(Radio Iowa) - If you plan to make a New Year's resolution Wednesday night, you may need to genuinely focus on making the change in order to keep the pledge.
Alison Phillips, a psychology professor at Iowa State University, says our approach to making resolutions usually sets us up for failure. Phillips, who studies behavior change and habit formation, says to focus on how to make changes that will lead to creating a better version of yourself. Zero in on things you can become good at and that you see yourself doing and take pride in, she says, as those are the kinds of things people won't give up on.
Phillips says studies find 80-percent of resolutions fail by the second week of February.