460. Beyond January: Behavioral Insights for Lasting Resolutions

Welcome to episode 460 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy Today's episode is all about resolutions.

And keeping commitments ready.

Let's get started.

You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast, where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now, here's your host, Melina Palmer.

Hello. Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. All right, while I realize that, as depressing as it might sound, since this is coming out a full week into the New Year, some of you listening may have already given up on your New Year's resolutions, even though there are 51 weeks still to go. No judgment here. I swear, when I speak about habits and how they work, I love to ask how many of you in the audience are still rocking a New Year's resolution. The numbers change a little bit depending on the time of year, but honestly, it's never more than a handful. There's typically at least one, but never more than 10. And honestly, I'm trying to remember if there ever even were that many. Probably not. And after this, I like to ask and how many of you don't even make resolutions anymore because they're dumb and they never work? As you might expect, at least half of the audience raises their hands at this point and everyone gets a good.

Chuckle at the idea.

I then go on to talk about micro moments, how habits really work, and insights into behavior change, much like you'll hear about today in this episode. So even if you are in that resolutions are stupid camp, and honestly, I don't make traditional resolutions either, I promise you there are insights here for you on that path to continual improvement. And as you listen, whether it's when this refreshed episode, which originally aired back in 2019. So if you're listening in January of 2025 or any other time, I encourage you to think about yourself six months or a year from now. If you're living your best life, then what are some of the characteristics of that life?

What might you do today?

One small habit at a time, to.

Be living that way then and getting as close to it today as you can.

Don't forget, links for my top related past episodes and books are waiting for you in the show. Notes for this episode, which are found within the app you're listening to and@the brainybusiness.com 460 all right, let's talk about resolutions and keeping commitments.

What do you Think about resolutions. Do you like them?

Love them?

Hate them? Personally, I've never been a big fan of resolutions. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about change and new beginnings. I love projects and opportunities to grow, but sweeping declarations that don't stick have never really been my jam. I've never enjoyed investing time in things that will fail. And resolutions don't have a great track record for lasting change. Why is that? Well, if you've been listening to the podcast for a while now, it likely doesn't come as a surprise that the subconscious brain makes 99% of your decisions. It makes those decisions based on proven rules of thumb, which it has found to work over your lifetime, or our genetic evolution as a species. When you say you want to change something, you can have the best of intentions, but as with many things, resolutions are easier said than done. It's like the example I give in the episode on Availability. You can't simply tell your brain that the word apple will no longer be associated with the color red. You may consciously want to change the association, but your subconscious isn't going to register that it can't change the foundation of what it has built the idea of an apple upon. When you think of the word apple, you get all the things it is, is not, and anything that's remotely associated with it going through that filter in your subconscious brain. And if you remember from the episode on Habits Our brains are constantly looking for rewards. Many things our brains find rewarding are things we want to change. Eating ice cream, binging Netflix, scrolling through social media endlessly, or buying things we can't afford. But don't worry, it's not all doom and gloom. I do have some specific ways the brain works to help you understand how resolutions and big change initiatives can be handled proper and increase your chances for success dramatically. This has multiple business applications, of course, both for you as a worker or business owner and when considering the mindset of your customers. Change is hard in the way we've always done it, but it doesn't have to be. So here's what you can expect in the episode. I'm going to start with several concepts in behavioral economics, none of which have had their episodes yet. They are coming soon. To lay the foundation for the complexity of going from making a resolution to keeping one, we're going to start with one of my favorite topics that I've been promising an episode on Forever Time discounting. Next, we'll get into anticipated regret and something called counterfactual thinking. This is kind of a fancy way of saying what if? And then we're gonna move on to willpower and how it behaves as both a battery and a snowball, and then on to nudges. And finally I'm gonna bring it all together with some tips for you. Ready? Here we go. I'm so excited to finally kick off the discussion on time Discounting from the first time I learned about it in my Master's program, I knew this was a fascinating topic that needed much more investigation and that I wanted to share with others in any way I could. While I have wanted to do its episode for some time now, I have forced myself to wait because I have a research project coming out soon where this was the main concept I investigated and so those are going to need to be in a series. But I could not do an episode on resolutions and not begin the conversation on time. Discounting so what is it? I like to call this the Monday effect. While January 1 is a prime time for sweeping declarations of change, it only comes once a year. We like to make big proclamations more often than that, so we have new months and quarters, but we also have a built in option each and every week. Have you ever said you would start something on Monday? Perhaps a new diet, exercise plan? Savings program? Mindfulness practice? Less procrastination? You get the idea. Most of us see Monday as this magical new opportunity each week where we're going to be able to change. It's a line in the sand we can draw and we're going to step over it. We're going to move forward. We're making it happen. We make the plan. Dedicate some time on the weekend, eat the last bad contents of the fridge, maybe go to bed Sunday night feeling super awesome and motivated. Then in what seems like minutes instead of hours, the alarm goes off. Oh, where did the motivation go? Why do you feel like a completely different person today than you did last night? You think maybe tomorrow's a better day to start? I'll just hit snooze now to make sure I get plenty of sleep before I start the path to the new me tomorrow. But just like magical Monday, tomorrow never really comes. This is time discounting at work. Let's start with that feeling like a different person when you wake up on Monday. Statement Our brains have been found to light up in a certain way when we're talking and thinking about ourselves. So if I said I'm writing or recording a podcast episode right now, my brain should light up differently than if I said my friend Natalie is recording an episode of her podcast right now. Sort of the opposite of how mirror neurons work, which I've mentioned in a few of the episodes in the series on the senses. And it does make sense. In general, we should know and think about ourselves differently than other people, even though we can relate and learn from them through mirror neurons. But studies have found that when you talk or think about your future self, your brain has a tendency to light up as if it were talking about a completely different person. That means Future Molina, whom I am committing to eat better, procrastinate less, and do the StairMaster, is actually a different person than me as far as my brain is concerned. And it's really easy to commit someone else to do things right. I can commit other people to climb Mount Everest or do an Iron man without blinking an eye, and Future Me is in that same camp. The problem comes when I wake up on Monday and it's time to face the music. Oh, you mean I need to do that stuff? Your brain asks, and it makes an excuse to delay another day and push that back on Future Melina. Unfortunately, Future Melina isn't really a person that can take anything on, but she'd be awesome if she could right this time. Discounting conundrum compounds with overconfidence and optimism to make a perfect storm for our inability to change. We humans tend to overestimate how good we will be at something compared to both our own past experiences and against others, how long it's going to take us to accomplish something, and how much better our outcomes will be than other people. Sure, others have had a hard time with change, but whenever I really buckle down and decide to do something, I'm going to knock it out of the park. I know I can do it when I am real, really ready to have you ever said anything like that to yourself? But again, it's easy to commit and have confidence in future you because he or she sure has it all together. So how can you combat time discounting Studies have shown that making your future self real to you so that you see yourself in the commitment can make a huge difference. For example, in one study, people who were trying to save money for retirement were found to save twice as much when shown a picture of themselves aged by a few decades. It's pretty amazing when you think about it. Something as simple as showing a person a picture of what they could look like in 20 or 30 years means they saved double over those who did not see a digital rendering. So what can you learn and apply from this? When it comes to resolutions Trying to bring your future self into your current picture is important when it comes to change or resolutions. Here are some tips to combat time discounting when you're making the commitments, Ask yourself if the plan is realistic. Think about this in terms of yourself right now and don't wait for Monday to come. If you're going to start exercising, do something small right now to make it more real. If in business you're going to commit yourself to making 20 cold calls a week, do some today. Make your current self really understand what it's committing to. When you feel like you want to, hit that proverbial snooze button and you will remember the commitment you made and why it's important. Skipping the chai tea latte means I get to go spend the money on a Hawaiian vacation and look good in a swimsuit. When we go, revisit the episode on Mindset to learn more about the importance of visualization and how you can make that future self more of a reality. Lastly, remember the episode on Habits when I talked about the simple change of phrase that makes a huge difference I don't versus I can't. When making your commitment, make it something you can turn into an I don't statement. I don't skip workouts or I don't miss my weekly call quota or I don't drink chai tea lattes on weekdays. Whatever it is when you can phrase it as I don't it is empowering, whereas I can't is about deprivation. Now that you've had a taste of time discounting, let's move on to anticipated regret and counterfactual thinking. Anticipation of regret is a huge reason people delay taking action. This is tied to fear of missing out or FOMO and loss aversion as well. Fear of regret could lead one person to not go live on social media even though they know it's good for their business. A marketing executive might not invest in a new form of media for fear of choosing wrong or having it be a flop. A CEO may keep doing things the way they always have because the unknown is too scary. As they say, the devil you know is better than the devil you don't. That isn't necessarily true, but our brains feel that way all the time. One reason regret is so powerful is because of counterfactual thinking. This is also known as what if thinking thinking. And this is when your brain imagines all the ways something could have been better if you had made a different choice. Let's say you were looking to buy a new car. You have it narrowed down to three options. One is safe, one is stylish, and one is on sale. As you evaluate the options, you build each of those up in your mind. And no matter which one you choose, the brain doesn't simply forget those other things and you evaluated. Especially if you put a lot of thought into them and were really processing all the options. Let's say you went ahead with the one that was the best deal. It was the cheaper model without bells and whistles. If something went wrong on that car, your brain would start to have what if or if only thoughts about the cars you didn't select. And the crazy thing is, it will combine the best features of those unselected items into a super choice which doesn't really, really exist. But it makes you feel even worse about the decision that you made. So instead of comparing the choice you did make against one of two other real options, a car with a lot of safety features or another that was super stylish, your brain creates a super safe, awesomely stylish car that you could have had if only you hadn't picked the stupid good deal car. How does this apply to resolutions? It's closely tied with time discounting in why our brains want the immediate gains and benefits of now. Instead of waiting for something that is good for us in the future, say you want to save money. So you declare that you will stay home on Saturday night. But then your friends call with a really great invite and you think about how much you might regret it if you skip. So you can do better next week and just have one last hurrah. And then you overspend and actually do feel a lot of regret after the fact. It's easy to focus on and anticipate the wrong regret, the regret of now Melina. And completely forget about the regret future Melina will feel to make your resolutions stick. Watch out for anticipated regret. And all the times you start to think about what ifs and if onlys that aren't leading to your goal. This is another time where the don't versus can't verbiage is really helpful. Before you pick your resolution, be sure it's something you really want and are willing to make a change for. Think about why it matters and come to terms with the things you're going to give up in order to get it. What are you willing to let go of and release to meet your goals? Write them down now to make it more real and help combat regret and what if thinking? Later on, you could even write yourself a short inspirational letter to remind present you why future you needs this. Keep it in a place you can easily access whenever you feel your willpower starting to slip. To keep you on track, this could be a voice recording to yourself, or an image on your phone, an email to yourself. Whatever works for you. And that leads me to how willpower actually works and how that plays into making resolutions and big changes. There's been debate over the years as to how willpower and self control are created and maintained over time. Some said it was like a battery which can deplete over time. Others said it was like a snowball building up as one good decision begets another and another. New research out of Texas A&M University's Human Behavior Lab has found that it's actually both a battery and a snowball. As a quick side note, I'm going to do a mini mid episode shout out to the team at Texas A and M. Back on episode 20 I gave a shout out from a five star review which was left about the podcast but didn't have contact information for Pool Jeff to link to in the show notes. I was so excited when Jeff reached out to let me know who he was, both so I could thank him properly as I'm doing now, but also because who he is and the work they're doing is just so exciting. Jeff is the Program Manager for the Human Behavior Lab at Texas A and M. They do all the research that I talk about on the podcast. Brain scans, eye tracking, skin response science, simulated experiences, you name it. They have recently launched the largest human behavior lab in the world and I can't wait to see what comes out of their research in 2019 and beyond. And I get to see it firsthand because they have invited me for a visit. I am flying to Texas next week as of the time that this airs to check out the lab and look forward to sharing it with you on the podcast and social media in future episodes. Thanks again Jeff. I can't wait to meet you, Dr. Palma and the rest of the team in person next week. All right, back to willpower, self control and the battery versus snowball debate. Dr. Palma and colleagues proved that it's actually both and these show up in different situations. Let me give you the example of how the same decision could be impacted as a battery and versus a snowball. Say you've decided to eat better so you don't eat a donut at breakfast. If you are in the battery category, you've used up your healthy eating battery and now that it's depleted you're more likely to eat that 2 o' clock brownie or have cake after dinner. In the snowball scenario, when you skip the donut at breakfast, you've made one small choice that then keeps you making better decisions throughout the day. I know when I work out for the first time in a while and it's a really grueling endeavor. I feel a lot less desire for a high calorie snack later in the day because I don't want to undo the effort I made in the morning. This would be that snowball scenario and some other research into habits talks about keystone activities and tactics. So potentially the keystone is what drives all the better behaviors. So if you choose to exercise, you might do better in all these other areas if that's the way that it works for your brain. But you really have to figure some of that out for yourself and where your varying points are. What the team found was that when you push past the point of fatigue in the initial self control task, in their case it was staring at a bullseye on a screen for either six or 30 minutes. Yikes. You would have less control in the buying task that took place in the second half of the study. Again, if you pushed past the point of fatig, those who eased off and didn't hit a fatigue point were able to have a snowball benefit and continue to make good choices later on. This is a lot like the overwhelmed brain study I've mentioned before on the show where trying to remember a seven digit number instead of a five digit number means you're more likely to choose chocolate cake instead of fruit salad. When you try to commit to too much and come in too hard and too fast, you are setting yourself up to fail. Saying you're going to go from zero cold calls in 2018 to making 100 a week is probably going to cause burnout and fatigue pretty quickly. Your battery will be depleted before you actually accomplish anything. Similarly, setting yourself up with too many goals and tasks is also a recipe for failure. You can't focus on so many things at once. It's nice to dream, but remember we are programmed to be overconfident and discount how much effort and time something will take. If you could only do one thing and do it really, really well, what would you want that to be? What is the one thing that will change your business next year and how can you put all your effort toward meeting that one goal? Warren Buffett has been famously attributed to having great focus on things that are important to him, and one story I heard about him really stuck with me Since I read it years ago. It's the story of a conversation he had with his pilot, who had been flying his private jet for a decade. The pilot had his own goals and asked Buffett to help him achieve those goals in his life and work. It's only three steps. I'm going to tell you them now, so you can go ahead and try them as well. And this is a really great way to set up what your resolutions are going to be. First, Buffett told him to write down his top 25 goals for his life and business. They could be a varying time frame, so it's not like they're all things that you're going to do in the next year. But if you were to say in your life, what are your 25 goals over all time, what are those going to be? Once he had these goals, he was instructed to circle the top five most important ones. These were the things he wanted more than anything else in the world. And yes, they can only be five. Yes, it's hard, but those are the rules. The man now had two lists. List A with the top five priorities and list B with the other 20. The man was inspired and said he was going to start working on achieving those top five items on list A that very night. And then Buffett asked about the other list. What would he do about those 20 items? The pilot replied, well, the top five are my primary focus, but the other 20 come in at a close second. They're still important, so I'll work on those intermittently as I see fit. As I'm getting through my top five, they aren't as urgent, but I still plan to give them a dedicated effort. Does that sound like something you've maybe said in the past? To this, Buffet replied, no, you've got it wrong. Everything you didn't circle just became your avoid at all cost list. No matter what, these things get no attention from you until you've succeeded with your top five. This can be hard to accept, but not having a clear focus and narrowing down your purpose is why we lack self control and have a hard time making serious changes. Those things we really want to implement, we can't because we're so scattered. It's why so many of us end up with tons of half finished projects instead of three really amazing things we've accomplished. Yes, items 6 through 25 on your list are important things. They would likely be amazing if you finish them. They matter to you. But when it comes to items one through five, the truth is those other items six through 25 are your biggest obstacle and distraction from achieving your goals. If something is important enough to make your resolution or big change list, it deserves all the attention you can give it. You have to learn to say no. You need to make sacrifices. It will be hard, but it will be worth it if you pick the right things to focus on. Which leads me to the next point. It's one I say all the time. We need to work in small steps. You can't do everything and you can't expect your customers to do everything. You only get to move one step at a time. All change from weight loss to massive business success comes one small step at a time. If you make your list of 25 and narrow it down to a top five, I'm telling you to bring that down to a top one or a top three max for your resolution or big business goal for 2019 and you only get three total. That means personal and business combined. We want to do it all, but this illusion is actually what is keeping you safe. It's the anticipated regret of letting go and getting you stuck in a bubble of what you've always done. If you want to do amazing things in 2019, you need to put all your eggs in that basket and run with it. Every decision is getting you closer to that one or three goals or it's a no go. As an example for you, my three for 2019 are 1. The truth about Pricing package. This includes a book, online course and workshop number two. Increasing visibility for the brainy business. This means being a guest on other podcasts, many more HARO pitches, public speaking and social media efforts. This is obviously a big one. The third for me is actually a health one. I'm working on having better balance in my life as my master's wraps up. Regular exercise and healthy eating are important for me in 2019 as well as some balance on time. As you can see, some of those are pretty big. The visibility goal needs to have a lot of mini points worked in. I'm working on committing to a certain number of live videos on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube as well as doing regular blog posts. There can also be mini goals around the number of publications where I am cited as an expert, which means goals around pitching those publications. If I have a goal to be an expert in 12 really valuable publications in 2019, I need to pitch a bunch more than that. Maybe 100. So how do I break that up into daily or weekly mini goals? That could mean I pitch two publications a week. That isn't too bad. I can do that and I could do something similar for possible speaking engagements and podcasts or maybe break it down. So the first week of the month is for pitching nine events to speak. At week two, I pitch nine podcasts and so on. It's important to remember the battery and snowball as I set this up for myself. When I feel I'm reaching a point of fatigue, it's time to take a break, celebrate with something that doesn't counteract my other goals, clear my head, go to the gym, or maybe get my nails done. I can use my time timer. Side note, if you don't have one of these, they're super awesome visual time trackers. I have a little one on my desk so I can use my time timer to make little bits of progress and not procrastinate on the things that seem less than appealing to current Melina. And I find myself wanting to put off for future Melina. So if I don't really feel like doing pitches today, I could set my time timer for 30 minutes and say I just need to do 30 minutes of this or maybe 10 or something to get me to make one small step in the right direction. Whatever it takes. However, I also need to remember that despite all my best intentions, I am human and so are you. We will mess up. It's the truth. You will not have a flawless path. There's trial and error. You may expect a snowball and get a battery. Expecting this error is one of the key points in the phrase of nudges, which is an acronym and the brainchild of Nobel Prize winner Richard Thaler, and it's featured in his book Nudge. There will be a whole series on nudges and choice architecture, and right now I'm only going to talk about the E in nudges, which is to expect error. Expecting error is why the car dings at you when you forget to put on your seatbelt, or why you need to take your card out of the ATM before your cash is dispensed. Even when we have the best of intentions, when we get overwhelmed and that battery gets depleted or we're focusing on something else, we forget we mess up. We will make an error somewhere, but it doesn't have to melt the whole snowball. If you expect that you're going to fail on your path, try and think about it now. What are the most likely spots you could slip up? Make a list of all the spots where you might be likely to slip up for those top three goals you've set your 2019 resolutions for me, I travel a lot and I know that this is a time when I'm likely to skip exercise and not eat as well. So what can I do now while I'm motivated to put in place a nudge for myself when I hit that point and I'm traveling? Maybe packing protein bars or researching walking paths at my destination, or building in time on the schedule for exercise before or after my meeting or presentation. It could be points where you know you will be swayed or diverted by the 20 items on your avoid at all costs list. If you spend a lot of time at networking events but never follow up, limit the number of events you attend. Knowing it may mean cutting out some you really like attending but aren't right for your business and schedule in time for follow ups. Set goals before you go for how many connections you're going to make. Maybe it's just one really solid lead, or maybe it's five. And then know how you're going to follow up with them and what it is doing to get you to your final goals. And if it's not, you have to cut it out. I know it's hard, but you have to. If you. Well, I mean you have to if you want to be successful and have your resolution stick the last item on the path to keeping resolutions is the way I end every show, newsletter and email I send. Be thoughtful. This is an intentional statement and I of course like the play on words with with be in B standing for Behavioral economics. But thoughtful, intentional strategic focus is necessary for success in business and in life. You've probably heard what gets measured, gets done or sees success, or gets improved or gets managed. If you focus on something and everyone else knows it's important to you, if it's the thing you live and breathe and are 100% of the time, you will move forward. And all those little things that pop up that used to be thoughtless, those rules the brain uses that can be used to your advantage when they are on your conscious focus. For the same reason you start seeing green cars everywhere right after you buy a green car. It's getting brought to your conscious awareness, but there's only so much it can handle. Think about those five extra digits. So that's why you need to limit your focus and think about the small steps you can take to be thoughtful about this one thing or three. I've talked about resolutions and big changes as they apply to you and your business. I've told you about the concepts at play that you want to be aware of and the ways you can overcome them to be successful in 2019 but don't forget about your customers. They're subject to all these same pitfalls and it's more frequent than just January 1st. If you're a nutritionist, how can you help your clients at the time they need it most? If you expect the error, can you send an encouraging text at 1:45? If you know they often slip and eat a Sugary snack at 2:00'? Clock my friend Emmy Perez of Blissfully Healthy is a coach for women to help them overcome emotional eating. She structured her YouTube channel so her weekly encouraging video comes out Thursday mid evening, a time she knows from experience is difficult and error filled. For emotional eaters, it's such a smart strategy and something that makes her look smart and thoughtful and really helpful for her clients without having to call it out specifically. Great job Emmy. I've linked to her channel in the show notes. If you want to check it out and subscribe, maybe it can help you with your resolutions this year. And another example here, if you are selling an aspirational product or service and it doesn't have to be health and diet related, it could be encouraging people to save more. It could be if you if you're a coach in business or a change agent, there are tons of different ways that this comes into play for you. Consider how does time discounting or anticipated regret play in to your customer's mindset and ability to take advantage of what you're offering? How can you help your customers have more realistic goals that they can achieve and feel good about? And if you can figure out where they're likely to experience an error, what can you do just before that to nudge them back onto the right path? They'll thank you for it. If you have a lead magnet, does it speak to the goals people are going to be focusing on throughout the year and give them an immediate win to make it more about current them instead of future them? Consider the way the brain actually works when forming your strategies to meet your goals. It makes change a lot easier.

So what got your brain buzzing as you learned about resolutions, habits and keeping commitments today? For me, this is a fun episode to look back on since it was originally recorded so early in the podcast guest's life. It was episode 29 when it first aired, that first big milestone of a new year about six months into the show. It really is amazing to reflect back and realize how much has changed in that time and how much is still the same. When I realized this is the seventh New Year's episode of the show, it's kind of mind boggling.

I had to count it out a.

Couple times to prove to myself it was real. One of my favorite episodes from those first six New Year's conversations was when I had Cassie Holmes and Iellet fishback on together to talk about making it the best year you've had. Cassie is the author of Happier Hour and she focuses on happiness research. Aelette's book is called Get It Done and her work is in motivation science. It was such a fun conversation to look at goals and achievement and motivation and happiness. Things that are so relevant at the New year from these two different angles. One of the things that has always stuck with me from my conversations with Ayelet is when she said you don't want to be the person who did something. You want to be the one who is doing something. She also talks about how years have a very long middle and if you aren't careful, having too long of a.

Timeline and too big of a goal.

Can keep you from achieving what you want. It really ties in with what I talked about on the episode today of understanding habits and micro moments. I'm not trying to do too many things at once and not letting them be too big and vague. And as you look for inspiration while you're planning what you want to focus your attention on this year, I highly recommend checking out the next episode of.

The podcast where I sit down with.

Chase Jarvis to discuss his book Never Play It Safe. He talks about how to find happiness and living your best life, whatever that means, with a focus on time, attention, habits and more. It's a fascinating conversation and I know.

You'Re gonna love it.

If you aren't already subscribed to the Brainy business, now is a good time to do so to ensure you don't miss that or any other episode as we close out the show, don't forget about those show notes with links to my top related past episodes and books and more. It's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and@the brainybusiness.com 460 and just like that, episode 460 on resolutions is done. Join me Friday for a brand new episode with Chase Jarvis, author of Never Play It Safe. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it. Until then. Thanks again for listening and learning with me and remember to be thoughtful.

Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.