Sustainable Motivation for New Year Resolutions

Photo: deathtostock.com

By: Chris White, Center for Positive Organizations, University of Michigan

As this year winds down and the new year approaches, many of us are reflecting and setting new goals. Maybe we want to get a new job, or form closer relationships with partners, colleagues, or friends. Maybe we want to get more involved in helping our communities. Maybe we want to get fitter or healthier (this is mine, by the way... again...).

Our underlying motivation for these goals is crucially important in determining whether we will be stick with the pursuit of a goal or not. So often when setting goals, we focus on what we want to do and do not dig into why we want to do it. Yet it is this deeper self-reflection that drives sustained commitment to a new habit or behavior. Michelle Segar, a faculty associate at the University of Michigan's Center for Positive Organizations, has called this process "finding the right why."

So what is the right why? "People are more motivated by immediate rewards than they are by ones they have to wait to experience," says Segar. In other words: when debating whether to lace up your running shoes, thinking about the endorphin rush coming your way in 30 minutes is often a more sustainable motivator than living a little longer in thirty years. This translates to organizational goals too. If you are considering organizing a team-building activity, focusing on how fun it will be may encourage better attendance than emphasizing that the group might experience less turnover or burnout next year.

Segar suggests four action steps to begin applying the Right Why to changes you want to make in 2017:

#1: Reflect
Consider your "whys" for initiating a lifestyle change; and ask yourself if it has symbolized that this change/behavior is a chore or a gift?

#2: Reset
Know that we've all been socialized to think about and approach "healthy" lifestyles from the same perspective, one that has turned them into medicine instead of the vehicles of joy and meaning that they truly are - let go of any sense of personal failure because the formula we've been taught sets us up for starting and stopping but not sustaining. People feel like failures and this is very bad for motivation.

#3: Choose
Consider the specific experiences, that if you had more of them in your day, would lead you to feel better and drive greater success in your roles. Do you feel drained and need more energy? Do you need more time to connect with loved ones? Then pick one of these experiences - this is what the Right Why is - and identify what lifestyle behavior might deliver it to you. It's important to focus on changing one behavior at once because the goal is to institutionalize it into our lives. Humans have a limited capacity for decision making so we must strategically use it as the limited resource it truly is.

#4: Experiment
Experiment with a plan for one week to see what happens, including the types of things that get in the way. Plan a date on your schedule to sit down and evaluate whether that behavior helped you realize your Right Why and also what you might want to tweak going forward. Because it's an opportunity to learn, there is no failure. It's about continuing to experiment with whys and ways to achieve them until you discover what works for you.

What is one of your goals for 2017, and what is your motivation for pursuing it?

Chris White (@leadpositively, leadpositively.com) is managing director of the Center for Positive Organizations (@PositiveOrg) at the University of Michigan's Stephen M. Ross School of Business.