The period after Christmas is the ideal time to think about them, yet seven in ten Dutch people do not think about them: good intentions. Two in ten Dutch people had already made good intentions in the second week of December. And one in ten still plans to do so.
“I have a very big mouth, but I am really a bit overweight. I try to do everything about it. I take the elevator a little less often.” In a recording of his theater program He gets tired naturally comedian Bert Visscher paces across the stage. “Then I’ll take the escalator. That doesn’t help one bit.”
Visscher is not alone: the vast majority of our good intentions are about physical or mental health. This is evident from representative research by market research agency Motivaction into good intentions among Dutch people aged eighteen to eighty. Most people have more than one resolution. 63 percent of people have a goal about physical health, followed by resolutions about mental health (40 percent of respondents).
The differences in resolutions between the different generations are striking. The older the initiator, the stronger the focus on physical health. In the group aged 35 to 44, more intentions concern mental than physical health.
Not too specific
How to prevent the conclusion that this time next year (or even earlier) the good intentions, in the words of Bert Visscher, ‘didn’t help one bit’?
Research shows that one good endeavor is not the same as another. Objectively speaking, some resolutions are simply better. That is, they are easier to maintain and therefore have a greater chance of success.
For example, the best New Year’s resolutions are not too specific, tips Per Carlbring, professor of clinical psychology at Stockholm University. In his research some participants received a lot of help in drawing up a specific, measurable, acceptable, realistic and time-bound intention. Others received little or no help at all.
“Participants who received a lot of help reported lower success rates than participants who received limited help,” Carlbring said by email. “We think it’s because specific goals make it clearer what you need to do for success; but also make it very clear when you have failed. At the same time, vague goals give people a feeling of success when they simply move in the right direction.”
The formulation of a good intention also makes a difference. Of the 1,066 people who participated in Carlbring’s research, participants with a positively formulated intention – for example learning a new habit – had the highest success rate. They did significantly better than participants with a negatively formulated resolution, such as the popular ‘I will quit smoking’.
“We have not investigated why it works better, but we do know that it works better,” Calbring explains. “The practical lesson is that ‘eat fruit three times a day’ works better than ‘stop snacking’.”
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