I’ve been thinking about how The Internet is obsessed with New Year’s resolutions.
Or rather, The Internet — by which I mean me, myself, and pretty much everyone I know — is obsessed with fresh takes on New Year’s resolutions.
It’s not our fault.
Resolutions rebrand themselves as reliably as Apple tweaks a button, boosts a camera, and presents a “groundbreaking” new iPhone. Intentions. A word for the year. In-and-out lists. The sneakiest, and also my favorite: “Resolutions be gone. I’ll be gentle with myself this year.” Which is… a resolution.
I delight in them all. I love them! Which is curious to me, considering the rude(!) reality that my January 1st resolutions — which I’ve realized reliably boil down to having more resolve to do the same things I always want to do — have never once magicked me into Rory overnight. Instead, I think I might be Kirk? (Is this my fundamental delusion?)
It’s a pickle.
But it seems like I’ve got company in this annual ferment.
U.S. polls show that 44% of us tend to make New Year’s resolutions. But a study found that while 77% of resolvers stuck to their pledges one week into the fresh new calendar year, two years later that number dropped to just 19%.1
That tracks…
Truthfully, this hasn’t always bothered me.
But this year I have titanic aspirations: I’m excited to conjure the (yet) unseen.
So I wanted to understand.
Like, really: why am I like this? Can I be… not like this?
I splashed in the briny sea of my local library’s research hub, and I’ve resurfaced with ideas. What’s more, I feel a tender awe toward our collective resolve to keep trying.
Because we will. We always do. I’d bet my books we’ll return to some new patent-pending anti-resolution / resolution ritual every January forever, as inevitably as Stars Hollow’s indefatigable gig worker attempts a new odd job.
It’s not just that we’re suckers for shiny new packaging. There’s a fundamental reason we perpetually repackage resolutions in the first place.
If you ask me, the genius of Kirk is that he unapologetically leans into the philosophy that to be alive is to forever seek fresh twists on our eternal quest to find ourselves.
New Year’s is an annual present for those of us who, unlike Kirk, might need a sparkling reminder of our potential to make our dreams happen. For those of us who have grown up recognizing the holiday, it really isn’t just another day.
January 1st is a culturally chosen landmark: we exhale to release the past and inhale to call in the future we crave.
It’s a collective toast to fresh starts: keep going, keep growing.
The Latin root for resolution is “resolvere,” which breaks down into "re-", a prefix meaning "again," and "solvere," meaning "to unyoke."
New Year’s resolutions are our ritualized cue to unyoke ourselves from the past and begin again.
The “fresh start effect” is an actual phenomenon
Do you get an effervescent, can-do feeling after New Year’s?
Chances are it’s not just the prosecco you sipped in celebration as you partied into 2024 before falling asleep at 11:30 pm.
Maybe you still feel a bubbly optimism, now a few weeks in?
I do. To me, it always feels magical.
That buoyant, upward rush is a studied phenomenon that researcher Hengchen Dai dubbed the “fresh start effect.”2
When you’re inspired to commit (or recommit) to an aspirational goal at the start of a week, a month, or a year; following a Federal holiday; or your birthday — that’s the fresh start effect in action.
The hidden treasure of temporal landmarks
So what sparks the fresh start effect?
This phenomenon is triggered by temporal landmarks in our lives — standout moments that help us structure our perception of time. They can be either culturally recognized (Mondays, New Year’s), personally meaningful (birthdays, wedding anniversaries), or both.
You can think of temporal landmarks as points in time that feel distinct from your day-to-day minutiae.
They’re trail markers along your voyage of existence that say: you’ve arrived somewhere new.
Of course, we’re always arriving someplace new. But we don’t always have that perspective. That’s the gift of the fresh start effect.
I submit to you, then, that temporal landmarks are treasures tucked in time, and I am now obsessed with finding and celebrating them.
So how do they work?
First, temporal landmarks create a pattern interruption.
These tiny tears in time signal us to relegate our (perceived) past imperfections to a previous “self. In other words, they help us leave the past in the past. Since we’re intrinsically motivated to maintain a coherent self-image, we’re likely, then, to align our actions to our expectations of this fresh-faced, less-flawed version of ourselves. (Our inner Rory, yes?)
Second, this disruption of our day-to-day minutiae gives us a breather to take a big-picture view of our wishes and dreams.
It’s like when you finally crest a coastal hill: from your high-level vantage, you pause and drink in the endless, sparkling sea that was obscured during your uphill trek. You can’t help but scan the horizon, sip the fresh air, and appreciate the true scale of possibility.
Temporal landmarks grace us with a little healthy pressure to make our current self proud, and a birds-eye view to remember our dreams.
All we have to do is pay attention.
So if you made New Year’s resolutions this year, there’s a science-backed reason
New Year’s seems to be the biggest fresh-start gift of all.
Research shows that we’re 145% (!) more likely to commit to new goals at the beginning of January.
It makes sense, given it follows a cluster of Federal holidays, it’s the start of a new year, and most of us are steeped in its cultural significance.
So yeah.
I mean why would we not make New Year’s resolutions?
There’s a catch, of course, which will surprise no one: the fresh start effect is a fleeting phenomenon.
Our initial spike in motivation gradually drains.
However — and this is what excites me — there are potentially endless temporal landmarks we can use for extra energy toward reaching our dreams.
Research shows we’re 62.9% more likely to commit or recommit to aspirations at the start of a new week, 23.6% more likely at the start of a new month, 55.1% following a Federal holiday, plus a bonus: 2.6% following your birthday.
This year there we each get 53 Mondays (somehow?), 12 first-of-the-months, 11 Federal holidays, and one birthday.
That makes at least 77 (!) fresh-start gifts to help us keep going.
The next temporal landmark is (always) heading your way — so how can you use the fresh-start effect to your advantage?
Let’s recap —
01 - There are specific, science-backed moments when you can expect to feel an uplifting, encouraging rush of motivation that stands out from your day-to-day life. This pattern-interrupting phenomenon as a whole is called the fresh start effect. These potential-filled moments are called temporal landmarks.
02 - Temporal landmarks are ideal times to recommit to and take action on aspirations that require a little (or a lot) of extra energy and focus because we likely are already feeling an extra dose of motivation.
What does this look like in real life?
Say you’ve been wanting to start running again, but it hasn’t been so easy to get back into the groove.
You’re more likely to find yourself naturally wanting to lace your sneakers and get moving on a temporal landmark (like a Monday, the first day of a new month, or following a Federal holiday).
If you want to experiment with intentionally using this phenomenon to your advantage, you can try scheduling activities related to your aspirations on any temporal landmark you find personally motivating.
A personal example: how I’m experimenting with the fresh-start effect
I don’t struggle with deadlines when someone else is involved, like an editor or a client waiting on something from me. The rush of meeting deadlines on time has always been strongly motivating for me.
On the flip side, I struggle to get things done without the external pressure of deadlines — and this is where I’ve found the fresh start effect to be incredibly useful.
I’ve had a hard time getting moving on a long-term project that’s close to my heart. No one knows about it, which means no one is waiting on it… which means no one is holding me accountable except for myself. The way my brain is wired, I find it challenging to take action on this despite how much it means to me.
Since external deadlines and accountability already give me the motivation boost I need for client-focused work the rest of the week, I’ve been experimenting with slotting this aspiration work in first.
For the past month, instead of jumping straight into client work when a fresh week begins, I’ve devoted my Monday mornings to this project to take advantage of this extra juice.
I schedule “fresh-start sessions” into my calendar on Mondays from 8 - 11:30 am, and I give myself free rein to work on any part of my project. For me, this has turned out to be the perfect balance of structure and freedom, while leaning into the extra get-going juice of a Monday morning.
I ruthlessly protect this time. No meetings, no client work, no distractions.
I see it kind of like a savings account. I pay myself first by chipping away at my long-term projects little by little, on the day when my brain feels most inspired.
So even though the fresh-start effect is fleeting, even though that sparkly let’s-do-this feeling wanes throughout my week, even if I never think about this project again all week long, I know the following Monday I’ll return to it with renewed energy.
Really enjoyed reading this Kathryn. I tend not to bother with resolutions, but I did choose myself a word to bring into 2024. I love the fresh start effect, particularly at New Year 💛