James Clear

The most common New Year's resolution is to do some form of exercise.

"The most common New Year's resolution, for example, is to do some form of exercise." (said at 0:03:35)

A large-scale study investigating free-form New Year's resolutions among the general public found that goals related to physical health (primarily exercise and physical activity), weight loss, and eating habits were the most frequently chosen resolutions, with physical health being the most popular category overall.

• supports: A large-scale experiment on New Year's resolutions: Approach-oriented goals are more succe… (PloS one 2020)

  "The most popular resolutions regarded physical health, weight loss, and eating habits." (abstract, results, passage verified)

  pubmedfull study (doi)

Studies demonstrate that establishing a new habit is easier when performed in a novel or clean environment devoid of cues associated with competing behaviors.

"there are some studies that have shown that, uh, or have found that, um, it tends to be easier to build a new behavior when you're in a clean context. When you're in a context where you're not battling the previous cues for your other habits." (said at 1:53:57)

Studies on the habit discontinuity effect and context change demonstrate that habits are strongly tied to recurring environmental cues. When context changes (such as moving to a new environment or eliminating cues linked to existing/competing habits), automatic cue-response patterns are disrupted, rendering behavior more malleable and responsive to intentional goal pursuit and new habit formation.

• supports: Changing circumstances, disrupting habits. (Journal of personality and social psychology 2005)

  "When usual contexts for performance change, habits cannot be cued by recurring stimuli, and performance should be disrupted. Thus, the exercising, newspaper reading, and TV watching habits of students transferring to a new university were found to survive the transfer only when aspects of the performance context did not change (e.g., participants continued to read the paper with others). In some cases, the disruption in habits also placed behavior under intentional control so that participants acted on their current intentions." (abstract, results, passage verified)

  pubmedfull study (doi)
• supports: Habit Discontinuity, Self-Activation, and the Diminishing Influence of Context Change: Evi… (PloS one 2016)

  "Habits are resistant to information-based techniques to change behaviour, but are contextually cued, so a change in behaviour context (e.g., location) weakens habit strength and can facilitate greater consideration of the behaviour." (abstract, background, passage verified)

  pubmedfull study (doi)