MichaelAaron Flicker: [00:00:00] Happy New Year and welcome back to Behavioral Science for Brands, a podcast where we bridge the gap between academic research and practical marketing. Every week we sit down and go deep behind the science that powers great marketing today. I'm MichaelAaron Flicker. Wishing you all a very happy start to 2026, and on this New Year's Day, I'm thrilled to share a special repost of one of our most applicable episodes of this time of year. It was episode 25, and it's all about New Year's resolutions and the science of commitment. We know that millions of people start January 1st with big intentions, and what we all know is only a small fraction actually follow through. So this episode breaks down why that might happen and what you could do.

To change it, whether you're setting goals for yourself or in your career. This episode [00:01:00] has practical behavioral science insights that you'll wanna hear and hear again. Hoping you all have a wonderful start to 2026. And now here's our episode on New Year's Resolutions. The Power of a Public Commitment.

Enjoy.

Welcome back to Behavioral Science for Brands, a podcast where we connect academics and practical marketing. Every other week, Richard Shotten and I sit down and talk about the behavioral science that's powering some of America's most popular brands. I'm MichaelAaron Flicker. 

Richard Shotton: And I'm Richard Shotton. 

MichaelAaron Flicker: And today we're talking about New Year's.

How to make great resolutions and how to keep 'em. Let's get into it. So Richard, making resolutions, keeping them, I don't know. When I talk about behavioral science, if there's a topic that comes up more frequently than, how can I make a great resolution? [00:02:00] How can I keep it? It's a hot topic. I think for all people as we come to the end of the year, and we think about next year, and so you and I are practicing something that we're gonna try for the upcoming year in 2024, which is we're doing some timely episodes, episodes that matter because of the part of the year we're in.

And we chose New Year's because it's one of the biggest times where. Globally. We all take a moment and we reset and we say, how do we want next year to look? How do we wanna act next year? We found a study that said 36% of Americans will make a resolution in the upcoming year. I. But only 9% of them will actually keep that resolution when you ask them six months or a year later.

I'm gonna check the numbers here. And is it 9% of the 36? 9% of the 36, yeah. 9% of the 36 actually keep it. 23% will quit their resolution After the [00:03:00] first week, another 43% quit by the end of the first month. So by the end of January, almost one outta two people have lost their passion to keep their resolution.

These are things that when they made the resolution. It was really important to them. There was a study done by Forbes Health and the top resolutions that Americans made were on improving their fitness, 48%, improving their finances, 38%, improving mental health, 36%, losing weight, improving diet, all were top type items.

So we're talking about pretty serious stuff here. We're not just talking about, you know, small matters here. So if behavioral science. Can help people set better resolutions, keep their resolutions, improve their lives, well then we wanna talk about it. And then if there's something brands can learn from this, we'll make that application too.

Richard Shotton: Absolutely. So what strikes me from that is [00:04:00] that figure that you said of only 9% of people 

MichaelAaron Flicker: keep what, actually keep the resolution. 

Richard Shotton: Yeah. So it is a really hard thing to do. Behavioral science won't make it. Easy, but it'll make it easier. Yeah. And there are lots of studies that, that people can apply. So Richard, 

MichaelAaron Flicker: listening to these stats, making a a real resolution and keeping it seems to be a daunting task, but we think that there's some behavioral science insights that can really give you a leg up.

Richard Shotton: Do you want to talk about the first one? Absolutely. And it's not that these behavioral science biases will make change easy, but they can definitely make. Change easier and more likely to happen. So the first study I wanted to cover is a 2012 study. 

MichaelAaron Flicker: Yeah. 

Richard Shotton: And it's by Steve Martin, who's at Columbia University.

And for this study he works with a. British Health Department, the NHS and one unique thing we have about our health service here is it's free of point of delivery. 

MichaelAaron Flicker: Meaning when I walk [00:05:00] into medical appointment, 

Richard Shotton: no cost to me as a as a person. No cost at the time. Pay will come out. General tax 

MichaelAaron Flicker: different than America. America.

Richard Shotton: Some positives. One negative is if people don't pay something, danger that don't give respect and that manifest, manifest itself 

as people not turning emotion. Connections, 

MichaelAaron Flicker: make an appointment with the doctor, but they don't actually show up the data.

Richard Shotton: Very, very. Martin worked with, with Martin chain of surgeries in Bedfordshire. 

MichaelAaron Flicker: Mm-hmm. 

Richard Shotton: And their current approach was. When someone had had an appointment, the patient would come out of that appointment, go and see the receptionist to get their next date or time. Makes sense.

Receptionist would give them a little bit of card with that time and date written on and the patient would go away. So Martin monitors nohow rate in that setting, and then he attempts two [00:06:00] interventions. First intervention. Patient comes out of that original appointment, goes and sees the receptionist.

The receptionist gives them the card with the time and date on, but they hang onto that car for a second in the hand and just ask the patient to repeat back what time and date are they gonna turn up. That intervention leads to a 3.5% reduction in no-shows. 

MichaelAaron Flicker: Something, but not a whole lot. 

Richard Shotton: Yeah, that's but if you are a.

Organization across 68 million people ladders up to a large, large, large change. 

MichaelAaron Flicker: Yeah, 

Richard Shotton: final version. Patient comes out, the first appointment, goes and sees the receptionist. The receptionist gives them a bit of card, that's blank, and it's the patient who writes down the date and time of the next appointment.

Now, in that setup, there is an 18% reduction in no shows. The argument. Big, 

MichaelAaron Flicker: big impact 

Richard Shotton: it. Massive impact, yeah. Yeah. The argument from Martin is that [00:07:00] one of the strong drivers of human behavior is a desire to be consistent with our past selves, but we only tap into that bias if that commitment is made actively either.

We write it down or we state aloud to other people what we're gonna do. That finding definitely applied in the world of resolution. 

MichaelAaron Flicker: Yeah, and I think there both halves matter. Writing it down is about saying. Actively. I see myself doing this and I'm actively committing to it, and then by committing to it out loud to someone else, we're making a commitment with other people hearing it.

Richard Shotton: Yeah. We recognize there will be reputational damage if we don't stick to that behavior. Yeah. That's very different from internally thinking yourself. I'm gonna turn up to an appointment or I'm going to [00:08:00] not eat so many chips. 

MichaelAaron Flicker: Yeah. Yeah. And so if we were to extrapolate this study to how some might use this to make better resolutions for themselves this New Year's, what would, what would we say?

Richard Shotton: Three things. Tell other people how you're gonna change your behavior. Write down what you are gonna do differently and maybe think about using a website like Stick. There's an American website called Stick, I think it's STI kk.com, and there you can make public pledges to change your behavior so people can read those pledges and you'll feel beholden to them.

To me, that's. 

MichaelAaron Flicker: Like positive social pressure. It's not, it's, it's a good thing that others heard you say it and then you feel that you've gotta make that commitment. 

Richard Shotton: Yeah. You're not trying to do something different to what you want. You're just trying to make your behavior match your, your desires. 

MichaelAaron Flicker: Perfect.

Perfect. Okay, well let's then, let's build on that. Let's talk about a second behavioral science [00:09:00] insight that could help us here. 

Richard Shotton: This study was originally done to stop no-shows at doctors. If you run a chain of restaurants you could use this principle when you are speaking to your customers, speaking to the diners and they've booked their original reservation.

Yeah, reservation. Say to them, you know, will you let us know if you. Aren't gonna be able to turn up. Don't accept silent assent, leave a pause, wait for them to to affirm. Exactly. And then you are tapping into this idea of public commitments. So there's, I think there's lots of ways small businesses could apply to the principle as well.

MichaelAaron Flicker: Yeah. And what seems like a simple idea, you could almost naturally see how you skip over it. Well, we can print the card automatically, or we can, or we, we can have a text message that reminds them. All good ideas, but we miss the opportunity to take advantage of those behavioral science insight we do with that.

Richard Shotton: Absolutely. Absolutely. It, it's a danger with many of these studies. It feels like such a [00:10:00] small intervention. People might think it has a trivial impact, but there's a repeated finding that even small interventions can have large impacts. So, so ignore this one at your peril. 

MichaelAaron Flicker: Yeah, I, I, just to underscore that point.

It's easy to ignore the repeat it. Academic findings that continuously prove this. And just to say, well, we're gonna do something else anyway. So what we're really trying to underscore in this episode is you say, skip it at your peril. I, I say, you know, either you believe that the data can teach you something or you don't.

And so, so long as you believe that data has a meaningful story to tell, you gotta believe. Yeah. 

Richard Shotton: And, and I would've no problem with the brand saying, okay, well wait a minute, this data was done with doctors. If I run a a fish restaurant, these are very different things. That's an absolutely defensible position.

The logical thought shouldn't be, well, I'm gonna ignore this study. It should be, I'm gonna try and rerun. It's gotta test it. Yeah. Get one receptionist. [00:11:00] Or to do 50% of the calls in one way, 50% of the calls in the other. Maybe the academic study isn't perfect. Your business, don't ignore it, retest it in your.

Unique situation, 

MichaelAaron Flicker: and if you do drop us a line, let us know how it goes. We'd love to hear it. We'd love to hear your results. Cool. Okay, so one thing we can learn is that by making it public, by, by writing it down and saying it out loud to others, we get this positive social pressure. We get this, this first effect.

What else can we relay to folks that wanna make a New Year's resolution and keep it. 

Richard Shotton: Second study I think is really useful is one from the University of Pennsylvania psychological called Rosen Done. Very similar time. I think it was the year before Martin Studies. This was done in 2011. And Rosen is interested in the difference between motivation to change behavior and ease of changing behavior.

'cause he says there, look, there's two different ways to get something to change. Mm-hmm. Make them want to, or make the behavior they're trying to follow. A bit easier to do. So he [00:12:00] works with cafeteria, I think it's the university cafeteria, and every week they alternate how they serve the vegetables in the easy condition.

The vegetable bowls are shifted 10 inches closer to the, the, you know, the kind of cafeteria path. And the serving receptacle is a, is a, is a big spoon in the other weeks, the hard condition. The bowls are pushed 10 inches away and the spoon is replaced with a, a pair of tongs and rosein finds that the volume of vegetables consumed between those conditions varies between eight and 16%, depending on the particular vegetable.

Now, stop, stop and think about that for a while. These are trivial. Of friction type of 

MichaelAaron Flicker: type of utensil and inches closer or 

Richard Shotton: further, yet having a large effect on behavior, that finding that friction is a really important part of what people do is something [00:13:00] that's found again and again and again. It runs counter to how most people think you should change behavior.

Mm. Most people underestimate the importance of friction, and they overestimate the importance of desire and motivation. So thinking about this in a personal health context, we might think the way to exercise more is to read loads about the benefits, get pumped up, get infused. What Rosen would say is actually it's about making the change that you are trying to do much more straightforward, much simpler, much easier.

MichaelAaron Flicker: Put your running sneakers at the side of your bed so that when you wake up in the morning, you put them right on. Right. Something like that. 

Richard Shotton: Exactly. So for me my weakness health-wise is often beer in the evening or bags of chips when I sit down to watch the tv. Sure, sure. The application of this princip would be.

If you have them in the house, you're gonna eat them because it's so easy to go and get them. [00:14:00] You know, don't buy them on your weekly shop. You can always walk a couple of minutes down to the local store if you really, really want some. But the argument about this power of friction is you probably won't do it on as many occasions.

So. Keep the junk food out of eye line, hide it away. Best of all, don't have it in the house. That will have more of an effect than trying to bolster your willpower. 

MichaelAaron Flicker: Yeah, I mean this is a really you know, really critical point, which is that if you wanna change your actions either. Decreasing the friction to do the positive thing or increasing the friction to do something that you know is worse for you.

Yeah. Then, then do that. And so you made the point. Don't even have the junk. Best of all, don't have the junk food in the house. When we were prepping for this episode, we talked about a little conundrum with that. Yeah. Which is that. If I'm in the store and I really want that bag of [00:15:00] chips, why is it easier to not buy?

You know, why should it, why should we believe that it's easier to not just buy the chips? And we had an interesting conversation about this. Go ahead. Yeah, 

Richard Shotton: absolutely. I think that is a repeated critique of emphasizing or, or friction. But there's some wonderful studies by Reed who thinks at the University of Warwick now, which suggests that.

We behave very differently when it's about consumption in the now to consumption in the future. So that feels a bit wooly the study, but we'll make it clear. 1998 reads in Denmark and he runs an experiment with a business, 200 employees. He splits into two groups. First group, he says, here's an apple and a bar of chocolate.

You can pick whichever you want and you can eat it now. And when he makes that offer, vast majority of people go. You said 

MichaelAaron Flicker: 70%, 70% 

Richard Shotton: chocolate. I think it was 30% Apple. [00:16:00] Yeah. Next group. Same chocolate and apple, but this time he says, pick which you want and I'll bring it to you in a week's time. And now you have an almost exact flipping.

I think it's 75%. Go for the apple, 25, the chocolate. The argument here is when we are picking for now. We essentially respond to our base desires. What's tasty, what's gonna be enjoyable When we're picking for our future self, we revert to, well, what should we do? It's much, much easier to behave in a healthy, responsible way if we are picking for our, our future self.

So absolutely, I do think this is a. A finding that can be, can be applied 

MichaelAaron Flicker: and you can keep extrapolating this better to plan your shopping list at home with what you want to do, and then when you get there, better to plan to buy the things that are the healthiest versions of yourself, all of these compounds so that when you're in the [00:17:00] moment sitting down for TV at the end of the day.

You've already done the hard work in advance to have the right things in the house. Yeah. Making it that much harder to make the unhealthy choice you did not wanna make. 

Richard Shotton: Absolutely. And if, if anyone's disagreeing with this study and thinking, oh, it doesn't apply to them, I think there's a really clear personal version where you can see this happening.

You know when you go out with work for like big dinners sometimes and they make you pick your meal beforehand. 

MichaelAaron Flicker: Yes. 

Richard Shotton: I'm sure people will remember that experience where a week before you think I want the, the chicken or the salad. Yeah. And when you actually turn up, you're like, oh my. God, why don't I order the bloody state?

Yeah, yeah. That's what I actually want. And it's, that's the same, that's the difference happening, you know, our future self and our present self behave in, in different ways. So you can use that as your advantage. 

MichaelAaron Flicker: I, I love that. And I think even the language you just said, what I really want is the state.

Yeah. But it's what I really want that minute. Yeah. Yeah. Not what I really want for my future health. Yeah. You know? And so separating [00:18:00] those disassociating, the what I want now with the, what I want for my plan, for my resolution is a big insight that folks can use to make better resolutions, but keep them.

Richard Shotton: Yeah. 

MichaelAaron Flicker: Yeah. 

Richard Shotton: I think you said at the beginning that the main areas people were making resolutions about were health and finance. Finance. We talked a lot about. Held so far? Yeah, I think finance is one where you could apply this principle. You know, if people are listening now, don't put, you know, necessarily put money into the savings account this second.

Think about setting up a standing order for two months time. If you're thinking about giving up money in two months time, it feels so inconsequential. It doesn't feel like it matters. You think about putting money into savings account now it feels tangible and painful, right? So you can apply this in.

Personal health you could apply in personal finance. 

MichaelAaron Flicker: Yeah, maybe you can make a connection. See if, see if you can make a connection. When we did our episode on Clear Pay and Afterpay, we talked about how the [00:19:00] pain of payment now is made much less by paying over four or six weeks with no interest. 

Richard Shotton: Yeah, that, that, that's a very similar thing.

So there's a, a study there, I think it was Liam Delaney we talked about in that episode. Yes. It was at the University of Sterling at the time. And he gives people choices, things like, do you wanna pay me 13 pounds now or 16 pounds in a month time? And you have 60% of people picking the 16 pounds in a month time.

That's an a PR of 1090 9%. It's an astronomical a PR. But again, it goes to this point of. I'm worried about current me, yes, future me, someone else's problem. So you can apply this principle to encourage you to save money or what planner and clear pay do is encourage you to spend more, more, more money. Same principle can be applied in, in in different ways.

MichaelAaron Flicker: We're gonna go to a break and when we come back we're gonna talk more about setting great, great resolutions and keeping them. But I think a big theme from the [00:20:00] first half here is. You can make a resolution based on what you want your future self to be, but there's a lot of action that you can take to make that resolution more likely to have outcomes.

It's not just making the intention, it's about doing the actions to really make it a much more likely that you can have success. All right, so let's head to break, and when we come back we'll talk more about this. Behavioral science for brands is brought to you today by Method One, recognized as part of Xeno Side Ventures as one of the fastest growing companies in America for the second year in a row.

Method one builds digital first marketing ecosystems for brand growth. They're behavior change experts who bring science to the art of persuasion with deep disciplines in many brand categories. Reach out to method1@methodone.com. To start leveraging the power of behavioral science in your marketing or advertising.

Welcome back to Behavioral Science for Brands, and today Richard and I are talking about making New Year's resolutions [00:21:00] and how to keep them something that there's a lot of general interest in and how behavioral science can help. So. We're back from the break, Richard, and we were talking about, you know, what else can we share with listeners that give 'em the best chance to make a New Year's resolutions that are really gonna stick beyond these dismal numbers?

9%. You know, only 9% get it to stick for a very long you know, 48% give up by the end of the first month. So what else do we have for people to consider 

Richard Shotton: the third and final? Idea from behavioral science is around the need for a cure or a trigger. So there's an argument, behavioral science, that motivation alone is not enough to change behavior.

That's a necessary but, but not sufficient condition. What you need to do is attach the behavior you want to do to a particular time or place or mood. And there's some lovely work by people like Sarah Mill at the University of Bath that backs up this [00:22:00] idea. We've previously talked about this with relation to brands like Snickers.

Advertisement: Mm-hmm. 

Richard Shotton: Brands like Kit Kat where they attach. Consumption to a break or to feeling hangry, but you can apply that principle to yourself when you're thinking about personal behavior change. The argument here would be if you want to. Do more exercise. Let's say you wanna do press-ups. Don't just say vaguely, I'm gonna do 10 press up a day.

Say in 

MichaelAaron Flicker: America, pushups, 

Richard Shotton: push. Oh, yes. But same things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. You would say, I wanna do my pushups after I brush my teeth, or after I've had my morning coffee. You attach Mm. The habit you want. To start with an existing habit. Now, some people call that that habit stacking, and it's a really, really simple technique, but one that increases the probability of success.

MichaelAaron Flicker: And the reason from behavioral science it does that, is because it aligns the the intention you [00:23:00] have with the trigger. So when I brush my teeth. I now habit stack something on top of it, and I'm much more likely to do the next thing because I'm already brushing my teeth. 

Richard Shotton: Yeah. Because otherwise you've just got this vague, nebulous desire to do something.

You need a moment where that desire is converted into action, and it's the presence of a time, like the morning coffee or the, the toothbrushing that will bring those desires to the forefront of your mind and remind you to, to, to act in the way that you want. And 

MichaelAaron Flicker: there's a lot of frameworks for how you can take behavioral science and the body of work that exists and apply it for yourself, apply it for brands to use.

And we often in our consulting, use the easy method, which is, which was initially pioneered or codified, I would say, you would say, by the United Kingdom's Behavioral Science team. The nudge unit at, at, at in the uk. But BJ Fog has a [00:24:00] model that that feels like it's very close to what we're talking about here.

And he has a, it's a three part model. Yep. I'm gonna let you better than me. 

Richard Shotton: So he's changed the meaning of the initials, but it's either B equals map Yes. Or B equals map. 

MichaelAaron Flicker: Yes. 

Richard Shotton: And it's essentially behavior occurs when. Motivation is greater than difficulty when a trigger, right. A prompt, 

MichaelAaron Flicker: motivation, ability, and trigger a prompt.

That's, that's, yeah. So motivation is, you know, these base motivations, fear and pain, pleasure, reject. 

Richard Shotton: Ah, so I, I think that what he's saying is motivation is how motivated. So if something is easy to do, you can have a medium level of motivation. I see. And when the trigger, like toothbrushing comes along.

Yep. If. Medium motivation, and it's very easy to do. You'll do it. Or if you, if the behavior you're trying to do is hard, but you have a huge amount of motivation, when the trigger occurs, then it will, it will, it will o occur 

MichaelAaron Flicker: [00:25:00] in, and in either of those instances, the formula. Behavior change comes from the the, the combination of those two things.

Those three, yeah. Yeah. Behavior, ability, and trigger. Yes. Yeah. And so we can, we can put that in the show notes. We can give a link out. But the point is that there are these other behavioral science formulas, other behavioral science approaches that can help you think about this more directly. 

Richard Shotton: Yeah.

The interesting thing. Is that you've got all these different frameworks. So you've got Behavioral Insights teams, east Model, you've got Combi from Susan Mickey Mindspace, an earlier version of, of East from the Insights team. You've got BA. All models that try and slice and dice the existing database.

Yes. Of experiments, right? So each has their own strength and benefit. I don't think any is perfect. Part of it is subjective. Which one do you find easy to use? [00:26:00] I love. As a model, because think it's so straightforward and simple. Other people prefer combi or, or bj Fox. There's an element of subjectivity and, and, and trial on error.

MichaelAaron Flicker: Yeah. And so when you're applying this for brands and for marketing and advertising, good to learn the models and think about them when you're trying to apply this to your own personal setting, a new year's resolution and sticking to it. There's a few books that you and I have really liked that we think do a good job.

PJ Fog has tiny habits and maybe even more direct and even more directive is Atomic Habits. 

Richard Shotton: Yeah, that's by James Clear. So a lot of the books. That are out there are written by academics. Yes. And just because you are a brilliant research doesn't mean you're a brilliant writer. And if someone has done their own experiments, they tend to overemphasize them.

The great thing about James Clear, he's, he's a journalist, I think he has a journalistic [00:27:00] background. So he's a brilliant writer. And because he is not doing his own research, he is very even handed and very eclectic in the, in the studies. He, he picks and he has a real gift of coming up with either anecdotes or stories that bring those experiments to life and show people the, the, the practical uses.

So if there's Yeah. One book about habits I'd recommended always be clears. 

MichaelAaron Flicker: Yeah. We're not at, we're not giving more homework after coming and listening to our podcast. But if it's an area of interest, if it's something you're really passionate about, yeah. It's a place to go. And, 

Richard Shotton: and, and I think his book is written in, in, in such a way that it wouldn't feel like homework.

MichaelAaron Flicker: Yeah. Yeah. Very exciting. Let's summarize the key takeaways from today's episode for our listeners. 

Richard Shotton: Three key things. The first is the power of an Active Commitment, so that was the Steve Martin study. Either tell people. The resolutions you are gonna make. Yep. Or have made or write it down. 

MichaelAaron Flicker: [00:28:00] Yep. 

Richard Shotton: And you're more likely to stick to them.

The second key point is around, don't just focus on boosting your motivation. Think about making the behavior you wanna encourage as easy as possible. That was the Rosen study. We repeatedly, as people underestimate the impact of friction. And then the third study we talked about was cues and triggers and habit stacking.

And that's the idea. Don't just. Say you are gonna change behavior. Be very clear about the time or place that that behavior change is gonna occur. 

MichaelAaron Flicker: Yeah. Tie it to a trigger. E, e, 

Richard Shotton: e. Exactly. So if we think about those three things, imagine the resolution was trying to do more pushups to date, public statement or active commitment.

Tell people you're gonna do. Tell my spouse, 

MichaelAaron Flicker: tell my best friends. Tell someone. 

Richard Shotton: Write it down. That's the first part. Then the principle of make it easy might be don't tell yourself you're gonna do 50 a day. Start super simple. Maybe it's two, maybe it's five. Break it [00:29:00] down into really small amount to begin with until you get that, have it embedded.

And then the third and final part about the habit stacking. Don't just say you're gonna do five pushups a day. Say you're gonna do five pushups. After you brush your teeth, be very, very clear about the time and place it's gonna occur. 

MichaelAaron Flicker: Very, very helpful. Thanks for sharing that. So, how to wrap up today's episode?

Rather than asking the cliche, what resolution will you make, could you share a story or an instance where you had a resolution that you wanted to do? And then how you got it done. Do you are, do you have, are you one of the 9% that has made a resolution and stuck to it? Maybe you could tell everybody a little bit about it and I could do the same.

Richard Shotton: I think many people who have had kids will sympathize this one, which is for, for the first few years of their life when they, there's that sense of relief and relief that the evening is now beginning [00:30:00] once they've gone to bed. Yes, 

Advertisement: yes, yes. Stressful 

Richard Shotton: day trying to manage these things. Yes, yes. And I think, unfortunately, I filled that, that moment with too many.

Too much junk food. Yeah. And too much food. I struggled for a long time to try and break that habit. It was really embedded. I felt like the, the evening, my spare time hadn't started, started until I'd had crisps or chips you'd say, and, and, and a can of beer. I found trying to break that completely, it was really hard.

Mm-hmm. So what I did was. Substitute those behaviors. So rather than having chips, I'd have some nuts. At least it's a little bit healthier. Rather than having a beer, I'd have a fancy kombucha. Now you need that idea of, rather than trying to break the habit, slip something else in. Mm. I found to work for me personally 

MichaelAaron Flicker: and today.

When you wind down at the end of the day, what percentage of the time are we are we achieving our goal here? 

Richard Shotton: Okay, well, I dunno if my wife's looking how, how, how much I can exaggerate. I, I think I do. [00:31:00] Reasonably successful, I reckon. Yeah. Two thirds of the time I'm successful. 

MichaelAaron Flicker: That sounds pretty good.

That sounds pretty good. 

Richard Shotton: How about you? 

MichaelAaron Flicker: I would say I always wanted to run a marathon. Yeah. And I didn't know how, and so I got a book that teaches you how do you run a marathon, and it says whether you've run. For two minutes or 20 miles, it doesn't matter. You follow this method and it can work.

And I was reminded of it when we were talking about our key takeaways today. You start by making an active commitment, telling people you're gonna run a marathon. Yeah. And then you break it down into really simple goals every day. I'm going to run a little, and each day I'm gonna increase it a little or five days a week I'm gonna run, and each time I'm gonna have a longer and longer run.

And then make the commitment to when you're gonna do it. Every morning when I wake up, I'm gonna start by going for a run or every evening as the sun goes down, I'm going for a run, whatever that is. I followed those [00:32:00] things and in 2005 I was able to run a marathon. Fantastic. From having never run before.

Yeah. So I mean, that was really an example of setting an intention, following a methodology and getting it done. 

Richard Shotton: Brilliant. 

MichaelAaron Flicker: Well, Richard, we've broken the very taboo topic of setting resolutions and trying to keep them I think we, I can speak for both of those. We hope it's helpful to everybody. And until next time, I'm MichaelAaron Flicker.

And I'm Richard Shotton

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