Consider This from NPR - How To Make New Year's Resolutions You Can Actually Keep

Episode Date: January 1, 2024

The tradition of the New Year's resolution can be alluring. What better moment in time to resolve to accomplish important goals ? New year, new you, right?But research and polling show that a lot of people who set out make resolutions give up on them. If the temptation of an extra hour of sleep is likely to crush your dream to attend that 6am spin class, maybe you need to rethink your resolution. Host Juana Summers talks with Marielle Segarra, host of NPR's Life Kit, about why focusing more on smaller goals and intentions can help you succeedLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

2024 has officially arrived, and many people out there approach the new year full of excitement and resolve, ready to commit to new goals and intentions. And if you're one of those people, you are not alone. Here's what some of our colleagues at All Things Considered had to say when we asked them if they were starting the new year with any resolutions. My New Year's resolution is to cook more. I want to read books more for joy. I want to make a traditional Palestinian thawb from scratch. The voices you just heard were NPR producers Erica Ryan, Alejandra Marquez-Hance, and Lina Mohamed.

And Lina's resolution was a bit of a repeat. She told us that she had the same goal last year. It was a lot more work than I expected, and so I didn't get to finish. We're not finishing. I even started. Lina is not alone. While resolutions are a tradition, many people don't stick with them. A Forbes Health OnePoll survey found that the average resolution lasts under four months, and almost a third make it two months or less. That is something that director Jonas Adams is familiar with. I like New Year's resolutions. I like the thought of setting goals for the new year. I just forget what they are by February. So yeah, that's probably what's going to happen for 2024. Good

luck to me. And then there are those who don't make New Year's resolutions at all, like producer Megan Lim. I don't have any resolutions this year or any year. I don't believe in resolutions because I don't believe in having regrets. Consider this. Sticking to the plan can be hard. That's why most resolutions don't make it to the end of the year. But coming up, we share tips on how to make good ones. From NPR, I'm Juana Summers. It's Monday, January 1st. that perfect bra for you. How to find books that you will love. How to declutter. The steps you can take to feel less lonely. How to minimize your pain when you're engaged in the basic acts of

cooking. If you want to try cold plunging, how you might do it safely. So we thought she would be the perfect person to ring in the new year with us by talking about that R word, resolutions. Hey, Mariel. Hey, Juana. Okay, let's just start by talking about how common New Year's resolutions are. I recently came across this YouGov poll that found that 37% of people make New Year's resolutions. And this probably seems like an obvious question to you, but what exactly is it about the start of a new year that pushes people in this direction? Yeah, I think it's this idea of a fresh start. You know, culturally, we have these different markers of time that signal to us, hey, this is a chance to start over.

And there's actually research on this from the field of behavioral economics that's often cited around New Year's. Google searches for the term diet, as well as gym visits, and also other commitments people make to pursue goals, those all increase following not just New Year's, but also holidays, birthdays, semesters in school, months, even weeks. Like, I don't know, maybe you've heard people say, oh, my diet starts on Monday, right? Of course, there's also pressure to make a fresh start around New Year's. And a lot of that comes from advertisers and from companies that are trying to sell us stuff like a gym membership or a new diet plan or containers for all your clutter, right? So I think we want to just make sure that we're choosing goals and resolutions that are right for us and not just

getting sucked into this idea of, oh, I have to spend all this money to better my life this year. Right. Okay. So I have a whole lot of philosophical questions about resolutions themselves. But before we get into those, let's talk about what people are actually resolving to do. To absolutely no one's surprise, a Forbes Health OnePoll survey found almost half the people who responded were making resolutions focused on improving fitness. 38% are working towards improving their finances, 36% want to improve their mental health, 34% want to lose weight, and 32% want to improve their diet. And I've listened to a ton of Life Kit episodes that are focused on fitness. What's one thing you would tell people with that goal? I think it's to consider movement rather than exercise. Like even the shift in thinking about that word movement is more central here. The experts say we should be getting about 150

minutes of moderately intense activity every week, right, to help protect us against things like type 2 diabetes and heart disease and cancer. That's about 22 minutes a day. And the reason that I say movement rather than exercise is when we say exercise, you might think, okay, I have to go do sprints or train for a marathon or sign up for a super intense spin class. But moderate intensity activity can actually be a lot of other things, not as intense as the ones I just mentioned. Researchers at Arizona State University put out this list of different physical activities and how they'd be categorized. And moderately intense includes chores like walking around, picking up laundry, mopping the floor, mowing the lawn. Also hobbies like ballroom dancing, which is not that fast, you know, or bowling or things like walking down the stairs or walking the dog or just walking at two and a half miles an hour, which is not a crawl, but it's not a race walk either.

Okay, writing down those tips for sure. Mariel, in that same survey, 34% say they want to lose weight. And that's something that often gets lumped in with fitness. But the question I have is, should it? Partly that's because there's all this societal pressure to look a certain way and in general to be thin. But we also know from research that weight and body mass index are imperfect indicators of health. And we know that strict diets and crash diets, which is what a lot of people do, especially after New Year's, they don't work long term. People just end up going back to what they were doing before. So experts have told us to really try to focus on healthy behaviors rather than weight loss,

eating nutritious foods, drinking less alcohol or no alcohol. Those are things that we know are good for us and that feel good in our bodies too. Another thing that you can think about is mindful eating. Like slow down and think about what am I actually hungry for today? Do I want something hot or cold or crunchy or soft or sweet or sour? And then while I'm eating, am I full? Okay, then I'll stop. Or think about I'm really grateful for the food that I'm eating and the ways it's nourishing me. Like if you eat roasted broccoli, I had some of that last night, that is filled with potassium and vitamin C and fiber

and so much good stuff. And I find that that's just a more expansive and healthy way to think about eating than just being restrictive. Oh, I love this idea. I had a New Year's a while back where one of the things I resolved to do was to actually stop eating all of my meals in front of a screen like my laptop

while I'm working or my TV when I'm sitting at home and doing nothing. And it really helped change parts of my relationship with food. It does. That's another tip that our expert gave us in an episode we did about mindful eating is to not eat in front of a screen and actually to not really do anything else except eat. All right, let's move on to another topic. And it's one I think about a lot. It's improving mental health. It's a really worthy goal for all of us, I think. But I don't know, the idea of trying to wrap up improving my mental health into a New Year's resolution. I don't know. It seems like that would actually cause me more stress. Is there a better approach to this? Yeah, it's big. But there are ways you can break that

down and things that you can do every day or every week to improve your mental health. For instance, we've done episodes on making time for play and the importance of play in our mental health. We've done episodes on making sure you're connecting with friends because that combats loneliness or making time to be in nature because forest bathing, the act of just going to the forest or going to a park with a whole lot of trees and taking in the smells and the sights and the feelings that that also improves our mental health. And if you are struggling with something like anxiety, for instance, there are things you can do in the moments that it comes up to bring yourself back to a more grounded place. For instance, if you really lean into your five senses, you might say,

what do I see, smell, hear, feel, and taste right now? And then pull back and say, what was that about? One expert told us that you can think of anxiety as an indicator light, as the check engine light of your brain, sort of. Because if something is making you feel unsafe or unsettled, you want to know what is that, and that's information. So after that, maybe you seek help, you talk to a professional. Those are all different kinds of things that you could weave throughout your life in the new year to improve your mental health. All right. And finally, we come to financial health. I will be the first to tell you that things feel really different now that the three and a half year pause on student loan payments is over. And after a few years of seeing people's credit card

debt falling, it is now on its way back up. And we're coming out of the holidays. Those credit card bills are going to be hitting our inboxes or our mailboxes soon. But the idea of having debt and getting out of debt is a situation that can be really difficult, both emotionally and financially. Yeah, I mean, debt brings a lot of shame to people. And part of that is just cultural, right?

There's this misconception that if you're in debt, it's because you're careless or you lack discipline. But we know that that's not true. I mean, a lot of the reasons that people have debt is because they got hit with an unexpected medical bill, for instance, and that's not something that's in your control. So if you're going to make a resolution around your debt, you want to start by not shaming yourself for having this money that you need to pay back. But then as far as actually tackling it, there are different things you can do. If you have medical debt, for instance, there are ways to negotiate that down or see if you qualify for what's called charity care. And we've done episodes on that that

walk people through that step by step. And if you have other kinds of debt, you just want to prioritize paying off the debt with the highest interest rate first. That'll mean you'll pay the least over the long term. And so for instance, if you have a payday loan or a credit card debt, that you'll often have much higher interest rates on that that compound quickly. So pay those off and then get to your lowest interest debts second. Marielle, you have shared all of these great tips and strategies. And now I just want to take a pause here. One other thing that these polls have found is that very few people actually stick with the resolutions they make long term. I am one of those people. So really, is it worth it for us to even make these? You know, it's a good opportunity, I think,

for a fresh start. But we also just want to check in with ourselves, right? Because we want to understand why we're choosing a particular goal. I imagine that you're more likely to stick with something that really resonates with you and that you really want to do and you're doing for a good reason. So ask yourself why. Five times even, that's a piece of advice that we've heard. I want to run a marathon this year. Why? So I can raise money for cancer research. Why? Because that's important to me. It's one of my values to give back. Okay, great.

That's a goal that makes sense. I think this can be a helpful way to focus on like, are our goals actually in alignment with what we want? And are they nourishing us? And then you can also choose goals and map them out using the acronym SMART. I don't know if you've heard of this one. I'm like, that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. So you want your goals to fit into that.

And if a really big goal doesn't feel right for you this year, maybe you go with something more like an intention, right? I want to be more creative. And then you come up with a fun list of ways you could try that out this year. All right, Marielle, before I let you go, big question. Do you have a resolution this year? I am going with some gentle intentions.

So I want to try to keep my feet on the ground, you know, to keep feeling like I have a home internally so that my stability comes from inside and not from outside. And then also to listen to my intuition. I'm learning, and I think a lot of us learn this as we get older, that sometimes situations feel very right or feel very much not right. And I know how I feel in those moments. I just need to learn to pay attention and to act accordingly. That's Mariel Seguera, host of NPR's Life Kit. Happy New Year. Yeah, you too.

It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Summers and Happy New Year.