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The fresh start effect

lars.yencken.org

11–20 of 53 posts

Re: The fresh start effect

#11

> Some people are cynical about New Year's resolutions, prefer not to make them, or look down on others who do. > I have a different perspective. Overall, I admire people who try to make change in their lives for the better. This is good general advice. Why not just be supportive and nice to people instead of dismissing whatever effort they put in things that they want to do or are passionate about. This makes it eas…

Depends on the context. Consider for instance a recidivist drug addict - wouldn't you be skeptical that they are going to stay clean this time ?

Re: The fresh start effect

#12
Interesting, even more interesting is the linked article about the age distribution of marathon finishers: https://runrepeat.com/12-percent-more-likely-to-run-a-marath...

I can confirm this "milestone age", by looking at some relatives who started running and participating in marathons at an older age.

Re: The fresh start effect

#13
post #2

> Were we just cynically capitalising on people's New Year's resolutions, all of which are bound to fail? Or was there something more to it? It can be both

Mega PR hack: bring up and dismiss the question before the reader can make any assumptions

That’s just a classic PR maneuver

Re: The fresh start effect

#15
use the available... or make yourself A fresh start (when feeling like it. Like in some total burnout. see Sacrifice by Tarkovsky)

There is a .bg saying .. "when the cart goes wheels up, roads are many.." that is usually taken negative - like "it's too late to fix stuff" - but could be used otherway around - do turn the cart wheels-up if u want more road/s..

Re: The fresh start effect

#16
when you make a "fresh start" or grand resolution to do something, you get a rush of reward chemicals as if you actually did the thing. That's why so many people make resolutions and then barely ever keep them. Incremental, daily changes are much more difficult and less rewarding to those centers of our brain.

Re: The fresh start effect

#17
I blogged[1] about this a few days ago. Fresh start events like new years, birthdays or something catastrophic happening in our lives are usually triggers (and an effective one) to start doing something. Similarly to the author here, 20% of users on 5Goals came on January 1st. The most effective way to minimize micro-failures is to make the goals achievable so you can build momentum. Momentum is a force of nature.

Funny enough, from my own research with my project, a Green Day (a day where 5 out of 5 goals were achieved) either comes right after a Red Day (0 of out of 5 goals achieved) or right after another Green Day.

[1] https://medium.com/@5goals/faith-is-the-foundation-of-habits...

Re: The fresh start effect

#20

> Some people are cynical about New Year's resolutions, prefer not to make them, or look down on others who do. > I have a different perspective. Overall, I admire people who try to make change in their lives for the better. This is good general advice. Why not just be supportive and nice to people instead of dismissing whatever effort they put in things that they want to do or are passionate about. This makes it eas…

Depends on the context. Consider for instance a recidivist drug addict - wouldn't you be skeptical that they are going to stay clean this time ?

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