New Years Resolution - resolve to acknowledge the new you!

Let me tell you about an experiment run by Stanford University. A group of students were each given 25 cards. Each card had printed on it a pair of suicide notes, one real and one fake. The students were asked to read each card and decide which one is the real one. A pretty macabre choice of topics, but it's what they went with. They were told that on average, people could correctly identify 16 out of the 25 cases on the cards. As they gave each answer, the researcher either said, 'correct' or 'incorrect'. Regardless of their real performance, at the end of the test they were told that they had correctly identified either 24 (success), 17 (average), or 10 (failure) notes. 

A few minutes later, the researchers confessed to the students that the experiment was actually about how people react to success or failure, apologised for the deception, and explained that their score was assigned randomly, and did not reflect the actual performance in the task. This is where it gets interesting. Each student was then asked to estimate how many answers they got correct, and how many answers they would get right in an equally difficult test. In spite of the fact that they had been told explicitly that the scores were meaningless, the students' estimates of their performance in this and future tasks reflected the random score that they had been given - with the success group estimating their skills more highly than the average and the failure group. That is to say, the initial boost or hit to their confidence lasted beyond the point when they discovered that the data that they could use evaluate their own skills were meaningless.

Why am I telling you this now? As the New Year arrives, you may have set yourself a New Year's Resolution - good for you! Fitness-related goals are the most common type of New Year's resolution - getting faster, stronger - whatever it might be. I follow people on their fitness journeys and I have noticed that it is quicker to change a body than a belief about it! I had been running for years before I allowed myself to say, "I'm a runner!" Long after the excess weight has gone, people still identify as 'fat'. I hear talk of 'dodgy knees' from people who haven't had pain there for months. And for sure, it takes a long time to identify as 'strong', when you have been told you are 'weak'.

Unlike in the deliberate deceit of the experiment, at the start of your journey the things that you tell yourself about your body could well be true. However, when you exercise regularly, your body will change - you will move towards your goals. All I ask of you is to reflect on these changes and allow yourself to believe in the new you that you have created thanks to your hard work and dedication.

Good luck with your New Year's resolution and remember that we are here to help you!