Are You Designed to Crush Goals Through January and Beyond?
So, we have officially reigned in the New Year. The holiday glow… with all the family feasts, the unhinged self-indulgence, and yes, the late night partying… has worn off. At this point, you may be battling the same thoughts that go through your mind every year.
Where did all that energy go for those big changes you promised yourself for 2025?
Why did your vow to get in shape or make more money or stop with the nightly bottle of wine, all of which seemed so doable only a week or two ago… suddenly seem so much less appealing? And what can you do to revive this energy through the rest of January and beyond?
There’s An Obvious Reason NYE Resolutions Often Fail…
Bottom line: you are probably the same exact person today that you were on December 31, 2024.
Right?
Face it, you don’t just wake up on the 1st, suddenly equipped with more resilience and a go-getter personality.
So, people who do manage to make big changes have to come to terms with the fact that something inside them must change first. Or at least get very serious about strengthening the parts of themselves that have resisted attempts at self improvement in the past.
A decade or so ago, they were telling us this was largely impossible.
That willpower was finite, and that some brains are just better equipped for doing hard things.
But We Now Know Two Very Important Things:
- The amount to which your willpower is limited is largely determined by your beliefs about willpower, not some natural setpoint.
- There is a structure in your brain that loves harder work and makes it much easier. And yes, you can likely make it much stronger.
Andrew Huberman has talked extensively about this and backs it with the research. It’s called the anterior mid-cingulate cortex, or aMCC, and it is a region of your brain associated with resilience, high motivation, and discipline… essentially the ability to withstand discomfort while working hard on something mental or physical.
It is particularly pronounced in people who are great at dieting or achieving big goals, and especially in “Super-Agers,” those who live healthier, longer lives and preserve their mental well being and cognitive functioning well into old age.
Researchers believe this part of the brain is highly plastic, and that it grows bigger and stronger when you do things beyond your comfort zone. In fact, people who do hard things often, who are actively stimulating this part of their brain, develop more tenacity not just for what they’re pushing on but seemingly every other part of life, including a stronger will to live!
Which is why you SHOULD stick with your resolutions this year…
It All Makes Sense If You Look At The Entire Picture
For example, procrastination is often linked to an inability to “stomach,” if you will, discomfort, putting you into avoidance every time something seems like it will be mentally unpleasant. They call this “low frustration tolerance.”
Some people would rather deal with hot physical pain than cognitive strain. And we all have experienced quickly giving up on a goal just because it wasn’t as fun as we imagined it would be…
So, what if achieving our goals like the superachievers just takes a mix of facing that pain and a bit of practice inside discomfort, something the Stoics certainly would have preached?
As the Washington Post writes: “One study suggests that the answer may lie in the effort. Researchers found that rewarding effort — and not the outcome — prompted people to seek out more difficult tasks later, even if they didn’t get additional rewards.”
All of this is great news, because it means the key to keeping your New Year’s resolution, and all your goals this year, could simply be this…
Condition Your Brain To Get More Comfortable With Effort.
Accept that there will be some initial pain but that in order to change you will have to get through this hump.
It isn’t like you have to feel the pain forever.
Do something hard long enough and it becomes ritualized and normal. Your tolerance for this particular activity rises… you often even get addicted to the mental or physical awards it provides. Eventually, it becomes routine, and you do not really need willpower to do it anymore.
Then by using your freed up mental resources to pursue other hard things, you can keep activating, and growing, your aMCC through increased amounts of effort, a holistic process that leads to you continually growing as a person, maybe even living a longer, healthier life as a resort.
Oh, and just in case you need one more push, a 2002 study from the Journal of Clinical Psychology found that those who made a New Year’s resolution were indeed 44% more likely to succeed over 6 months than those just interested in pursuing their goal some time later.
Now let’s get this year properly started!
P.S. Another great way to get your brain ready for more challenging pursuits is to free it from constant dopamine overload, so it learns to seek out novelty elsewhere. You can do this by protecting yourself from mindless consumption of social media and other online distractions.
Our app users report getting 3 to 5 hours of their life back, every single day! Depriving your mind of the “junk” makes it start to appreciate the “good stuff,” just as a 3-day fast makes an apple taste better than a fat piece of cheesecake.
