This Year I Will...

Ever wonder why fewer than 10% of us make New Year's resolutions that stick? According to M.J. Ryan, author of This Year I Will…: How to Finally Change a Habit, Keep a Resolution or Make a Dream Come True, we don't know how to get our brains on our side. She offers some basics about brain science.
 
- Your brain tends to want to do the same thing over and over, so lasting change takes lots of practice. It's not about getting rid of bad habits—pathways to current behaviors are there for life—but about building new, more positive ones. This process can take six to nine months.
 
- Your emotional brain—the part that seeks pleasure and avoids pain—tends to override the thinking part. To create lasting change, you need to get the emotions on your side and keep them there. One man who wanted to live long enough to retire to Hawaii quit smoking by hanging posters of Hawaiian beaches everywhere.
 
Read more ways to get your brain on your side during change.