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.: January 2007 --> What makes a New Year's Resolution successful?

What makes a New Year's Resolution successful?

» In the first mass-participation experiment of its kind, Professor Richard Wiseman at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK is seeking to enroll 10,000 people in an online experiment on making—and keeping—New Year's Resolutions.
 [ 01.01.07 ]


4 Comments

Good link. Did you take the survey? I think it's kinda funny that what they are doing is urging people to go public with resolutions. heck, bloggers tend to be public about resolutions. Well, those who post resolutions are being public about it, no? If this survey is "covered" a lot by bloggers, I think they'll get skewed results.

(...pauses a moment, thinks about what is the nature of skewing, thinks about the nature of being public about it, considers erasing that last statement --welllll, then again, maybe not--- but pushes the Post button anyway.)

maybe I should resolve to be more skewed. Last year at http://www.2020hindsight.org/ I resolved to be more of a smart ass. ;)

I didn't see any place on the site that *did* make them public. The survey asks a number of questions (including choosing your resolution from a list - "lose weight", "get organized", etc) and then offers you a strategy to use. They'll email twice to followup on your progress, and then evaluate whether people who said they used one strategy or another had better success, I suppose.

No, they don't make your resolutions public, they just urge you to do so.

I think that the process of articulating what you intend to do, and then discussing that with others, is a good one. A half thought-through idea of what I sorta maybe wishta change in/add to/subtract from my life isn't very good about getting me from here to there.

Ah. That's a different tip than they gave me. Mine was to be persistent, and to start again even if I messed up.



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