"Every January, millions of people make resolutions. By February, most have abandoned them. The failure rate, depending on which study you cite, hovers around 80 percent. We know this. We've lived it. Yet each year we return to the same strategies: be more specific, start smaller, find an accountability partner, track your progress. These aren't bad suggestions. But they miss something fundamental about how psychological change actually works."
"The standard model of resolution-keeping imagines a battle between two forces: the rational mind that knows what's good for us, and the appetitive part that wants what it wants. Willpower, in this framing, is the rational commander issuing orders to rebellious desires. "You will go to the gym. You will not eat the cookie. You will wake up early." This is essentially the tripartite psychology that Plato outlined in the Republic: reason, spirit, and appetite locked in struggle for control of the soul."
Most resolution strategies frame change as a conflict between a rational will and appetites, relying on commands that demand ongoing enforcement. Plato's tripartite psychology is invoked but a forgotten fourth element concerns how the parts of the psyche relate to one another and to the self. Commands like "I will go to the gym" require repeated victories of reason over desire. By contrast, identity shifts such as "I am someone who values physical health" rewrite the system and align motivations, reducing internal conflict. Asking who to become rather than what to accomplish supports lasting behavioral change.
Read at Psychology Today
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