Every year, as the clock strikes, people cheer as the ball goes down. Around the world, people celebrate the New Year and its possibilities. The magic of the New Year brings the chance for people to become better versions of themselves.
“I think with a new year, it signals an evolution in your own kind of right and trying to better yourself over time,” social studies teacher Chloe Porter said. “I think a lot of people have that kind of mindset of wanting to push themselves and get into a better way for the next year, especially to try and make their next year more happy and exciting.”
However, most New Year’s resolutions fail, with most being completely abandoned by the second Friday in January, otherwise known as Quitters Day. People consistently give up on their resolutions despite previously being so motivated to change.
“People change a lot and your mind changes a lot,” freshman Cleveland Hubley said. “It’s harder to keep something like motivation, as it just kind of fades as time goes on and different interests come over you.”
The answer to a lack of motivation lies in human nature itself. Humans evolved for survival, not for happiness. This is why humans always choose comfort over change. To our brain, change means uncertainty and uncertainty means danger. The fear center in our brains, observes new challenges as threats to our survival. This is why our brain resists growth and new challenges, it recognizes comfort as safety.
“It’s really uncomfortable to want to change your normal routines,” Porter said. “I think people like to just choose the easier option most of the time because it’s just more comfortable to do.”
However, humans are driven to change despite familiarity meaning safety for our brains. Our comfort zone does not necessarily equal happiness for us. Although someone might be completely comfortable and safe in their routine, this does not necessarily mean they are content with it. In fact, as a routine becomes more predictable, the dopamine reward from it drops, leaving the person feeling unfilled. Studies actually found that those who lived in moderate discomfort, constantly learning and changing their routines, were actually more satisfied in life.
“I think it’s really difficult for people to want to break outside of their cycle because they just keep getting stuck with that idea of wanting to change, but not wanting to address [personal] problems that prevent them from doing so,” Porter said. “I think a lot of people will just continue to do those predictable routines to try and [ignore] those problems, but in most cases, it’s going to keep cropping up. So it’s important to make the change, even though it’s difficult to do.”
Along with this, there are several costs that come with avoiding challenges. Neural pathways weaken over time and small challenges build up, eventually feeling impossible. An example of this is public speaking. Most people strongly dislike public speaking, with 72-75% of the population experiencing extreme anxiety when faced with it. Most people avoid it when possible but that actually makes the experience much worse when you have to actually do it.
“I think it’s really important for people to address the things that they find to be shortcomings in their own lives because if you don’t address it, you’re never going to grow,” Porter said. “Whenever I was in college, we had our paper and that was the one thing I lost points on [was public speaking]. Thankfully I’m in a career that allows for me to engage with that in my day-to-day life, but if I had chosen to not do that, that would be a continuous problem for me.”
To overcome primal human nature and successfully achieve long term change one must look at the source of their motivations, which can be a big explanation. When motivations come from a place of guilt or societal pressure, resolutions fail more often rather than when motivations come from desire for genuine personal change.
“I think the people who are motivated with hope are gonna be a lot more successful than the people who are gonna be motivated by guilt,” Porter said. “With guilt, you are just immediately having the negative mindset of, I need to do something to make myself seem better, but I think with that, you’re putting a lot of that onus and that burden onto yourself. People who are gonna be more intrinsically motivated to just better themselves in ways that aren’t gonna be seen by people as much, are gonna be a lot more successful with that.”
Keeping motivation alive also has to do with the goals set. If the goal is completely unrealistic, its difficulty can quickly burn people out or make them feel as though their goals are impossible to achieve.
“When [people] do these things that end up being hard, they don’t want to do it anymore and that’s just not something that most people can get through,” freshman Owen Richardson said. “[People] imagine themselves as something greater than they are. But as long as you have a realistic, healthy thing, that’s pretty good for you, [you can achieve your goals].”
When trying to achieve certain goals, motivation comes from wanting dopamine rewards associated with that thing. Finding rewards to push oneself and showing up everyday is more important than perfection.
“There’s something that my dad has always told me is that it takes 30 days to get into a habit and have it completely form,” Porter said. “And getting through those first 30 days is the hardest thing. It’s really, really difficult to find the motivation to do that stuff in a lot of cases.”
Predictability will never sustain the human mind. While it is easy to make excuses, showing up matters most of all. Without change or challenges, life would become stagnant. The world would be without innovation and growth. Designed for adaptation, the human body and mind would degrade over time. It is important to remind oneself that although change is not easy, it is the only lasting dopamine your body craves.
“Change is the only constant in our lives,” Porter said. “Everything is gonna change around you all the time. But if you don’t grow to change with the world around you, then you’re gonna keep seeing yourself falling behind. You need to address your own shortcomings to be able to continue to change and grow.”
