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It’s that time of the year: a little bit after the New Year when many people might have started to lose a bit of motivation about maintaining their New Year’s resolutions. The most common resolutions tend to be: to lose weight, eat healthier, and quit smoking. Runners-up are: to help others, save money, reduce drinking, and manage stress.

These all sound great! Unfortunately, these are also least likely to be maintained. In terms of motivation, scientists are finding that people who are very self-critical and set their goals extremely high with no room for error are most likely to fail. For example, what if Anakin Skywalker decided that for his New Year’s resolution he is going to not ever be tempted by the Dark Side again? How would that work out for him?

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Well, if you’re at all familiar with the Star Wars universe, you probably know that he tried that (though not necessarily as his New Year’s resolution) and was not quite successful, in fact, he completely went to the Dark Side.

This is similar to how very stringent resolutions/life-changes often pan out. We start out with good inattentions, such as, “I will only eat healthy foods this year.” This works extremely well… For about a week. You only drink green juice and eat only broccoli, you’ve lost 3 pounds and feel proud and ready for anything. Nothing can stop you now! The Force is strong within you and this is the year when you’re finally going to make it work…

And then your evil Dark Sith Lord of a best friend brings over cookies. Your favorite ones! And they smell so good! The Dark Force inside you begins to awaken and then you have one. And then another. And then another. Before you know it, you’ve completely switched over to the Dark Side (after all, they DO have cookies!) So you put away your green juice and your Jedi workout clothes, thinking that they can wait until next year, when you’re truly ready, and sit on the couch, feeling defeated, ashamed, and full of delicious cookies.

Why does this happen to so many of us? One of the reasons is because we expect to make too many changes too quickly. Setting simple, easy-to-attain goals, such as, “I will start eating 2 healthy meals per week for a month” and then slowly increasing that amount to more frequent meals, is more likely be maintained than completely doing a complete 180 after waking up on a New Year’s morning.

Another, and perhaps THE MOST IMPORTANT REASON why many resolutions fail is that they do not allow any room for error. Scientists are finding that people who are kind to themselves when they have a setback (rather than those who are harsh and critical of themselves) are more likely to maintain their goals.

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For example, in a recent research study scientists asked a group of female college students, most of whom were dieters, to drink an entire bottle of water in order to make them uncomfortably full. The women were then asked to eat a doughnut. Since the water already made them feel full and bloated, the added doughnut caused many women to feel uncomfortably full. Many of them also felt ashamed of eating such an unhealthy food and reported being highly self-critical.

Some of the women (approximately half of them) were then asked to nice to themselves; they were told that everyone indulges sometimes and not to be so hard on themselves. All of the women were then given a bunch of candy and asked to eat as much of it as they needed in order to rate the different taste properties of the candy.

What did the researchers find? The women that were not asked to be nice to themselves ate nearly 2 times as much candy as the women who were instructed to be less harsh to themselves. It seems that if we forgive ourselves for having a setback and set our motivation to keep trying, we are more likely to succeed than if we have the “well, I messed up, so my diet/exercise regiment is over” attitude. Another recent study that found that sticking with our goals despite setbacks is more important to success than having been born with specific skills, such as high intelligence, or high metabolism/better health, in this example.

The bottom line is that change is not easy. It takes a lot of hard work and determination. Luke was initially unable to lift his ship out of the swamp when he was training with Yoda on Planet Dagobah. However, over time he was able to become an amazing butt-kicking Jedi. So whether you’re trying to lose weight, quit smoking, become a better friend/person/droid/evil Mastermind, remember that setbacks will happen. Keep working at it. Don’t let the Dark Side stop you. Even if you had a cookie, even if you had a bad day, you can come right back to your Superhero/Jedi training and keep true to your goals.

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“Do or do not. There is no try” (Yoda)

Dr. Janina Scarlet is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, a scientist, and a full time geek. She uses Superhero Therapy to help patients with anxiety, depression, chronic pain, and trauma at the Center for Stress and Anxiety Management and Sharp Memorial Hospital. Dr. Scarlet is also a professor at Alliant International University, San Diego. If you have any questions about this article and would like to contact Dr. Scarlet, you can contact her via Twitter @shadowquill, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Shadow.Scarletl, or via her website at www.superhero-therapy.com

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Dr. Janina Scarlet

Dr. Janina Scarlet is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, a scientist, and a full time geek. She uses Superhero Therapy to help patients with anxiety, depression, chronic pain, and PTSD at the Center for Stress and Anxiety Management and Sharp Memorial Hospital. Dr. Scarlet also teaches at Alliant International University, San Diego. Her book, Superhero Therapy, is expected to be released in 2016 with Little, Brown Book Group.If you would like to learn more about Superhero Therapy, please feel free to contact Dr. Janina Scarlet via Twitter@shadowquill, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Shadow.Scarletl, or via her website at www.superhero-therapy.com