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Turning the Leaf

The list of resolutions for any given year is limitless and the list of failures is just as long
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This year I'll eat healthier. This year I'll work harder than ever. This year I'll go to Burning Man. This year I'll cut out weekday partying. This year I'll throw away my TV and buy an easel. This year I'll walk more and drive less. This year I'll finish that screenplay. This year I'll spend more time with my grandparents. This year I'll switch coffee for tea. This year, no more pizza.

The list of resolutions for any given year is limitless and the list of failures is just as long. A 2007 survey of over 3,000 people conducted by British psychologist Richard Wiseman found that 88 per cent of all resolutions end in failure.

Of course, this never stops us from actually resolving to improve ourselves in some way, to commit to finally turning that leaf over and narrowing the gap between "real" self and "wannabe" self, impending failures be damned. This year we're really going for it.

I made one too. I resolved to trim the fat and get a flat stomach. I joined CrossFit, a brand of personal fitness regime that includes varied and very intense exercises that, had I stuck with it, would have resulted in a physique resembling someone closer to Ryan Gosling rather than Paul Giamatti.

Now, close to three months later and the stint at Crossfit a fading memory, the cold steel of my belt buckle is still pushing up underneath the folds of my stomach. I am now part of the 88 per cent.

What went wrong? Laziness?

Partly, but there's more to the story than that according to Mark Holder, a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia who studies the science of wellbeing. He says the success to attaining goals is a matter of how they're framed.

"Concrete, positively-framed goals work better," he says.

He offers the example of two couch potatoes who want to change their habits. Couch Potato #1 states that he's going to lose weight. The likelihood of success is diminished because the process, "is very pervasive... It's not very concrete or clear."

Couch Potato #2 states that he's going to exercise three times week. His goal is related but it's more specific. Once the goals are achieved, the checklist has been ticked off and the desire to further the self-improvement continues to grow.

"It feels really good to check things off lists," he says. "Finishing what we start, completing goals increases our happiness."

In doing so, we're in a constant battle with ourselves to shrink the difference between our ideal selves and our real selves; an experience psychologists have called "discrepancy theory." Holder says that we're happiest when the space between our two selves is the smallest, yet no one quite succeeds in eradicating that space completely.

There are physiological reasons for this. A study conducted by Stanford University's Baba Shiv found that over-stimulation in the prefrontal cortex, which is associated with reward, attention and motivation, will often result in people continuing on with our regular patterns of behavior. As author Jonah Lehrer writes in the Wall Street Journal, "A tired brain, preoccupied with its problems, is going to struggle to resist what it wants, even when what it wants isn't what we need."

The problem here is that people tend to take an all-or-nothing approach to self-improvement. With the new year and its promise of a clean slate, people resolve to kick significant negative aspects of their lives in one fell swoop. Of course, this slate is completely metaphorical and there is no reformat button for our brains so that we can begin again with good behavior.

Julia James, a professional life coach based in Victoria, says a key component to success is in taking "baby steps."

"If you're currently a couch potato, and you do no exercise whatsoever and all of a sudden your New Year's resolution is to work out five days a week, that's a set up for failure," she says.

She says that a crucial component to self-improvement is to find an avenue that best suits the individual's personal tastes — a common factor for why people (including myself) rarely meet their goals.

"It has to be something in your heart you really want," she says, noting that the people most successful in improving their lives are those that are driven by passion.

"If you really hate playing an instrument but you feel for some reason that you need to play music, then again you're setting yourself up for failure," she says.

Her business is geared toward helping people find the avenues for self-expression and well being that best suit their own quirks and needs. North American culture places high value on physical fitness and health as modes of well-being, but the standard avenue for achieving this — going to the gym — is not everyone's taste.

"Once people connect with what is good for them, then the goals, and all of that, become more in line with who they are, versus trying to be something that they're supposed to be," she says.

And so we meet Christine Vernon-Jarvis. It had seemed to her for a number of years that everyone living around her in Whistler was half her size. The retired mother of six decided last fall that she was going to lose some weight.

"It's like being a drug addict, all of a sudden you reach bottom," she laughs. "But I'm not a drug addict. Basically, it got to the point where my clothes didn't fit and I was throwing them away and buying bigger ones. That was the biggest factor."

She hit the gym five days a week, with a clear goal that she was going to lose 30 pounds in 90 days. Since the end of October she has lost 45 pounds and, with the checks ticked off her list, she's compelled to keep working toward improved fitness. Her family and friends have been full of compliments. She feels better, both physically and mentally, than she has in a long time.

"I always hate it when people say, 'If I can do it anyone can do it,' but it's a bit like that," she says.

Her story is a textbook fitness success. Hers was a desire for self-improvement that went beyond physical fitness. John Blok, a fitness instructor at The Core who has been guiding Vernon-Jervis through her weight-loss, says that an improvement in fitness is almost always connected to an underlying emotional or psychological need which also needs adjusting. Very rarely does he see overweight people with loads of self-confidence.

"They obviously want to look better, they want to stand up straighter, but really they're having confidence issues somewhere else. Usually," he says.

He adds, "They probably can't even put words to it but they know they need to change. They know change is needed, they don't know what, but a good step would be to start with the body."

Businesses have been capitalizing on this for years. Walk into any Big Box Store on January 2 and you'll find stacks of nutrition supplements and exercise equipment piled high at the entrance. Clubs often report new gym membership sign-ups spiking to 30 to 50 per cent every January. Creekside Athletic Club saw an increase of 79 per cent between Jan. 1 and Jan. 30; The Core staff wouldn't share exact numbers, but says the club sees a significant jump at that time as well.

This is hardly a New Year phenomenon. People are taking inventories of their lives all year, but the moments that each individual decides to make changes are always different. There are cultural and psychological factors that lead to the mass resolution making (and mass failures) and various forms of the practice exist in cultures all over the world.

In North America, these goals tend to be more individualistic. In China and other Asian communities, the goals around self-improvement tend to be centered on how it best serves the community or the family. In French or Italian cultures, the changes made tend to revolve around how to best enjoy life, versus in North America where people are intent on maximizing health and finding emotional and psychological balance.

Professor Holder says people are often taking inventories on their lives on a weekly basis; other people wait for time-markers, birthdays or New Years for example, while others wait for "psychological rock bottom." People kicking drug habits will often fail seven times before finally getting it right, he says — not good news for those looking to kick habits cold turkey for the first time next year.

"Goal-setting is linked to hope, and hope is linked to all sorts of positive things," he says. "People who are hopeful set more difficult goals, more concrete goals and they tend to be more successful because they view setbacks as a perspective of what needs to be done."

It would appear that CrossFit members fall into this category — it appeals to people with less whimsical approaches to improving wellbeing. Everyone in my class had signed up in November. Jordan Glasser, co-owner of the Whistler branch, says those that join have made the choice independently to get fit — his business becomes the vehicle for them to do so.

Last year, he handed out surveys to members to find out what motivates them to come in, and how committed they are to their overall health and fitness.

"I was slightly taken aback that over 95 per cent of questionnaires came back that everyone has a level of commitment to health and fitness four or five, out of five stars. They actually want to be healthy," he says.

According to Janet Corvino, studio manager at Neoalpine yoga studio in Function Junction, most of the people coming to regular yoga classes made the choice independently that they were going to get healthy.

"We get a lot of guests coming in... who are working to get back on the wellness path," she says. "Somehow they have strayed and they come into the studio to get back on the wellness path."

The studio holds three 30-day challenges every year, which "lights the fire underneath" prospective members. Yoga has become increasingly popular in North America as people become more concerned about health and wellness, and finding alternatives to running and hitting the gym.

"Yoga is not a workout," Corvino says. "Yoga is about the body, mind and spirit. It takes that hour, hour-and-a-half, and allows people to go into a deeper level within themselves and it causes that transformation," she says.

In the end, New Year's resolutions are meant to be worked on all year, which is often not considered when statistics are cited for the amount of failed attempts in a year. The desire to make that change continues to linger — it just might take until June to find the right avenue to get there.

My belly still exists. As I write this, I find myself flipping the waste line of my jeans over the flabby protrusion known as my abdomen. But I've taken up running, which is both physically and emotionally satisfying, and it's important to note that my protrusion is protruding less than on Jan. 1. It might not resemble anything Ryan Gosling has to offer, but the world certainly seems a whole lot brighter, so let's just go with the way things are for now.

Of course, turning the new leaf is not always about fitness either.

Finding new love, or staying in love, is top of mind for people when New Year's rolls along. Vancouver-based online dating service Plenty of Fish consistently sees a 15 per cent spike in traffic around New Year's.

Ashley Madison, a dating service set up for people in committed relationships seeking extramarital affairs, sees the highest rate of new signups in January.

"It's an industry wide phenomenon," says Noel Biderman, CEO of Avid Life Media, which ones Ashley Madison. "I think what you find is New Year's comes and goes, people make resolutions about more exercise they want to do, more career efforts that want to put forward and a lot of people decide they want to change their personal life."

He says that his marketing strategy is aimed at people who have already made the decision independently that they were going to pursue an extramarital affair. The week of the New Year and February 15 (one day after Valentine' Day) are the websites busiest days of the year. Monday is by far the busiest day of the week.

"It has nothing to do with my Sunday night advertising — I have no Sunday night advertising Sunday night," he says." It has to do with the weekend's full expectations not been met."



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