A new year represents new beginnings.

While this is obviously factually correct, what makes it more interesting is how we all perceive it.

Humans have a unique ability to consciously associate meanings with events that happen around them. A new year is when we tend to associate “the idea of new” to things and events, including our own selves.

The benefit of this phenomenon is that it makes us much more receptive, allows us to see things from a different filter and enables us to be motivated and inspired. There is a sense of shedding and discarding the old and embracing the new.

The most obvious representation of this idea is the whole concept of New Year Resolutions. But as we are well aware, they have a reputation of being more notorious than welcoming.

We have all been there.

We are solid with our resolutions for the first week and in some cases, even the first month. But as the newness of the year fades away, our passion and enthusiasm also fades away. Eventually, we again find ourselves in a state of routine that we so eagerly promised to get out of.

But is there a way to overcome this? Can we ensure that we stay committed to our resolutions? Can we use psychology to program our minds to stick to our promises?

While thinking about these questions, I got reminded of a book that I had read a while back. It’s called Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion and is written by Dr. Robert Cialdini, a Stanford Professor of Psychology and Marketing.

In this post, my objective is to take some ideas, concepts, and examples from this book and use them to answer the questions posed above. We will see how we can use psychology to influence our brain to make a commitment and then ensure that it stays consistent with that commitment.

Actually, We Are Obsessed with Consistency

Wait. What?

Am I reading this right?

Didn’t you just accept that we have a problem maintaining the consistency of our resolutions?

Then how can you say we are obsessed with consistency?

At this point, this is probably what you are thinking after reading the heading. Well, as it turns out, in order to remain committed to our resolutions, we first need to understand and probably clear some misconceptions on how our mind processes and understands the idea of being consistent.

Let me explain what I mean by a simple thought experiment.

Think about any recent debate you had with your friend, colleague, parent or anyone. In this debate, you had a particular point of view on the issue and all arguments you made were an attempt to justify this point of view.

Did you feel that once you took a stand in the debate and declared your point of view out loud, it became extremely difficult to accept the opposing view? Was it hard to concur and accept the opposing perspective?

Chances are that you will agree. As a matter of fact, some people cannot let go of their point of view even after there are hard facts supporting the opposing view. They will find enough “Ifs” and “Buts” to ensure that their point of view is still valid.

Why do people behave this way?

Quite simply because the desire for consistency is a central motivator of human behavior and action.

Cialdini, in his book, explains this with an actual research study.

In this experiment, a pair of Canadian psychologists studied people participating in horse race betting. They found out something interesting. Just after placing a bet, the betters seemed much more confident of their horse’s chances of winning than they were immediately before laying down that bet.

Of course, nothing about the horse’s chances actually shifted; it was the same horse, on the same track, in the same field; but in the minds of those bettors, its prospects improve significantly once they purchased the ticket.

“Once we have made a choice or taken a stand, we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment. Those pressures will cause us to respond in ways that justify our earlier decision.” 

Being consistent is also considered to be a desirable trait.

Since centuries, we have incorporated “The Hero Narrative” in our popular culture through cinema, art, literature, and music. This narrative epitomizes a person who does what he says, a person who is a man of his words and who unfailingly will go through extreme lengths to just show the consistency of his actions with his words.

Just think of that quote “Pran jaaye par vachan na jaaye” which translates to “I would actually rather die than face the possibility of going back on my words.”

Being consistent is also associated with cognitive ease, an idea that I have previously discussed in the context of learning new things and developing an effective reading habit.

Once we have made up our mind about an issue, stubborn consistency allows us a convenient, relatively effortless, and efficient method for dealing with complex daily environments that make severe demands on our mental energies and capacities.

It is quite evident that the power of consistency is quite formidable in driving human behavior and action. Since any new year resolution is in its most basic sense a series of human actions, we can use this understanding to deal with our problem of failing our new year resolutions.   

Knowing this, the important practical question that arises is

How do we engage this powerful force of consistency? How do we leverage its power consciously for our intention of keeping up with our resolutions?

Self-Image and The Power of Commitments  

Social scientists Jonathan Freedman and Scott Fraser published an interesting study in the mid-1960s.

They reported the results of an experiment in which a researcher, posing as a volunteer worker, had gone door to door in a residential neighborhood making a preposterous request of homeowners. The homeowners were asked to allow a public-service billboard to be installed on their front lawns. Although the request was normally and understandably refused by the great majority (83 percent) of the other residents in the area, there was one particular group of people that reacted quite favorably. A full 76 percent of them offered the use of their front yards.

Usually, a standard solicitation approach is used, where a volunteer simply goes ahead and asks the question “Would you be interested in installing a huge billboard for safety in your front lawn?”

And this was what was used for all groups of people, except one. For this one group, a different approach was used.

About two weeks earlier, A different volunteer worker had come to their doors and asked them to accept and display a little three-inch-square sign that read “BE A SAFE DRIVER”. It was such a trifling request that nearly all of them had agreed to it. But as you can see, the effects of that request were enormous.

Quoting the above experiment, Robert Cialdini, in his book says that

“If I can get you to make a commitment (that is, to take a stand, to go on record), I will have set the stage for your automatic consistency with that earlier commitment. Once a stand is taken, there is a natural tendency to behave in ways that are stubbornly consistent with the stand.”

And this commitment does not need to be a large one. The idea is to start small and build on it. If you look at the above example, you will notice that the first act of commitment was quite simple and small.

This technique of starting small is quite famous amongst sales people and they call it “Foot in The Door Technique”. For the salesperson, the strategy is to obtain a large purchase by starting with a small one. Almost any small sale will do because the purpose of that small transaction is not profit. It is commitment. Further purchases, even much larger ones, are expected to flow naturally from the commitment.

While trying to understand the power and influence of small commitments, psychologists came up with the following explanation for the kind of effect it has on people.

“What may occur is a change in the person’s feelings about getting involved or taking action. Once he has agreed to a request, his attitude may change, he may become, in his own eyes, the kind of person who does this sort of thing, who agrees to requests made by strangers, who takes action on things he believes in, who cooperates with good causes.”

This makes sense because one of the ways that people judge themselves and form impressions about themselves is by observing their own actions. A man’s actions are his own primary source of information about himself. His actions are the evidence for his beliefs and feelings. So, naturally he will always be more inclined to take actions that are consistent with this self-image he has of himself.

For people who struggle with new year resolutions, what if they could manipulate their self-image? What sort of commitment techniques can help them stick to their resolutions better?

There is something Magical about publicly writing things down

We have seen how commitments, even small ones, can change the way a person sees himself and the kind of actions that he takes.  One of the best ways to achieve an active commitment is to write things down.

Amway Corporation, an organization known for its success in selling products, uses active commitment through writing to motivate and inspire their sales personnel. An excerpt from their training program says

“One final tip before you get started: Set a goal and write it down. Whatever the goal, the important thing is that you set it, so you’ve got something for which to aim—and that you write it down. There is something magical about writing things down.”

As a commitment device, writing things down also has some obvious logical advantages. It’s physical evidence of the fact that you made a commitment. The opportunities to forget or to deny to yourself what you have done are not available, as they are for purely verbal statements.

Yet another reason that written commitments are so effective is that they require more work than verbal ones. And the evidence is clear that the more effort that goes into a commitment, the greater is its ability to influence the attitudes of the person who made it.

Think about when you were a student. What do you remember more? A verbal presentation or a written paper? The things you wrote down during class or the things that you didn’t?

Self-image is all about self-perception. When people write things down and personally put their commitments to paper, this self-perception is strongly impacted because people feel the need to live up to what they have written.

Even more powerful than just writing things down privately, is to make a public commitment.

Consider this experiment by a pair of prominent social psychologists.

The basic procedure was to have college students first estimate in their own minds, the length of some lines they were shown.

At this point, one sample of the students had to commit themselves publicly to their initial judgments by writing them down, signing their names to them, and turning them in to the experimenter. A second sample of students also committed themselves to their first estimates, but they did so privately by writing them with a pencil and then erasing them before anyone could see what they had written. A third set of students did not commit themselves to their initial estimates at all; they just kept the estimates in mind privately.

Now the researchers told these students that their initial estimates were wrong and they could change them if they wanted.

As it turns out, the students who had never written down their first choices were the least loyal to those choices. Compared to these uncommitted students, those who had merely written their decisions for a moment were significantly less willing to change their minds when given the chance. It was the students who had publicly recorded their initial positions who most resolutely refused to shift from those positions later. Public commitment had hardened them into the most stubborn of all.

So, what does this tell us?

“Once a written public commitment is made, then, self-image is squeezed from both sides by consistency pressures. From the inside, there is a pressure to bring self-image into line with action. From the outside, there is a sneakier pressure—a tendency to adjust this image according to the way others perceive us.”

What does this all mean for me?

Well, that was a lot of science-y stuff. But trust me, this knowledge of how consistency and commitment works will be very useful when you are trying to make any sort of goal – not just new year resolutions.

So, coming back to our initial question of “How to make our resolution stick well beyond the first week or month?”, here is what you need to do:

• Write down your goals. Don’t just make a mental not or a verbal promise, write them down on a piece of paper and do it yourself. There is a lot of content on the Internet which will show you how to think about your goals. Do that research. Toil hard for it and then eventually write it down.
• After you have written it down, make that goal public. And don’t worry posting it on your Instagram or Facebook is not the only way to make it public. Take a print out and post it in somewhere in your room where it’s visible to other house members. Alternatively, send a message or a mail or a post card to some of your closest friends with your written goal.

There is enough evidence to suggest that this approach works and is more successful in helping you with your new year resolutions.

But even if it doesn’t, what’s the harm in trying it out?

Personally, I am trying it out with The Evening Project. Before the year ended, I wrote an annual letter to my readers in which I made a public and a written commitment regarding the future of this blog.

Will this ensure that I stay committed to writing regular quality content?

I don’t know. But I have a feeling that it will work.

And it might work for you too.

As I mentioned before, there is something magical about publicly writing things down.