopamine:
Unless you have been living off the land in Alaska for the last few years I am sure you have heard the word Dopamine. But what is it and what's it got to do with goal setting? And how would I leverage it to help me reach my goals? According to Healthdirect.gov “Dopamine is a chemical messenger (neurotransmitter) that works in the brain”(2) but a deeper look and it becomes clear that Dopamine is closely related to the pleasure centers of our brains. As we begin to move towards something we anticipate to be pleasurable, the brain begins to release dopamine which leads to us feeling pleasure (this is a very simplified explanation. Please read the books and links below for a better understanding). Meaning as you walk into the local bakery and begin to smell the donut you have been waiting all morning for you will start to feel pleasure, even before buying and enjoying that donut (I understand this all too well as I work less than 300 feet from a donut shop and have to resist the urge to buy a dozen every day). Then you buy the donut and for a short time as the sugar moves through your mouth you are truly feeling amazing! However, once you eat the donut that you were excited about, your dopamine crashes, you begin to mentally beat yourself up and you begin to feel even worse than before you walked into the donut shop. (See drawing below. Credit to After Skool)(3)
However, if we choose “pain”, better understood as doing something hard, our dopamine originally drops but will continue to be released for up to 48 hours after the event. Meaning if I go to the gym, do an ice bath (or cold shower), or go on long walks I will feel worse at first but will feel much better over the long run because my body will release dopamine for hours after the event. This will often be the thing that holds people back from doing the hard things they need to do for a healthier life. If I have spent my time getting dopamine simply by buying a donut, opening my phone, or opening my computer, the feeling of going to the gym or putting on your pants to go to therapy to talk about your struggles in life seems incredibly daunting, and it would seem impossible to even consider doing cold plunges or cold showers. But what does this have to do with New Years and my failed Resolution?
Using Dopamine to achieve goals:
The thing about New Years Resolutions is that it is an attempt to change the whole dopamine process in one moment. If you have ever been on a boat and tried to turn it 180 degrees it takes time. The process of going from never going to the gym to every day, or never talking about the hard things that have happened in your life to weekly therapy, is impossibly hard because if my brain is used to getting easy dopamine from donuts, social media, online shopping, Etc the process of doing hard things seems like attempting to turn a large cargo ship on a dime. But on the other side of things, setting a small goal results in not having to work very hard to accomplish the goal which results in a quick, small dopamine spike followed by a crash back below baseline, in much the same way that social media or candy works (think not eating candy for an hour). So how do I set goals if big goals (New Years Resolutions) are too hard and small goals are too easy. The more effective route is setting a large goal (BHAG, Big Hair Ass Goal, as the arm forces refer to them) and then setting small, attainable steps towards the goal which will allow us to accomplish small goals along the way and get the dopamine release of moving towards a goal that will keep us going forward towards the BHAG we set (In the next blog we will explore some of my go to goal setting techniques).
As we avoid seeking pleasure and begin to chase after “pain” we will start to rewire our brain allowing us to do more hard things and accomplish our goals. Anna Lempke, who wrote an amazing book on Dopamine, best described this need to pursue pain in this way “The reason we’re all so miserable may be because we’re working so hard to avoid being miserable.” (4). I encourage you to set some goals that involve doing hard things and we will explore goal setting more in the next blog by looking at some of my favorite ways to set goals.
Disclaimer: “pain” in this blog is best understood as choosing to do hard things not causing self harm or having chronic pain.
