Now is the time of year when everyone thinks about what they’d like to change about themselves. Despite the museum of abandoned aspirations behind us — the language-learning app that now just judges us in three different languages, the journal whose one lonely entry reads ‘Day 1: This is the year!’ — we embrace resolutions each January with the cheerful confidence of someone who has never met their past self.
This seems bleak, but here’s a secret I’ve learned as a behavioral scientist: Past failures aren’t always our fault — at least not entirely.
There’s only so much control we all have over our own lives. Sure, sometimes failure is the product of good old ordinary laziness. But often we blame the player when we should (at least partly) blame the game.
Why New Year’s Resolutions Often Fail
There is a simple equation from social psychologist Kurt Lewin that explains almost everything you need to know about why our new year’s resolutions often fail and what to do about it:
B = f(P,E)
Where “B,” behavior, is a function of “P,” the person, and “E,” their environment.
Individual behaviors are literally part of the equation, but they are shaped by systems — by policies, by industry, by the circumstances in which we live. Personal choices matter, of course. But our ability to execute our choices is heavily influenced by the environment around us.
Take bike-riding. With intentions of sustainable transport, I recently bought an electric bike. I ride it a fair amount, and I love it. But I don’t use it as much as I’d like because there are very few protected lanes in my neighborhood. So when I reach for my bike, fueled with good intentions (the P force in the equation), I can feel my wind-in-the-hair ambitions riding directly into my fear of the cars that drive along next to me (the E in the equation). My desire to keep my bones in their current structure wins out, and I reach for car keys instead of my bike.
So, should we all abandon our new year’s resolutions because personal change is impossible without systemic change? Of course not! While it’s tempting to surrender to forces beyond our control, individual choices remain powerful; they’re literally half of Lewin’s equation.
Our individual choices are seeds of change. Like any seed, they require an ecosystem of supporting conditions to flourish. The key is working both dimensions: designing our micro-environments while advocating for macro systems that nurture larger change. Think of it as both planting seeds and improving soil conditions — neither alone suffices, but together they create the conditions for success.
Making Sustainable New Year’s Resolutions a Reality
There are lots of ways people can make healthier choices for themselves and the planet. Part of being successful is choosing wisely. There is a cartoon that captures this insight. Two blue whales are talking, and one says, “My new year’s resolution is to lose 38,000 pounds.”
Start too big or with too many goals, and we will lose confidence and then traction. We aim for whale-sized goals when goldfish-sized beginnings serve us better. The trick is picking the right goals and making sure they are right-sized.
There are many relatively simple changes that can make a positive impact on the climate. And some matter much more than others. (We analyze which pro-climate behaviors are the most impactful in a forthcoming research paper; stay tuned!)
Biking or walking instead of driving a gas-powered car can reduce carbon emissions and local air pollution. Plant-based diets are less resource-intensive than meat-based ones — especially red meat. Beef production, for example, requires 20 times more land and emits 20 times the greenhouse gases per gram of edible protein than common plant-based options like beans. And reducing food waste can curb planet-warming methane emissions while also saving households money.
Those who resolve to take up healthy and sustainable behavior changes can make them easier and more likely by using the EAST framework:
- Keep the behavior easy, so it takes minimal effort to do;
- Keep the behavior attractive, so there are incentives built in;
- Keep the behavior social, so you see other people doing the same; and
- Keep the behavior timely, so you experience a benefit right away.
If your goal is to take public transit more instead of driving, the EAST framework might involve easing friction points by auto-loading fare cards, pre-programing routes, and adding smart alerts that make sure you get to the bus or metro on time.
You might make this behavior attractive by downloading podcasts and investing in decent headphones. Sharing the commute with a colleague can make it more fun and help you stick to your commitment. Finally, creating immediate rewards can reinforce your choice. That favorite coffee shop near your stop becomes a daily bright spot, while tracking your gas savings provides instant gratification.
Creating a Healthier Planet Requires Personal Choice and Systemic Shifts
I am an applied behavioral scientist who works on pro-climate behaviors. If anyone should be able to build a healthy and sustainable practice, it’s me. Armed with the EAST framework and determination, I crafted what seemed like the perfect sustainable transportation plan: an electric bike chosen for ease, a really comfortable seat for attraction, shared rides with my daughter for social connection. Yet despite this carefully engineered situation, I find myself reaching for my car keys (an EV, but still) more often than I’d like. I did what I could, but now I need policymakers in Washington, D.C., where I live, to invest in protected bike lanes. I can change my habits, but I can’t redesign my streets — at least, not without engaging with the systems that shape our urban landscape.
That’s why personal actions like voting and consumer advocacy are also critical: to ensure that bigger institutions like governments and businesses are acting in the best interests of people, nature and the climate.
Just as our abandoned language apps might judge us in three languages, the climate judges our collective (in)action in countless ways. But this time could be different — not because we’ve changed, but because we finally understand that we’ve been missing half the equation. Maybe this is the year we reframe our resolutions through Lewin’s elegant equation and see that personal change and planetary survival share the same winning formula: where B = f(P,E) adds up to limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C, and aligning individual will with systemic support may just save the planet.