New Year's Episode: resolution strategies

So this is part 2 of the New Year’s episode and in part 2 I will tell you about New Year’s resolutions and different strategies to make your resolution stick, or last for the long term. A resolution is a plan for the future. To resolve means to solve a problem or to fix a problem so your resolution is the way that you plan to fix your problems or to self improve, to get better as a person.

In America we often talk about new Years resolutions with skepticism because we do not believe that most people will complete their resolutions. That is because New habits and new behaviors are difficult to create and to sustain for a long period of time. However there are certain ways to make your resolution last for a long period of time.

First we will talk about doing your behaviors or habits on a daily basis. Many people like to cram. This is a verb for when you wait until the night before an exam to study and then the night before you study for many many hours and you don’t sleep enough. What we know about brain science and memory is that cramming, or doing all your work at once, is not good for memory. Sometimes you can pass an exam by cramming but usually you will forget almost 80% of what you studied in 3 days, so if you want to pass an exam you can cram, but if you want to be a good students, and continue to learn, and to remember everything from the school year, you should study everyday.

But here is the trick! You do not need to study for hours everyday. 15 to 30 minutes is plenty, so long as you review each day. Why is that true? A German scientist called Ebbinghaus did a research in the 1800s and he found that we forget 90% of information in 3 days. We forget almost everything in 3 days. Unless, we make ourselves recall the information. Recall means to think of the information again, or to test yourself on the information again, or to use the information again. So if I learn a new vocabulary word Ebbinghaus says I will forget it in 3 days unless I recall the 3 days unless I recall the vocabulary word in the first 3 days. And each time that I recall the word I will remember it better for a longer period of time. 

So in conclusion, we can see that studying for a short period of time each day is more effective  than studying 1 or 2 times per week for a long period of time. In fact we know that studying for just 15 minutes a day takes less time than studying for 4 hours on a Sunday, and you will remember much much more if you study for only 15 minutes a day! 

This brings me to intensity or how hard you study during the time or the period that you are studying, because we also know that the value of your study, which means the effectiveness or efficiency of your study is a result of the intensity of study and the time of study. This is a good thing because this means that you do not have to study for hours and hours and hours. We can study for 15 minutes, if we study hard, if we are 100% focused on what we are doing. Put away your phone. Stop talking to your friend. Don’t be cooking. Don’t listen to music. Don’t be singing. You do one thing. You study intensely for 15 minutes, and you will remember more. This year when you make your New Year’s resolution, make a plan for studying or for working on your resolution for each day. You can take a day of rest but you should be working on your resolution at least 5x a week. We know that it takes 66 days of devotion, of effort to create a new behavior or habit. So do not think that you can try to learn something new by studying for 1 day per week. When you make your resolution, think o f a plan that you can do everyday for 15 minutes. Ideally at the same time of the day. And then, after 2 months, 66 days, you will find that you have succeeded that you are successful in creating a new habit. That’s all for this part of the New Year’s episode. Keep listening. Byebye.