T               O               D               A               Y

Friday, JANUARY 13, 2023 is
NATIONAL QUITTERS DAY.          .         .
It’s always the second Friday in January
and yes.         .        .
just in case you miss celebrating
TODAY
No WORRIES–
Monday, January 16  is
NATIONAL DITCH NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION DAY

.               .               .uhhhh, most likely you might miss
THAT DAY, too
b          u          t

Lot of questions.       .       .

especially when it surrounds

R E S O L U T I O N S.           .          .

DO   YOU

Make   T H E M

Keep   T H E M

Break  T H  E  M

.          .          .Uhhhhhhhhhh just like everything else.          .          .

There’s a SCIENCE

To Resolutions

and Most Definitely why they just don’t work.          .          .

GOOD  NEWS ?

Only If there’s another alternative.          .          .

one  that
T H E   S T U D I E S

tell us are much more effective:

H                 A                 B                 I                  T                 S

How many New Year’s resolutions have you made in your life? How many have you successfully accomplished? The estimate is that less than 10% of New Year’s resolutions are actually achieved so says the good Psychology Professor John C. Norcross, Ph.D.). There’s a lot of homespun folksy advice out there this time of year about how to make sure you reach your New Year’s goals, but I thought I’d share the actual science of how to change behavior.

There’s two main lines of brain and behavior science that influence New Year’s resolutions: The science of habits and the science of self-stories.

Let’s start with the science of habits

A lot of New Year’s resolutions have to do with making new habits or changing existing ones. If your resolutions are around things like eating healthier, exercising more, drinkingless, quitting smoking, texting less, spending more time “unplugged” or any number of other “automatic” behaviors then we are talking about changing existing habits or making new habits. Habits are automatic, “conditioned” responses. You get up in the morning and stop at Starbucks for a pastry and a latte. You go home at the end of work and plop down in front of the TV.  Here’s what you need to know about the science of changing existing habits or making new ones:

• Contrary to popular opinion, it’s not hard to change habits IF you do so based on science.
• To change a new habit you essentially have to create a new one, so whether you are changing an existing habit or creating a new one, the “scientific” method for doing so is the same.
• You have already created literally HUNDREDS of habits that you have now, and you don’t even remember how they got started, so creating habits can’t be that hard or you wouldn’t have so many of them!

To create a new habit you have to follow these three steps (based on B.J. Fogg and Charles Duhigg)

1. You MUST pick a small action. “Get more exercise” is not small. “Eat healthier” is not small. This is a big reason why New Year’s resolutions don’t work. If it’s a habit and you want a new one it MUST be something really small. For example, instead of “Get more exercise” choose “Walk 1/3 more than I usually do” or “Take the stairs each morning to get to my office, not the elevator”, or “Have a smoothie every morning with kale in it”. These are relatively small actions.
2. You MUST attach the new action to a previous habit. Figure out a habit you already have that is well established, for example, if you already go for a brisk walk 3 times a week, then adding on 10 more minutes to the existing walk connects the new habit to an existing one. The existing habit “Go for walk” now becomes the “cue” for the new habit: “Walk 10 more minutes.” Your new “stimulus-response” is Go For Walk (Stimulus) followed by “Add 10 minutes.” Your existing habit of “walk through door at office” can now become the “cue” or stimulus for the new habit of “walk up a flight of stairs.” Your existing habit of “Walk into the kitchen in the morning” can now be the stimulus for the new habit of “Make a kale smoothie.”
3. You MUST make the new action EASY to do for at least the first week. Because you are trying to establish a conditioned response, you need to practice the new habit from the existing stimulus from 3 to 7 times before it will “stick” on its own. To help you through this 3 to 7 times phase make it as EASY as possible. Write a note and stick it in your walking shoe that says “Total time today for walk is 30 minutes”. Write a note and put it where you put your keys that says: “Today use the stairs.” Put the kale in the blender and have all your smoothie ingredients ready to go in one spot in the refrigerator

E                  A                    S                    Y

If you take these three steps and you practice them 3 to 7 days in a row your new habit will be established.

Now let’s tackle the science of self-stories

The best (and some would say the only) way to get a large and long-term behavior change, is by changing your self-story.

Everyone has stories about themselves that drive their behavior. You have an idea of who you are and what’s important to you. Essentially you have a “story” operating about yourself at all times. These self-stories have a powerful influence on decisions and actions.

Whether you realize it or not, you make decisions based on staying true to your self-stories. Most of this decision-making based on self-stories happens unconsciously. You strive to be consistent. You want to make decisions that match your idea of who you are. When you make a decision or act in a way that fits your self-story, the decision or action will feel right. When you make a decision or act in a way that doesn’t fit your self-story you feel uncomfortable.

If you want to change your behavior and make the change stick, then you need to first change the underlying self-story that is operating. Do you want to be more optimistic? Then you’d better have an operating self-story that says you are an optimistic person. Want to join your local community band? Then you’ll need a self-story where you are outgoing and musical.

In his book, Redirect, Timothy Wilson describes a large body of impressive research of how stories can change behavior long-term. One technique he has researched is “story-editing”:

(PART TWO AND MY LAST SHAMELESS OFFER OF
THE CANDLE MAKER)
I want to recommend this product at Amazon
The Candle Maker
by Amazon.com
Learn more: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1647189306/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_imm_awdb_xAeYFb8H31XXG

I wrote this book over twenty years ago
without giving much thought
to exactly who might actually be reading it
some twenty years later
without giving much thought
that most of those reading it. . .
I didn’t even know
or hadn’t ever met then
B U T
the one common thread
to this tapestry
was always the hope that it would do
FOR YOU
FOR OTHERS
what it had already done for me. . .

The Premise
is also the Promise:
IF YOU’RE NOT BRINGING THE LIGHT
YOU’RE ADDING TO THE DARKNESS

Most of my life
people have asked me,
“WHAT’S YOUR SECRET?
Why are you always upbeat?
Why do you never seem to have a bad day or let things get you down?
THE CANDLE MAKER
is my answer. . .
It’s the shortest book
that’ll take you a year to read
l i t e r a l l y
because every day
it invites you to read
one of the
Candle Maker’s Lessons
(there are 12 of them)
three times a day
(morning, afternoon, before bed)
(90 seconds)
for 365 days. . .
JUST DOING THAT
is kind of life-changing. . .
Out of the some 18.6 million
self-help books published last year
each tell a different perspective
that worked for
each individual author
which means it may not actually work
FOR YOU
but it’s worth the venture
in finding out
or best yet
cutting/pasting
what works and doesn’t work
FOR YOU. . .
which is why
I’m sharing the first of the twelve
Candle Maker’s Lessons
(Don’t wait to start something when you can begin IT now)

THERE ARE SOME THINGS I CANNOT LEARN IN THE PLACE I AM SEEING THE LIGHT. . .

So I will look. . .look. . .look and trust that where there is darkness–the light is sure to come. 
I can only see can find if I’m truly seeking in the right places. I will make where I am the only right place to be today. 
This day I will spend my time, not just in seeking,  for the search will offer up it’s own reward. This day,  I will look in the places where only the light shines, not in the darkness, hoping. 
If there is any darkness in me, I will save it for another time, for it too, will be illuminated. 
For this day, this moment, center stage, even if it’s off left or right, will be the only place in my life where the light happens to be shining, spot-lighting me to be. 
By choosing to spend every awakened moment in the light, the dark will neither harm or mis-direct me. 
This is the day I’ve been chosen to live. I will throw my head back freely to look up in bask in its warm glow. . . I am thankful for it’s un-flickering guidance. 
If I advance to it tomorrow it will only be because I have learned well enough the lessons needed to make the trip and accept this day‘s gift of tomorrow. 
I will be blinded always, to the darkness and not from it. The light on my path is sufficient for this day and my time in it.
I will play, work, eat, drink and sleep this day—learning, relaxing, and preparing for all the lessons necessary for this day’s flicker alone. 
When this day ends, I will not end with it. I will look on where the light will be kind enough to illuminate my way to richly granted tomorrow. 

WILL IT WORK FOR YOU. . .
You’ll never know
UNTIL YOU KNOW

Give yourself a Light
that’ll incinerate
the dark places
having no more
s p a c e
in your life
N O W
CLICK:
TURN ON YOUR LIGHT

and then
S H A R E
I T

The Candle Maker
would like to gently remind you:
DEVOTING YOURSELF TO A CAUSE
DEVELOPES THE CRUSADE
. . .journey on
(e n l i g h t e n e d)