Resolutions: Part the 2nd

So, about this time is when all those worthy, life-changing, simple, or goal oriented resolutions fall through if they are going to. Thankfully I'm still holding up pretty well with all mine. After we make resolutions and decide to change, we do really well right off the bat. The emotion is running high, that new exercise program is not as bad as we thought, or it's easy to get up early and read religious texts. For now...

Enter the powers of human rationalization. If anyone can change the current state of things, it's our ability to perceive things how we will. It's easy to rationalize (or choose) to pursue a worthy goal right off the bat because excitement is high. That's motivation enough. What happens during the transition from emotional satisfaction to habitual behavior? That's the time where we fly or fall.

Habits are things we do no matter what based on previously repeated behavior. By now it's habitual to eat when we're hungry, sleep when we're tired, come home when school's out, or do whatever we do at work. Some habits we have developed have relatively immediate adverse consequences when broken, such as skipping a meal, pulling an all-nighter, or going too fast at work and dropping something valuable. It takes a great deal of repetition before the neural pathway is frequented enough to become habitual.

When we make changes in our lifestyles (especially around the time of the New Year), it's often easy to miss seeing the consequences of forgetting to exercise or falling off the diet, and we continue because we enjoy keeping a goal, for now. After the transition into habit, or as repetition towards an end goal becomes less of a conscious effort and more of a routine motion, it is less likely to forefeit the change. As the benefits of our diligence become apparent through this repetition, rationalization against those benefits is increasingly difficult, and we are more bound to the goal at hand.