Something You Should Know - SYSK Choice: How to Avoid Stupid Mistakes & Successful New Year's Resolution Strategies

Episode Date: January 1, 2022

We all know driving while distracted is a bad idea - particularly driving and texting. In fact, distracted driving is more complicated than you might imagine. This episode begins with some fascinating research that shows that there is a residual effect when you get distracted that can adversely affect your driving for a long time. https://unews.utah.edu/up-to-27-seconds-of-inattention-after-talking-to-your-car-or-smart-phone/ We’ve all made really stupid mistakes. What if I told you that you could make fewer of those mistakes from now on and make better decisions instead? Listen to Charlie Seraphin author of the book, One Stupid Mistake: Smart Decision-Making in a Crazy World (https://amzn.to/2s3Qq3A.) He joins me to walk you through the process that will help you avoid mistakes, especially the big ones. Plus, he explains the importance of owning and learning from the mistakes you will inevitably make.  People love to watch reruns of old TV shows and re-watch old movies – but why? After all, you already know how it is going to end so why watch it again? Well there is an interesting reason why and it has to do with the same reason people like hearing the same songs over and over. http://www.livescience.com/23148-tv-reruns-may-replenish-tired-minds.html People have been making New Year’s resolutions for a long time and scientists have studied the process quite a bit over the years. What has become clear is that there are some strategies that can dramatically improve your chances of success. Keith McArthur has looked at the science and joins me to help you achieve your New Year's resolution or any other goal for that matter. Keith is author of a book called Winning Resolutions (https://amzn.to/2BYi7zi.).  PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! We really like The Jordan Harbinger Show! Check out https://jordanharbinger.com/start OR search for it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen!  Download the GetUpside App and use promo code SOMETHING to get up to 50¢/gallon cash back on your first tank! Discover matches all the cash back you’ve earned at the end of your first year! Learn more at https://discover.com/match https://www.geico.com Bundle your policies and save! It's Geico easy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chiara. It means smart in Italian. Too bad your barista can't spell it right. So you just give a fake name. Your cafe name. Julia. But the more you use it, the more it feels like you're in witness protection. Wait a minute. What kind of espresso drinks does Julia like anyway? Is it too late to change your latte order?

But with an espresso machine by KitchenAid, you wouldn't be thinking any of this. Because you could have just made your espresso at home. Shop now at KitchenAid.ca. Today on Something You Should Know, some interesting science that will make you never want to text and drive again. Plus, how to stop making stupid mistakes and make better decisions. We can build up 100 arguments for something and then turn right around and build a hundred

arguments against it. But deep down, I think that each person has an internal compass. And if you're true to that internal compass, you'll make that decision. Then there's a fascinating reason why people love watching old reruns of TV shows or re-watching old movies or re-reading old books. And if you have a New Year's resolution, I'll explain all the ways to improve your chances of success. What the research shows actually is it does really help to have a buddy, but that that buddy doesn't necessarily have to be having the same goal or resolution. It's just someone who checks in with you regularly to make sure

that you're accomplishing it. All this today on Something You Should Know. Chiara, it means smart in Italian. Too bad your barista can't spell it right, so you just give a fake name, your cafe name, Julia. But the more you use it, the more it feels like you're in witness protection. Wait a minute. What kind of espresso drinks does Julia like anyway? Is it too late to change your latte order? But with an espresso machine by KitchenAid, you wouldn't be thinking any of this because you could have just made your espresso at home.

Shop now at KitchenAid.ca. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi. Happy New Year.

We don't really have much of a budget for New Year's sound effects, but nevertheless, Happy New Year. Welcome. It's our first show of 2022. It is somewhat New Year's related, and I'm glad you're here to listen. First up today, if you drive a car, there's some really fascinating information about distracted driving that you maybe haven't heard before. It's not just you shouldn't text while you're driving. It's a lot more than that. Yes, texting and talking on the phone and even eating or drinking coffee can take your attention away from your driving and put you at risk, but it does get a lot more complicated. Research sponsored by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety shows that the distraction time lasts far longer than the distraction itself, up to 27 seconds longer.

In other words, you might think that it's safe to text while you're stopped at a light, but the mental distraction from composing and typing and sending the text will persist even after the light turns green. That's because it takes your brain time to get back into the game of driving. At 27 seconds, traveling 25 miles an hour, it would take driving the equivalent of three football fields

for that distraction to completely dissipate from your brain. The researchers had participants use their voice-controlled systems to make phone calls and send texts, and then measured their reaction time to potential hazards while driving. What's really interesting is the reaction times varied by the type of car, with the Mazda 6 having the worst residual effect and the Chevy Equinox having the quickest recovery time. They even tested to see if you could improve over time, and it turns out, no, you cannot. You cannot practice away that distraction time.

It's just how your brain works. And that is something you should know. One thing we all have in common is our ability to make mistakes, sometimes really stupid mistakes. Of course, you'll always make mistakes, but what if you could make fewer mistakes, particularly fewer stupid mistakes? Well, you can, according to Charles Serafin. Charles has explored how and why people make mistakes, and he is author of a book called One Stupid Mistake, Smart Decision Making in a Crazy World. Hey, Charles. Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here, Mike. So it's interesting to me that often when we make a decision that turns out to be a

mistake, we can look back in hindsight and realize where we went wrong. At the time we made the decision, it seemed like we were acting on good information or good motivation, and in hindsight, when things go wrong, we look back and realize maybe there was something else motivating us that wasn't in our best interest or wasn't a wise choice. Yes, exactly. We call it cognitive dissonance, right? Where we know better, but we choose to believe something else. And it's a theoretical area, and I'm not a PhD, and I'm not a psychologist, but I'm an observer and a questioner. And I've been asking people for years, that's how the project started. I had this goofy idea of seeing this

phenomenon going on with more and more mistakes being made in the culture. So I just started approaching strangers and asking them, excuse me, but would you mind sharing a mistake with me that you've made? And it was really funny because you would think that I was asking people if I could read the label in their underwear, they physically would kind of recoil from me and like, you know, what are you asking? What are you asking of me? Why would a stranger ask me about my mistakes? And a lot of stuttering and stammering. And quite a few said, could I get back to you later on? I may never see you again, but would you just go away and don't ask me that? And so I found that for the majority of people, even people that I knew really well, members of my family, we're just not comfortable. We don't really want to spend any time thinking about our mistakes. And yet we know historically, if you look at the great entrepreneurs in American culture,

every one of them that's built these incredible companies have all made mistakes and they all talked about their mistakes. They acknowledged their mistakes and the mistakes oftentimes led them to the great breakthroughs and the great discoveries. Well, that brings up the point that there may be more than one kind of mistake. I mean, the kind of mistake that great entrepreneurs make that lead them to their big success, that's a different kind of mistake than the kind of mistake where you look back in retrospect and realize, yeah, I probably shouldn't have done that. It was a misjudgment.

I screwed this up. That was the second question. After I got tired of having people run away from, will you share a mistake with me, I asked a different question. I said, do you have a quiet little voice that tells you when you're about to do something you know you shouldn't do? And every single human being that I have ever questioned or ever met says yes. Some say, well, I don't call it a quiet little voice. I call it this, or I call it that, or I think of it as this this or I think of it as that, but everybody agreed on the concept that we have an internal mechanism that allows us to determine what's a good decision for us and what's a bad decision for us. We just don't use it.

I like to think that we can talk ourselves into or out of anything. If we let our brains just really run wild, we can build up a hundred arguments for something and then turn right around and build up a hundred arguments against it. But deep down, I think that each person has the ability to make decisions that are correct for themselves. My decision is not necessarily your best decision. So I'm not saying that there's an absolute in the universe that everyone should decide this thing this way. But what I'm saying is that each person has an internal compass. And if you're true to that internal compass, you'll make that decision.

Even though your brain may say, like, oh, this might not be a good idea. This might not work out. Okay, well, I just feel like I should really do this anyway. I feel like I should try it. And those are the ones where you go, oh, wow, that sure worked out great. But I think it's because it was pre-programmed to be your right decision before you made it. Well, that's good to hear because nobody wants to make a wrong decision. We all want to make a right decision, but we also want to take risks. And

taking risks implies that you might fail. But anything that you can use to help mitigate that and to put when you make a mistake, the first thing, the first reaction, and at least this is my supposition, based on observation of the culture, the first reaction right now is to blame someone else or some other thing. Well, if the light hadn't been shining, if the moon hadn't been so bright, in politics, as a classic example, on one side of the aisle, you have a whole group of people who blame absolutely every problem and every failure on another group of people on the other side of the aisle, and vice versa. You don't have anybody standing up and saying, well, I screwed up. I made a mistake. I did the wrong thing. I misjudged this piece of legislation and what its impact would be. It's my fault. I'll take full responsibility. And I promise to try harder

to get it right next time. For me, I would vote for that candidate. I don't care what kind of label they carry. I would just love to have people who have that frame of mind to be able to say, yes, I'm not perfect, and yes, I do make mistakes, and I'm sorry I made that mistake, and I'm going to try to do better next time. But we're moving away from that, and I see it in younger people and in children. It's like, oh, no, you did the wrong thing or you gave the wrong answer or you made the wrong move or whatever. And you see it on athletic fields. You know, somebody makes an error and immediately they're going to blame the error

on the player next to them or some other circumstance. It's just a real bad way that we're going. We need to check that immediately, turn it around and say, mistakes are going to happen. I'm going to make some. When I do, I'm going to own them, and I'm going to learn from them, and I'm going to make fewer mistakes because I'm consciously committed to making better decisions. I'm speaking with Charles Serafin. His book is called One Stupid Mistake, Smart Decision Making in a Crazy World. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations.

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So, Charles, what does it mean to own your mistake? What does that mean that you do differently? Does that mean now you don't have to feel so bad because you own it? I mean, what does that mean? No, it means, it really means just that. It means to take it into yourself. When you make a mistake, and again, I feel like I'm an expert. I've made so many mistakes in my life, and I look back and somebody says, well, how do you determine what's the difference between a mistake and a stupid mistake? It's just the passage of time. You might realize it's a stupid mistake a minute later. It

might take a year. It might take 10 years. But at some point, when you have a better perspective and you have more information and more knowledge, then you look back and you say, well, that's it. But to own a mistake is to acknowledge it. If you acknowledge the mistake, don't blame it on someone else. Take it as your own. And sometimes there's a collective mistake. Okay, we all made the wrong decision. We all bet on the wrong stock or we all went off in the wrong direction. But when that happens, I say the same thing. Own it.

Don't worry about the fact that everybody else did it too. That's not an excuse. If you don't recognize that you're the one who made a decision that turned out to be wrong and it's a mistake, if you don't take it personally, then you can't learn from it. You're just blaming it on other people. and, you know, you're going to, if it wasn't for them, none of this would ever happen, and you're in constant denial, and that's really not a good formula for personal growth. But what's the difference between a mistake and a stupid mistake? Not all mistakes are stupid.

No, but I think that, again, it's the passage of time. If you make a mistake, and it's like, oh, gee, I made a mistake, if you look at it in that moment, it's not necessarily a stupid mistake. But if you look at that same mistake 10 years from now, given what you know now that you didn't know then, you can look back and go, well, that was kind of dumb. I should have known that, or if I had known that, I wouldn't have known that, or if I had known that, I wouldn't

have made that mistake. So it's a relative term, and there's not a hard scientific definition of a difference between a mistake and a stupid mistake. But for myself, most of the mistakes that I can remember, most of the mistakes that I've made, when I look at them now, I think, man, that was dumb. That was stupid. I should have known better. I don't know what I was thinking. Yeah, but it does seem like a lot of mistakes are just mistakes of judgment. Yeah, I could have done that a little better, or maybe that wasn't the best way to do something. But I don't know that I'd characterize it as stupid. It was just, yeah, maybe I could have put a little more effort into it, but I don't know if it falls into the category.

I'm good with that, Michael, because that's a, and those are the relatively insignificant things in our life. When, you know, the real, the big mistakes, oops, I married the wrong person, for example. That's a big one. That's a big one. And you know what? I guarantee you that anybody who's ever said that, you know, when I was 19 years old, I got married, I married the wrong person. That was a stupid mistake. Because as you reflect back on it now, and you think about all the factors that went into it, the reasoning and the rationale and the emotion and circumstances and all that,

it's like, nah, boy, that was stupid. You can't get away. The real big ones always come back as stupid mistakes. Little ones, maybe not so much. It was like, oh, well, it didn't have a major impact one way or the other. But that's a good example because there are some people who get married young, marry the wrong person, and beat themselves up because they made that mistake. Then there are other people who are so cautious.

They never get married, they never have kids, because they were always waiting for the perfect, no-mistake person that had no potential of going wrong, and then time goes by, and then you're dead. Yeah, and we probably know somebody like that. I have a friend that I've written about, I disguised his name, but he has never been married, and he is one of the most wonderful, thoughtful, intelligent, creative, successful people on the planet. But his stupid mistake is that he never off the relationship in the very early stages because he thinks that she's always too good for him. Maybe she is. Maybe she is.

But is that to suggest that there's no one that he's good enough for? Because I'm telling you, he's a really good guy. He's not like some low life, bad person. It's just that he's, he's, he, that's his, his hang up. So I think I can go either way. You know, I know other people that have been married four and five times and they think they're the best thing for everybody. So it's, it's that, it's that lack of awareness. You know, we just have to slow down. We have to really look at ourselves. And what you said earlier, you know, we're imperfect beings. And guess what? There's no perfect mate out there. How do relationships work? Well, I'm not perfect. The person that I'm in love with is not perfect, but I'm going to agree to

compromise and accept that person's imperfections and hope that they will continue to accept my imperfections. And together we can form a perfect union of two imperfect people. And to me, that's what, you know, when you look at people that have been married for 50 or 60 years, those wonderful long-term relationships, it's all about compromise and understanding and working at the relationship as opposed to thinking that they met just the perfect angel and everything, you know, they lived happily ever after and it all worked out. I don't believe it works that way. But you're saying that if we take a few moments and go within and really think about a decision that we're going to make, that the right decision will come? I think if we go within and we really become centered and we are aware of ourselves, what our motivations are, who we are, what we're

all about. And if we do that through not really consciously thinking about it, but just through quiet reflection, that we don't even have to take a long time with our decisions. We will instinctively make better decisions. Now, we still are going to make a mistake because we're not going to be perfect, but we're going to hit for such a higher average than the people who are running around today, multitasking, constantly have artificial stimulation going on, whether it's alcohol, drugs, technology, or whatever, but are pumping themselves full of external influences, they have a really hard time, generally speaking, making those really good centered decisions because they don't hear that quiet little voice.

Well, it's interesting that you said most people acknowledge, or all people acknowledge, if you ask them, that yeah, there is that voice. There is that thing that tells them this is a good idea or not, if you care to listen to it. And it's probably not foolproof, but if you listen to it, it's probably got something to say about the decision you're trying to make. Charles Serafin has been my guest. The book is One Stupid Mistake, Smart Decision Making in a Crazy World.

And you'll find a link to the book in the show notes. Thanks, Charles. Appreciate it. This winter, take a trip to Tampa on Porter Airlines. Enjoy the warm Tampa Bay temperatures and warm Porter hospitality on your way there. All Porter fares include beer, wine, and snacks, and free fast-streaming Wi-Fi on planes with no middle seats. And your Tampa Bay vacation includes good times, relaxation, and great Gulf Coast weather. Visit FlyPorter.com and actually enjoy economy. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest.

Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the

hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. So if you haven't already, this is the time to get serious about your New Year's resolution. And to better arm yourself and to give you a pep talk and solid advice to help you succeed is Keith MacArthur.

And he's author of a book called Winning Resolutions. Keith has spent quite a bit of time researching and understanding how resolutions work, why they sometimes succeed, and other times fail. Hi, Keith. Welcome. Hi, Mike. How are you? I'm good, thanks. So, New Year's resolutions, every year people make them, every year people break them. And so so what's going on? What's your take on this whole thing? Well, I think that most people treat their resolutions like a lottery ticket. And what I mean by that is that they kind of think of it as sort of a fun wish, right?

When we buy a lottery ticket, we don't really think we're going to win. We're kind of hoping and we kind of enjoy imagining that we might win. And I think a lot of the time it's the same thing that happens with resolutions. People set them often just the night before on New Year's Eve when they've already imbibed a little bit. And they haven't really taken the time to craft the resolutions right and to plan for the success of their resolutions. And so what's a good resolution look like and sound like compared to one that's maybe not so good? I talk about six P's that I think are important when people are setting their resolutions. And I can go through them really quickly. The first is precise.

And that means that the resolution, you need to know exactly what success looks like. And you need to know when you're going to get it done. So a resolution like get fit is no good, but a resolution like, you know, go to the gym five days a week for the month of January is better because it's actually measurable and it's connected to time. The second is proximal and that means that usually short-term goals have a better chance of success than long-term goals. So I recommend actually not setting resolutions for a full year, but actually breaking it down to something like no more than three months. The third is practical. And that means that the resolutions need to be realistic enough that you actually believe that you have a chance of success. So stretch goals work for some things, but for resolutions, not as well. The next one is positive. And there's research that shows that when we have

a negative goal, like something like saying that you're going to quit sugar, that actually makes it more difficult. It keeps it on your mind because you framed it in a negative way. And if you can turn that around and put it in a positive way, so instead of saying something like you're going to quit sugary drinks, instead of saying that you are going to drink water and tea, that positive shift will make you have a better chance of success. Then resolutions should be peaceful, which means that they need to be in line with each other. They can't contradict each other. And they also need to align with our core values. And then finally, resolutions need to be promised. That means that you need to really be making a commitment for yourself,

treating it like that promise instead of like a lottery ticket. And it does seem, at least in my experiences, it also seems to help if you tell other people about it. If they're expecting you to or hoping that you win, you're more likely to do it because people have that expectation. That's right. And for certain types of people, that's even more important. So there's certain types of people, and Gretchen Rubin is someone that I interviewed when I was doing the research for my book. She's done a lot of research into habits as well. And she came up with this framework of different types of people. And one of them are people who are really good at honoring commitments to other people, but not to themselves. So if you're that kind of personality where you are good at making your deadlines at work, but not good at going to the gym, then going public on social media or

having an accountability buddy that you work out with, those kinds of things can really help you. When it's time to begin a resolution, is it a head first dive? Do you put your toe in the water? What do you typically think works best? Well, I would say that that depends on the kind of resolution, but it's interesting that you mentioned putting your toe in the water because there's certain kinds of things where the best thing to do is actually to do what I call shrinking your habit. So for example, right now I'm in the process of trying to meditate every single day. And so there's a lot of experts out there who say that if you're going to meditate, you need to do it for 20 minutes to get the real effect. Well, I know that for me, that's not practical. I'm not going to be able to

start doing 20 minutes every single day and build that habit. So instead, what I'm trying to do is meditate every single day for at least one minute. So what I'm doing is reducing the friction as much as possible. So while I build that habit, and once it's established as a routine in my life, then I can start stretching it out. How do you know this works? How do you, is this just a theory or do you do it? I mean, how do you, it sounds good, but how do we know this, this is any better than anybody else's

idea? Well, when we're talking to shrinking the resolution that, that is based on, on some science, which really shows that, um, that, you know, basically what makes a habit stick is doing it without having to think about it, right? So it becomes routine in our lives. And the best way to establish something as a routine is to minimize the resistance so you're more likely to do it every day. What I've done in the book is really gone out and looked at a lot of the science around goal setting and habits and willpower and how we structure our environment for success and taken sort of the best learnings from all of those,

as well as I interviewed a number of people who have been successful with their own resolutions and kind of put that all together to create the framework for what I call winning resolutions. And when people start, do you think people start a resolution with the best of intentions? Where do you where do you figure people typically fall off the wagon? Well, I think there's a few reasons why people fail. You mentioned starting with with the best of intention. So that that's probably the very biggest one. But I think that another one is that people tend to rely on willpower too much where, you know, willpower can certainly help. And there's things that we can do to bolster our willpower, but it's not a magic bullet. And so there's better things that we can do, for example, to structure our environment so we don't have to rely on our willpower as much. So if you're trying to set a resolution to lose weight, the best thing

to do is to make sure you're not bringing ice cream and potato chips into your house, right? You make it much more difficult. Again, it's about the friction. You want to remove that friction so it's more difficult for you to do the things that you want to do. And I think another thing that really can hurt people when they're trying to achieve the resolutions is that they haven't properly taken the time to craft and plan for them. So even if they're committed and even if they have a good resolution, it's still important to take the time to actually set a plan for your resolution. And one of the ways that you do that is by anticipating roadblocks. So we know that whenever we try to do something like a resolution, there's going to be things that come up that may challenge us and make it difficult for us to follow through. So again, if we stick with the losing weight example, let's say I know that next weekend I'm going to my niece's birthday party and there's going to be cake there.

One of the things I want to think about is how am I going to respond when I'm offered that piece of cake? Am I going to decide in advance that I'm just not going to take it? Or am I going to decide that's an exception and it's okay to have a piece of cake? The important thing is to make that decision ahead of time to anticipate all the potential roadblocks ahead of time so that when it gets to that moment where you're being challenged, you know your plan and you stick to it. Do you find that there are certain things that people who are successful with their resolutions, that there are certain things these people have in common are either personal traits or characteristics or just anything that helps them or seems to aid in their success? Yeah. So, I mean, I think that there are just certain kinds of people who,

you know, who are more likely to honor commitments that they make to themselves. And I'm not really sure what makes people that way, but I think there is a difference where resolutions are easier for some people than they are for other people. But another big factor that can really make a difference is what I call want power. And, you know, that's the idea of how much do you actually want to achieve this thing? If we're thinking of things like losing weight or going to the gym or saving up money or trying to get out of debt, there's always going to kind of be a competing battle in our brains with part of us that wants to achieve that big goal, achieve that resolution. And then part of us that wants to eat the cake or

spend money on a pair of new shoes. And the more that we really are committed and want to see the resolution succeed, the more likely we are to stick to it. So one of the things that successful people also do is they'll, you'll, before setting out on the resolution, they'll journal about why it's important and kind of the pros and cons and really make sure that in their mind, they're fully committed to their goal. It would seem that losing weight

is probably the biggest resolution, would you guess? It is, yeah. I've gone and I've looked at a bunch of the surveys and research that's been done on resolutions and certainly weight loss and fitness in general is the biggest. It's interesting when resolutions started about 280 years ago, they were religious in nature and they were all about how people could set their new year with a focus on how to have a better relationship with God. Over time, that kind of evolved into resolutions that were more involved in sort of personal virtues. But over the last

50 years, we've really seen a shift towards resolutions involving fitness and weight loss. And, you know, the most virtuous thing that it seems we can be today when it comes to our resolutions is all relate to our appearance. And I think you may have mentioned it when we started, but what are the success and failure rates of resolution seekers? So there's a survey that's done every year by Marist, and they find that pretty much consistently about 40% of Americans set resolutions each year. Interestingly, the younger you are, the more likely you are to set resolutions.

So it could be that as you get older, you have less need to change. Or it could be that you've tried and failed so many times that you're no longer trying to set those resolutions. The failure rate is kind of all over the map, depending on the research that you look at. But it can be as high as 86%, one study found, and another study found that a huge portion of people fail in the very first week. Well, makes you wonder about that fact, I think it's December 17th. I'm sorry, it's January 17th that's been named Ditch Your Resolutions Day, you know, for the very reason that many people don't keep them for long. Well, you said you've looked at some of the research on resolutions. Is there any other stuff that pops out as particularly insightful for people? Well, I think one of the things that's quite interesting is around willpower. And the

science around willpower is kind of controversial in terms of whether or not it's a limited resource, because I think we all can sort of relate to the idea that the more we're trying to do something hard, for example, if we have a long day at work and then we get home, it's probably harder for us to stick to our food goals if we're trying to lose weight work and then we get home, it's probably harder for us to stick to our food goals if we're trying to lose weight. But there are some things that we can do to bolster our willpower. And one is just that practicing our willpower in little ways can help us get better at it. Another is that there's research that shows that willpower is contagious. So the more time we spend with other people who are good at willpower and self-control,

the better we become at it. And another is just around want power, which is, you know, the idea that the more you want to achieve your goal, the stronger your willpower will become. Has there been any research that you found, any suggestion that, you know, buddies help that if you and somebody else are trying to accomplish basically the same thing and work at it together, that you're more likely to succeed than trying to do it on your own? What the research shows actually is, is that it does really help to have a buddy, but that that buddy doesn't necessarily have to be having the same goal or resolution. It's just someone who checks in with you regularly to make sure that you're accomplishing it. The research seems to show that

whether it's a family member or a stranger, whether it's someone who's trying to achieve the same goal or a different goal, it doesn't matter as long as you have someone who is keeping you accountable. And ideally, they're doing it both in kind of a kind and tough way. So they're being sympathetic to your challenges, but also pushing you to go harder. Well, you've brought some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that a lot of people will set and then fail on their New Year's resolutions. But the good news is that there are, in fact, a lot of things you can do to put the odds in your favor that you will succeed. Yeah, that's right. And you know, in particular, uh, if, if you do want to just treat them like sort of a fun wish, maybe that's okay, but just don't expect to have

that success. If you really want to achieve your resolutions, take the time to set the right resolutions and to plan for them. And there's certainly a number of things you can do to maximize your chance of success in the new year. Keith MacArthur has been my guest, and he's author of a book called Winning Resolutions. And there is a link to the book in the show notes. Thanks, Keith. Have you ever wondered why people watch old reruns of TV shows or watch the same movie over and over again or even reread the same book? Well, it turns out to be a really good thing to do. A study suggests that reruns are good for us.

Watching old familiar TV shows or movies or rereading a book has the effect of putting your mind at ease. It can boost your mood and relaxation because it doesn't really challenge your senses too much and it gives you a sense of control knowing what to expect at the all-important ending. It's the same science that helps explain why we love hearing our favorite songs over and over again.

We can join in, sing along, and even master the solo. Because it's so familiar. And that makes us feel good. And that is something you should know. And that concludes our first episode of 2022. With a full year of episodes ahead, I so appreciate that you listen to this podcast and share it with your friends and tell other people to listen.

It means a lot to me. I hope this year is a great year for you and thank you for listening to Something You Should Know. Do you love Disney? Do you love top 10 lists? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown.

I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. The parks, the movies, the music, the food, the lore. There is nothing we don't cover on our show. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney-themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed.

I had Danielle and Megan record some answers to seemingly meaningless questions. I asked Danielle, what insect song is typically higher pitched in hotter temperatures and lower pitched in cooler temperatures? You got this. No, I didn't. Don't believe that. About a witch coming true? Well, I didn't either.

Of course, I'm just a cicada. I'm crying. I'm so sorry. Danielle, you didn't either. Of course, I'm just a cicada. I'm crying. I'm so sorry. You win that one. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Contained herein are the heresies of Rudolf Buntwine, erstwhile monk turned traveling medical investigator join me as i study the secrets of the divine plagues and uncover the blasphemous truth

that ours is not a loving god and we are not its favored children the heresies of redolf punt wine wherever podcasts are available