Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail

December 31, 2010 7 Comments

Four out of five of us don’t keep our New Year’s resolutions.  You have a better chance of getting accepted into University of Southern California‘s undergraduate program than of keeping your New Year’s resolution.

Why is this?

In one famous TED talk, Derek Sivers posits that we set ourselves up for failure by publicly declaring a goal.  According to Sivers, “secret goal-setting” is proven to work by hard social science testing and “social reality” theory.  Sivers suggests that when we announce a goal, our mind is tricked into thinking that we’ve already achieved it.  Therefore, we are less likely to work towards actually accomplishing the goal.

On the other hand, there’s a plethora of research showing that public commitment to a goal increases the likelihood that it will be achieved. Freakonomics wrote an entire article to this effect, effectively refuting Sivers’s claim. “The mere possibility,” Ian Ayres writes, that someone “will notice that you are not following through on your commitment is sufficient to add the extra layer of accountability.”

I think we fail because we fail to set achievable goals.  A good goal should be measurable – “Lose weight,” for example, isn’t as effective is “Lose 10 pounds.”  Having a plan of action – “Go to the gym three times a week” – doesn’t hurt, either.

Part of me wonders if declaring a New Year’s Resolution is a method of social signaling.  Even though we know we might fail, having a resolution is letting our social circle know that we aren’t perfect, but we’re actively working to improve ourselves anyway.

Alternatively, it could be Optimistic Bias – the same bias that newlyweds suffer from.  Newlyweds ”almost uniformly expect that their marriages will endure a lifetime,” despite the large proportion of marriages that end in divorce.  It’s the same reason that we all think we’re better than average drivers.

Maybe we’re just resolutely optimistic on New Year’s Eve.

In 2010, I committed to run 1,000 miles. I succeeded: I will have run 1,724 miles in 2010.  For 2011, I’m committing to learn Russian.

What’s your New Year’s resolution?  One a scale of 1 to 10, how likely do you think you are to succeed?

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Iterative Innovation or: The Marshmallow Theory

December 20, 2010 1 Comment

We’re afraid of failure.  This makes sense – failure is a frightening concept.  Nobody likes putting themselves out there and being disappointed with the outcome.

However, we, as a society, are too afraid of failure.

Sometimes, we are so afraid of failure that we procrastinate.  Often, we call this “research,” “planning,” or “preparation.” None of those words, unfortunately, is “implementation.”

Because we’re afraid of our initiative failing, we push off executing our plans for far too long.

Failure is useful; it points out areas of improvement.  One of the best arguments I’ve seen in favor of failure is in Tom Wujec’s TED talk: “Build a Tower, Build a Team.”

In the talk, Wujec describes a team building exercise, during which teams attempt to build the tallest tower using only dry spaghetti, a yard of tape, and one marshmallow, which has to be on top of the structure.  In this exercise, business executives do terribly – they spend a lot of time figuring out who the team lead’s going to be and planning their strategy.  Fortunately, architects and engineers do quite well – they understand how to build stable structures.

Surprisingly, kindergarteners end up building some of the tallest structures.

“What kindergarteners do differently, is that they start with the marshmallow, and they build prototypes, successive prototypes, always keeping the marshmallow on top, so they have multiple times to fix ill built prototypes along the way. So designers recognize this type of collaboration as the essence of the iterative process. And with each version, kids get instant feedback about what works and what doesn’t work.”

Wujec is pointing out the necessity of beginning with the end in mind.  In this case, that’s the marshmallow.  However, there’s another factor at play here: kindergarteners aren’t afraid of failure.

Kindergarteners start building immediately, and when their structure collapses, they build another one.  And another one.  And another one.  And each time, they’re improving their structure, because now they’ve experimented with what doesn’t work.

Now, I’m not advocating striving to fail.  As Warren Buffet said, “You want to learn from experience, but you want to learn from other people’s experience when you can.”

However, stop procrastinating.  Planning only goes so far.  Research, like everything else, has diminishing marginal returns.  Put your plan into action.

Failure is not the only way to learn.  Nor is it the end of your project.  But it’s definitely a pretty good place to start.

Filed under Opinion, TED, video Tagged with , , , ,

TEDxSacramento – Tie Out

November 22, 2010 1 Comment

On Saturday, I attended TEDxSacramento.  The event was part of TEDxYouth Day, which was a series of TEDx events happening all around the world on November 20. The events were designed to empower and inspire young people.

This was my first TED event – of hopefully many.  Overall, I thought it was a successful day – informative speakers, great venue, and good multimedia incorporation.  Now, because I’m an economist, I’m going to discuss these items in bullet form.

  • The most impressive component of the event was the multi-media incorporation.  Rather than just being a series of live talks, which I was expecting and would have found sufficient, the event included other, already posted TED talks, musical interludes, and short videos.  This sort of construction helped break up the five-hour day and keep the audience interested.
  • The live speakers were a mixed bag.  The topics were all interesting, even if some where tenuously connected to theme of “Youth.”  My personal favorites were from Alex Terrazas, who talked about cognitive mapping, and  Dr. Julie Schweitzer, who talked about decision-making in ADHD children.  These two talks reminded me why I attend conferences like this – they were exciting, new, relevant science.  I followed up with both of them for more information on their research.
  • TED is notorious for having excellent time management – one of the characteristics of the official events is the huge countdown-clock for speakers.  This event ran a bit behind schedule, and I wasn’t watching closely enough to figure out why that was.

Here’s a list of some of the highlights of the event.  The full program of speakers is here.

I got a lot of great feedback via Twitter and e-mail on my coverage of the event – thanks to everyone to the kind words, and for following the updates.

Overall, attending TED was a great opportunity to learn more about Sacramento, TED, and, of course, a variety of other topics that I wouldn’t normally have been exposed to.

Filed under conference, talk, TED Tagged with ,

Dr. Julie Schweitzer – UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute

November 20, 2010 2 Comments

Julie Schweitzer talked about decision-making in people with ADHD.  This topic was relevant to the theme of the day, because apparently ADHD and ADHD-type disorders predict high-school drop-out rate better than any other disorder.

Apparently, there are parts of the the brain that, when faced with certain decisions, react differently in people with ADHD and normal people.  These parts of the brain deal with cognitive control and decision-making.  According to Schweitzer’s research, those diagnosed with ADHD have less self-control than those without ADHD, and this gap increases, with regards to a single decision, as time passes.

Schweitzer’s research, which is primarily in the field of neuroscience looks to answer the question: “what is the link between decision making and cognitive control?” In order to answer this question, her lab ran a series of experiments and MRIs.  Subjects were asked to make a series of choices – such as “Would you rather have 55$ today or 75$ in 61 days?”

According to Schweitzer, “Those who are most impulsive – who wanted to the money now – were more likely to use areas of the brain often associated with ADHD.”

So what’s next?  Schweitzer says, figure out the different subtypes of ADHD understand how the diagnoses correlate with underlying neurochemistry and genes.

This is an intriguing topic – another one about which I’d like to learn more.  To find out  more about Schweitzer’s work, head over to her website.

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Gever Tulley on 5 Dangerous Things for Kids

November 20, 2010 1 Comment

We’re currently watching Gever Tulley’s talk about five dangerous things you should let your children do

Gever Tulley, founder of the Tinkering School, spells out 5 dangerous things you should let your kids do. From TED University 2007.

  1. Play with fire.
  2. Own a pocket knife.
  3. Own a spear.
  4. Deconstruct appliances.
  5. Break the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and Drive a Car.

I’d add – let them eat dirt.  Here’s the talk!

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