How To Actually Keep Your New Year's Resolutions | Dan Solo Episode
Dan Harris, host of 10% Happier, shares his top 10 science-backed takeaways for successful habit formation and keeping New Year's resolutions. He covers strategies from goal setting to self-compassion, emphasizing hacking the brain for long-term change.
Deep Dive Analysis
14 Topic Outline
Introduction to New Year's Resolutions and Challenges
Evolutionary Basis for Difficulty in Habit Formation
Strategies to Overcome Brain's Short-Term Wiring
Takeaway 1: How to Pick Effective Goals
Takeaway 2: Making Habit Formation Easy and Accessible
Takeaway 3: Incorporating Flexibility to Sustain Habits
Takeaway 4: Aligning Goals with Personal Values and Meaning
Takeaway 5: Strategies to Make Habits Enjoyable
Takeaway 6: Leveraging Social Support for Habit Success
Takeaway 7: Creating Accountability to Stick to Goals
Takeaway 8: The Benefits of Tracking Habit Progress
Takeaway 9: Applying Mindfulness to Habit Change
Takeaway 10: The Importance of Self-Compassion
Concluding Thoughts and Upcoming Series
9 Key Concepts
Evolutionary Wiring for Short-Term Survival
Our brains are naturally wired to prioritize immediate threats and rewards, making the pursuit of long-term goals without instant gratification inherently challenging. This understanding helps people avoid self-blame for habit failures.
Fresh Start Effect
This psychological phenomenon describes increased motivation for self-improvement goals after temporal landmarks like a new year, birthday, or new week. These moments provide a sense of a clean slate, making it easier to initiate change.
Habit Stacking
A strategy where a new desired habit is attached to an existing, well-established habit that is never missed. This leverages the existing routine as a cue for the new behavior, making it easier to integrate.
Two-Minute Rule
This rule suggests making the initial step of any new habit so small and easy that it takes two minutes or less to complete. The goal is to overcome resistance to starting and build momentum and identity as someone who performs that habit.
Intrinsic Motivation
This refers to the drive to engage in a behavior because it is inherently satisfying or aligned with one's personal values, rather than for external rewards or pressures. It is often a more powerful and sustainable motivator for habit formation.
Temptation Bundling
A technique where a 'guilty pleasure' or desired activity is intentionally paired with a habit one wishes to build. This links the immediate reward of the pleasure with the desired behavior, making the habit more enjoyable and likely to be performed.
Mindfulness
Defined as a healthy self-awareness that helps individuals resist automatic behaviors and cravings, pulls them out of autopilot mode, and can lower overall stress levels. It's a foundational habit that fuels behavior change by increasing awareness of one's patterns.
Habit Loops
A three-part framework (cue, routine, reward) that explains how habits function. Understanding these loops allows individuals to identify triggers, analyze the actual rewards of their actions, and strategically replace unhelpful routines with more beneficial ones.
Self-Compassion
The practice of treating oneself with the same kindness, understanding, and encouragement one would offer a good friend, especially during moments of difficulty or failure. Scientific evidence suggests it fosters resilience and increases the likelihood of achieving long-term goals.
13 Questions Answered
Our brains are wired for short-term survival and immediate rewards, making long-term goals that lack instant gratification inherently difficult.
The key first step is to pick the right goals, ensuring they are specific, achievable, positive, approach-oriented, and limited in number.
Start small, like with a 'one minute counts' or 'two-minute rule' approach, to lower the resistance to getting started and build momentum.
Employ 'habit stacking' or 'piggybacking' by attaching a new habit to an existing one you never miss, such as meditating after pouring coffee.
Optimizing your environment by minimizing obstacles and temptations (e.g., keeping workout clothes accessible, healthy snacks visible) can significantly ease habit formation.
Use the 'fresh start effect' by treating any new day or week as an opportunity to restart, and adhere to the 'never miss twice' rule to prevent a single slip from becoming a pattern.
Align your goals with your personal values, create meaningful rituals, and connect with your future self to foster a deeper, internal drive for change.
Focus on the joy of movement rather than shame or self-criticism, and consider 'temptation bundling' by pairing exercise with a guilty pleasure like watching a favorite show.
Social support makes habits more fun, provides motivation and encouragement, reinforces behavior through social norms, and creates accountability to avoid letting others down.
Beyond social commitments, you can use financial punishment apps (like Stick or B-Minder) that require you to put money on the line, which you lose if you don't meet your commitments.
Tracking reinforces consistency and accountability, boosts self-awareness by revealing patterns, and provides positive reinforcement by allowing you to celebrate small wins and build confidence.
Mindfulness increases self-awareness, helping you resist cravings, jar out of autopilot, and lower stress, which often causes people to veer off track.
Self-compassion is considered the 'uber habit' because it fosters resilience and allows you to motivate yourself with kindness and understanding, making all other habit efforts more sustainable.
33 Actionable Insights
1. Cultivate Self-Compassion Habit
Develop the ‘uber habit’ of self-compassion by speaking to yourself like a good friend or coach, offering motivation without self-hatred, which builds resilience and increases the likelihood of reaching goals.
2. Prioritize Systems Over Goals
Shift your focus from solely big goals to establishing robust day-to-day systems and processes that facilitate your habits, recognizing that consistent systems are more effective than relying on goals alone.
3. Set Specific, Achievable Goals
Define your resolutions with clear, measurable actions (e.g., ’exercise three times a week,’ ‘read one book a month’) instead of vague aspirations, to increase your likelihood of success.
4. Start Habits Very Small
Begin new habits with extremely minimal effort (e.g., 1-2 minutes of meditation, putting on running shoes, reading one page) to reduce resistance, build initial wins, and foster an identity aligned with the desired behavior.
5. Align Goals with Core Values
Select or connect your resolutions to your deep-seated personal values and intrinsic motivations (e.g., exercising for family health, meditating for better relationships) to foster a more powerful and sustainable drive.
6. Practice General Mindfulness
Cultivate general mindfulness or healthy self-awareness to resist automatic, reactive behaviors and cravings, break free from autopilot mode, and lower overall stress, which can derail habit formation.
7. Map Your Habit Loops
Identify and map out your ‘habit loops’ for addictive behaviors by recognizing the three components: the cue (trigger), the routine (the action), and the reward (the feeling or outcome).
8. Mindfully Examine Habit Rewards
Use mindfulness to critically evaluate the actual results and true rewards of your habits, especially addictive ones, to cultivate ‘disenchantment’ and reduce their appeal.
9. Find a “Bigger, Better Offer”
Once you’ve recognized the unsatisfying nature of old habits, identify and implement a ‘bigger, better offer’ (BBO) – a more rewarding alternative, often mindfulness itself – to replace the old behavior.
10. Implement “Never Miss Twice” Rule
If you miss a day of your habit, ensure you do not miss it a second consecutive time; this rule provides a balance of flexibility and structure, preventing a single slip from derailing your progress.
11. Track Habit Progress
Monitor your habit attempts using a journal or a habit tracking app (e.g., Streaks, Habit Bull) to reinforce consistency, boost self-awareness about effective times/days, and provide positive reinforcement by celebrating small wins.
12. Optimize Your Environment
Arrange your physical and digital surroundings to support your new habits by making desired actions easy to access (e.g., workout clothes visible, healthy snacks at eye level) and minimizing distractions (e.g., blocking distracting websites).
13. Use Habit Stacking
Attach a new desired habit to an existing, consistent habit you already perform (e.g., meditate after pouring morning coffee) to make it easier to remember and integrate into your routine.
14. Frame Goals Positively
Formulate your goals as approach-oriented actions (e.g., ’eat more vegetables’) rather than avoidance-oriented ones (e.g., ‘stop eating crap’), as positive framing is more effective for habit formation.
15. Limit Resolution Quantity
Focus on a small number of resolutions at a time, avoiding the attempt to change too many things simultaneously, to prevent overwhelm and increase success rates.
16. Seek Social Support for Habits
Engage with a community or find partners who share your habit goals (e.g., gym buddy, book club) to make the process more fun, receive motivation, reinforce positive behaviors through social norms, and create accountability.
17. Practice Temptation Bundling
Pair a desired habit (e.g., exercise) with a ‘guilty pleasure’ you enjoy (e.g., watching a favorite TV show), allowing yourself the pleasure only while performing the habit, to make the habit more enjoyable and increase persistence.
18. Focus on Joy in Exercise
Approach exercise by emphasizing the inherent joy of movement rather than external motivators like shame, self-criticism, or comparison, to foster a more sustainable and positive habit.
19. Automate Financial Goals
Implement automated savings plans to regularly transfer a portion of your income into savings, removing the need for conscious effort and reducing the temptation to spend, thereby increasing savings.
20. Connect with Your Future Self
Visualize or engage in an imaginary dialogue with your future self (e.g., your 80-year-old self) to gain perspective, clarify the long-term benefits of your habits, and strengthen motivation for current actions.
21. Create Meaningful Rituals
Establish a personal ritual around your habits, such as a specific phrase or intention said before starting, to imbue the action with deeper meaning and enhance intrinsic motivation.
22. Utilize Daily/Weekly Fresh Starts
Embrace the ‘fresh start effect’ not just for new beginnings, but also to recover from setbacks; consider every new day or Monday as an opportunity to restart your habit efforts without self-blame.
23. Notice Difficult Moments Mindfully
When experiencing self-criticism or difficulty with resolutions, use mindfulness to simply notice and acknowledge the challenging moment, even by saying ’this sucks’.
24. Recognize Shared Human Experience
During difficult moments, remind yourself that countless others are experiencing similar feelings and thoughts, fostering a sense of common humanity to combat feelings of isolation.
25. Self-Talk Like a Good Friend
Address yourself with kindness and encouragement, as you would a good friend, especially when you falter; using your own name can create helpful psychological distance.
26. Use Financial Accountability Apps
Consider using apps like Stick or B-Minder to set goals and commit money that you will lose if you fail to meet your commitments, creating a strong financial incentive to follow through.
27. Savor and Recount Wins
Actively recount and savor your successful moments or ‘wins’ (e.g., successful conversations, habit achievements) to coaches or friends, as this process helps solidify the learnings and positive behaviors.
28. Share Progress for Motivation
Share your habit streaks or progress (e.g., meditation streaks) with others, as seeing your progress is a powerful motivator and ‘healthy bragging’ can provide additional social support and accountability.
29. Experiment with Habit Strategies
Choose a few habit formation strategies that resonate with you and test them out, rather than trying to implement all of them at once.
30. Join Free Meditation Challenge
Subscribe to danharris.com to participate in a free 7-day meditation challenge, receiving daily guided meditations and access to live Q&A sessions, as mindfulness is considered a foundational habit for behavior change.
31. Engage with “Do Life Better” Series
Tune into the podcast’s ‘Do Life Better’ series, which dedicates a week to common resolutions like fitness, finances, career, and addiction, offering science-backed and ancient wisdom approaches.
32. Explore Habit Formation Playlist
Access the curated podcast playlist on habit formation, featuring experts like James Clear, Judd Brewer, and Katie Milkman, and learn about Gretchen Rubin’s ‘four tendencies’ to understand personal behavior change styles.
33. Subscribe for Episode Cheat Sheets
Subscribe to danharris.com to receive cheat sheets for podcast episodes, which include summaries and full transcripts, to help process and retain the information.
7 Key Quotes
You don't have to blame yourself. You can blame evolution.
Dan Harris
You have to come up with some strategies to hack your brain, to make it so that you're not relying on the supremely unreliable fuel of willpower.
Dan Harris
Inch by inch, life is a cinch. Yard by yard, it's very hard.
Dan Harris
You don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.
Dan Harris
Daily-ish.
Dan Harris
Never miss twice.
Dan Harris
The subtle aggression of self-improvement.
Dan Harris
4 Protocols
How to Pick the Right Goals
Dan Harris- Choose goals that are specific and achievable (e.g., exercise three times a week, read one book a month).
- Ensure goals are positive and approach-oriented, not negative and avoidance-oriented (e.g., eat more vegetables instead of stopping crap food).
- Limit the number of resolutions you're making; don't try to change everything at once.
Three Ways to Incorporate Flexibility into Habit Formation
Dan Harris- Use the fresh start effect to get back on track when you fall off (e.g., every Monday or new day can be a fresh start).
- Adopt the 'daily-ish' concept, meaning you don't have to do it every single day.
- Follow the 'never miss twice' rule to prevent a single missed habit from becoming a negative pattern.
Three-Step Process for Applying Mindfulness to Habit Formation
Dr. Judson Brewer- Recognize the habits that make you addicted and map out your habit loops (cue, routine, reward).
- Look at the results of your actions by asking what you are really getting from the habit (e.g., does the drink make you relaxed or mess up sleep?).
- Find the 'Bigger, Better Offer' (BBO) to replace old, unsatisfying habits with something more rewarding, often mindfulness itself.
Quick Practice for Self-Compassion
Dan Harris- Use your mindfulness to notice you're in a difficult moment right now (you can even say 'this sucks').
- Bring to mind that millions of other people are dealing with this exact same set of feelings and thoughts at this moment (you are not alone).
- Talk to yourself the way you would talk to a good friend, potentially using your own name to create psychological distance.