Hello and welcome to Speaking of Psychology, a bi-weekly podcast from the American Psychological Association that explores the connections between psychological science and everyday life.

I'm your host, Caitlin Luna. Lose 20 pounds, wake up an hour earlier, begin a meditation practice, save $1,000 a month,

go vegetarian.

It's January 1st and many people are waking up today fired up about their New Year's resolutions,

or maybe not.

No matter how jazzed you are about your resolutions right now, many are doomed to fail soon after the New Year Afterglow wears off.

Some may not even begin at all.

While it's hard to pin down an exact figure for how many people fail to keep their resolutions,

some sources say that number is as high as 80%, or how long resolutions last.

Estimates I found varied from mid-January to February,

we can all agree that making change is hard at best and impossible at worst. Still, there are

people out there who make resolutions, stick with them, and succeed. How do they do it? Here to

provide us with practical advice to start the year off right is Dr. Pauline Wallen,

a psychologist in private practice in Pennsylvania, and author of Taming Your Inner Brad,

a guide for transforming self-defeating behavior. She's an expert on New Year's resolutions.

Welcome, Dr. Wallen. Hi, Caitlin. Glad to be here. I'm not, I don't have a hangover, so I'm ready to go. Okay. Okay, so the holidays are over at this point. And I imagine many listeners out there feel they may have indulged overindulge in food, drinks, spending over the past few months. And today, as the calendar tells us, it's time to get serious. But you say that January 1st may not be the best

time to commit to lifestyle changes. Can you explain why and if there's a better time of year to

start? Well, the best time to start is when you are ready. And for some people, that will be January 1st,

but there's nothing magical about the day, just like there's nothing magical about Mondays,

which is another popular day to start making changes in your life. I don't know about you, Caitlin,

but I've made many promises to myself that I'm going to make a fresh start on a Monday or on January

1st, but for various reasons, these promises didn't last very long.

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