Are You Ready for a Fresh Start? (Update)

Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner. You are probably already thinking about the New Year and inevitably a New Year's resolution. How often do resolutions actually work? And when they do, why do they? That's what we are asking in this episode. It is an update of a piece we first aired in 2021. We have updated facts and figures where necessary. Happy listening and happy new year. I know a lot of people were particularly excited about January 1. I got extra emails about, oh, thank goodness. It's finally 2021. I'm so excited. That's Katie Milkman. I'm a professor at the Wharton School, and I'm also the author of the book How to Change. And I'm the co director of the Behavior Change for Good initiative with Angela Duckworth. As a behavior change specialist, Milkman sees January 1 as something of a high holy day. Every year, roughly half of all Americans make a New Year's resolution to break some habit, fix some flaw, pick up some new activity. At the top of these wish lists, and yes, I am calling them wish lists, you'll see why later. At the top are eating better, drinking less, exercising more. We asked Freakonomics Radio listeners to tell us their resolutions for this year. Some of you set the bar pretty low. My New Year's resolution is to give myself a freaking break. I realized I haven't been showering enough. So I made a New Year's resolution to shower every thirty six hours and so far so good. Visiting the tide pools. That's it. That's the only New Year's resolution that I I set. And I figured it'd be really awesome if it happened and also totally okay if it didn't. And some of you were more ambitious. My New Year's resolution was to read 25 books. So far, I'm on target. Last year, my New Year's resolution was to stop drinking during the week, and that was a complete failure. I made a resolution to try one new food every week because I used to be an incredibly picky eater. Hi there, Freakonomics. My one resolution in 2021 is that at least four days every month, I do not drive my car nor do I hail any kind of rideshare or taxi or anything. It's my little way to try and reduce my fossil fuel consumption. Why is January 1 the day that we burden with so much hope, so much resolve? That's a fresh start. It's the big fresh start. But there are others too, it turns out. So it could be a birthday, the start of a new week even, or the start of a new month. There are other things that start cycles like going to a new job or having a child or moving to a new community. All of these things are fresh starts and give us that same sense that we have a new beginning, a new chapter opening in our lives. Katie Milkman and some …