Magical Thinking

It's January, and it is time for us to put into action all the promises we made to change our behavior in 2021. Even though we have known long before the new year what we needed to change, we gave ourselves permission to continue these “bad” habits until now. Logic would say that if you're going to change a habit or behavior, any time is an excellent time to start. However, year after year, we pick arbitrary times like Mondays or the quintessential day of January 1 to begin. I suspect what is behind our delay in initiating these changes is that we want to hang on to our unwanted habits and behaviors as long as we can. To justify our delay, we develop complicated mental knots to diminish our guilt and allow us to keep doing what we know is not good for us.

What's so special about January 1? This day marks the beginning of a new year where we feel we have the support of everyone around us to make changes. In a way, it feels like we are making a communal oath to change, even if we make these resolutions silently and privately. We bestow special powers on this date and believe that commitments made today are much more powerful than ones made on any other date. Psychologists label this phenomenon as "magical thinking."

This “magical” day marks the time when we are confident that we will make up for all of our past "bad" behavior, especially our behavior during the holidays. Just think about how many times you said something like, "I may as well indulge now. The new year is around the corner." This feast or famine approach to bad habits doesn't work because our compensating behavior is short-lived and is not likely to make up for all of our previous "bad" behavior.

If you want to make this year different from previous years, keep in mind, there is nothing magical about January 1. You can start or restart changes in your life anytime, even in the middle of the day. The critical thing to keep in mind is that behavior change is hard for all of us. And when you experience a setback and want to give up, know that you are not alone. You have the power to start again anytime. To help ease the pain of failing to live up to our commitments, take a moment to give yourself a mental hug and say, "I believe in you. It is okay that you slipped up. Now let's start again." To give you an idea of how self-compassion supports behavior change, listen to this exercise.