New Year, New You: Is Quitting a Resolution?

In the classic American folktale The Little Engine ⁤That Could, a⁤ small blue⁢ locomotive⁤ laboriously chugs ⁤up a hill ⁢hauling ‍cars stuffed full of ⁤toys and ⁤food‍ for children on the othre side.The‌ train engine wills herself up the steep incline by chanting: “I think I can,I ‌think I can,I think I can.”

Stories of‌ sticking things out, often under the most trying circumstances, dominate Western society and, by extension, psychological ⁣literature, says Andreea Gavrila, a psychological expert at Université du Québec à Montréal⁢ in Canada. ​“We value perseverance and persistence.”

But this new year,instead‍ of setting resolutions to ‌lose weight,‌ find ‌true love, change careers or jump out of an airplane, Gavrila and others suggest that⁣ some people‌ consider the⁢ opposite.“It’s time to reassess at the end of the year, ‍‘What is ⁢something I don’t need in my⁣ life anymore?’” says computational cognitive⁢ scientist Rachit Dubey ⁤of⁢ the​ University of California,​ Los angeles.

When goals ‍become too financially or emotionally costly ⁤or ​discordant with where one is in‍ life, ⁤they can trigger‌ physical and mental health⁤ problems, considerable research shows. And​ though quitting may have a bum reputation, letting go‍ can be harder‍ than persevering, especially ⁤when the goal is tethered to one’s identity.

Compared with research into persevering, the‍ quitting literature is relatively new, and insights ⁣into‌ just when and ⁤how to quit a goal remain nascent. What is known is ⁣that quitting a goal can take‌ months or even years,Gavrila‌ says. “think ⁢of a relationship. There’s a difference ⁣between breaking up with someone and moving on from someone.”

Letting go, in other ‌words, can be messy and painful. But when one truly relinquishes a ‌long-held pursuit, they free up the mental ⁤bandwidth for new goals and dreams.

hardwired to hate sunk costs

Researchers who study quitting aren’t arguing that giving up is always​ the best option. “It’s in human nature to set goals because ​goals give us direction. Goals represent ⁤some desired future end state,” says Nikos ntoumanis, a ‌motivation science expert at the University‌ of Southern ​Denmark in Odense. The best outcome is when a goal becomes habitual and therefore requires very little willpower. As a⁢ notable example,someone may set a goal​ to ‌start exercising. They achieve that goal when exercise has become a routine part of‍ their life.

Sometimes, though, striving⁣ toward a goal is such⁣ a struggle that it creates undue guilt and​ stress. That’s why Ntoumanis and others want people to recognise that‌ a⁣ tendency toward perseverance ⁤no matter what may obscure other,better options.

For instance, Dubey ⁢and his team had more ⁢than 3,500 participants play a simple online game in which‌ they ‌had 100 chances‌ to⁢ push a button of a given color. Sometimes the push delivered⁤ a point, sometimes not. Unbeknownst ⁣to the participants, some buttons had ⁢higher odds of delivering points than ⁣others. at​ any time, participants ​could request a new button color to see if they ⁢could snag more points. To mirror real life, in⁤ which going back on a decision is often ⁣unachievable, participants could not return to a previous color. The⁣ team then developed a mathematical formula to quantify a player’s optimal strategy.

While playing ‍the ‍game, people stuck with a given color well beyond what was ​optimal, the team reported in September in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Participants also explored relatively few buttons before ⁤settling on a final color.

It’s striking⁣ that even in this simplistic setup, where the stakes are⁢ essentially nil, people still struggled to explore widely and quit with ease, Dubey says. He suspects that in real-life settings, where⁤ the emotional stakes are likely higher, people are even more ‍reluctant to give up.

That’s why‌ Dubey‌ often advises‌ people⁣ to take ​a hard look at their goals.

“If something‌ is consistently disappointing‌ you, maybe try to get the emotions out ​of it and … be more ruthless to quit,” he says.

Quitting, though,⁤ can feel unnatural, ⁣research shows. Humans and even other animals, such as birds and rodents, are prone to the sunk-cost bias, or an aversion to quitting goals,‍ particularly​ those in which they⁢ have invested significant energy, time or‌ money.

Susceptibility to the sunk-cost bias may ​be hardwired,according ‍to research on patients⁤ with⁣ a specific type of brain damage. People with damaged ventromedial prefrontal cortices, or vmPFCs, tend to inhabit a sort of ‌eternal present. So researchers‌ in the United Kingdom wanted⁤ to​ see if their pursuit of ⁤goals ​— ‍which, ​by design, are anchored‌ in the future ‌— differs from those without this type of ‍brain damage.

The team had⁣ 23 people ‌with damaged vmPFCs and 30 people without brain ⁣damage play a video game inside an MRI machine. The ‌goal ‌of the game, which took ⁣place ⁤across several⁣ rounds, ​was ⁢to fill a virtual net with as much seafood as possible. The hitch? Participants could fill ‍the net with onyl one type of seafood: octopus, crab or fish. Quantities of ‌each seafood differed across‌ the rounds, with occasional⁤ drastic ⁢changes. Before each round, ⁢individuals‌ could choose to stick with their ⁤current option or abandon one ⁢seafood goal and start over with another.

Compared with nonbrain-damaged individuals, people with damaged vmPFCs ⁣were more likely to abandon a given seafood type once another seafood type became the clear winner, the​ team reported in ‍July 2024 in Nature Human behaviour.

People with this type of brain damage ‌played more rationally and were thus more likely to win the game. but in⁢ real life, that tendency ⁢to give​ up as soon as the going gets tough can make life‌ incredibly hard for such individuals.⁤ These people are often cognitively‌ strong,but they can struggle in ⁣their⁢ daily lives,such as holding down a‍ job,says Eleanor Holton,a cognitive neuroscientist now at Princeton university. “They cannot structure the future. It’s a jumbled mess.”

Letting go of goals can thrust ‍people without vmPFC‌ damage into a similarly​ jumbled ​state, say Holton and others.⁣ It’s hard to dismantle our long-held visions for the future. But sometimes it’s necessary, and researchers are still sorting ​out how to help people work through that difficult ​process.

Motivation from within

ironically, the same tools that‍ help people persevere may also help them quit, some research suggests. For instance, goal researchers have⁣ long spoken of action crises, or points at which people vacillate between wanting to quit a‌ goal or ⁤stay the course. A key indicator for‌ whether a person will stick it ​out‍ has to do with what is motivating them to change.

Consider two people who ‌want to lose 10 pounds, Ntoumanis says. One person⁣ is doing it because‍ they want⁤ family members to stop haranguing them about the extra weight. That message of guilt and shame seldom leads to long-term changes. ⁤But‌ another person might want to shed pounds⁢ to feel healthier. That inner drive can lessen or ward⁢ off an action crisis.

More recently, researchers have been looking at whether an inner‌ resolve to‍ quit can similarly ward‌ off ⁤an inaction ⁤crisis, or questioning a decision to quit ‍long ⁢after the ‌fact.

During an inaction ⁤crisis,a person wants to disengage,but they’re stuck,Gavrila says. A person who quit an ill-fitting graduate ⁣program, for instance, may question their⁤ decision as ‌they struggle to‍ identify what’s next.⁢ Or a person who has broken up with a long-term partner may continue to⁣ follow their ex’s every move on social media.

To see how well people move​ on⁤ from goals in real⁣ life, researchers periodically surveyed more than 500 students at⁢ a university for nine months and more than 400 individuals from a community sample for three ‍months. At the start of the study, the team asked participants about‌ a long-term⁣ goal they were abandoning ‍and how​ important the goal was to their lives. They had participants rate statements, such as, “This goal​ no longer reflects who I am,”‍ to assess inner ‍drive and “People have been telling me I have to let ‍this goal go”​ to assess external pressures to⁣ quit.

As the study progressed, the team assessed how far along participants were in disengaging from⁢ their goal. They ‌also gauged whether a person was experiencing an inaction crisis by having them rate statements,⁢ such as “I feel torn about letting ⁢go of this goal.”

Participants across both samples who‍ reported that they were quitting a goal primarily due to external pressures tended⁢ to get‌ more stuck in inaction crises ​than those who reported more interior motives,⁣ the team reported in December ‌2022 in Motivation and‍ Emotion.

People don’t tend to wake up one ⁢day and say, “I’m done” and⁢ seamlessly move on to their next great life adventure.“There’s all this difficulty in letting go of the goal,” says​ Gavrila, who was not involved in that study. “It’s very messy.”

Researchers are still working out the particulars ​of when people ought to let go of a goal, the best ways to go about the process and,⁣ ultimately, how to develop new goals for the future. Some suspect that the clues to helping ​people ⁣let go may lie in ‌other⁢ social subfields,such as research into acceptance or⁤ overcoming grief.

Filling the ​void left by a relinquished goal remains an even less developed area of research, researchers write in⁢ the 2022 Annual review of Psychology. Initial evidence suggests⁢ that‍ helping people work on their mood, greater sense of purpose and overall life satisfaction can‌ help.

What is ‍clear is that, if ​a goal has run its course, clinging to it can ​do more harm than ⁤good.​ And⁣ finding a new path forward may first‌ require the courage to‍ say, “I think I can’t.”