The second Friday of every new year is gaining in popularity as a new kind of national holiday.

It’s Quitter’s Day.

According to researchers – specifically studying exercise-tracking apps – the second Friday of each new year shows that 80% of people have already begun moving off the resolutions from just a few days earlier.

Why does this happen? In short, motivation wanes before habits form. We become highly motivated to begin the year, do something (or not), then will feel tired or temped, then we’ll get away from our intentions and start reverting back to our status quo.

Quitting on our goals, intentions, resolutions, changes is easy when we’re at the mercy of our whims. So, the question becomes how do we guard ourselves from our whims to stick with our desired actions long enough to form new habits?

We must make decisions.

Making decisions helps us to stay on course because we are not acting in the moment, we are following our highest intentions.

Many years ago, I made the decision that I would begin everyday with a green smoothie. (I’m actually drinking one as I write this.) I didn’t leave it up to chance, every morning I would make the drink. When out of town I would find and get juices and smoothies for each day. It’s simply what I did.

Now, drinking my green smoothie each day is a ritual that I cherish. I have one every single day. I would think that there are fewer than 10 days in a year that I don’t have a green smoothie or juice of some kind. It started as a decision and became a habit.

On the contrary, I had different results from getting back into running over the past 6 months. My goal was to run long runs of progressive lengths each week. I sort of earmarked Saturdays. What I didn’t do was make a decision about what I was going to do, so I suffered from momentary whims. I would feel tired so I would run 6 miles instead of eight. I would not wake up early enough on a Saturday, so I would push it to Sunday.

Finally, after a few months of what felt like mediocrity to me, I finally made a decision to run Saturday mornings at a predetermined length. That decision helped me to commit and made that now a habit.

Why are decisions such a powerful tool? It helps us to commit and stick with those commitments because of the mindsets decisions help us form.

Psychological Ownership

When we actively make a decision, we feel a greater sense of ownership or agency over taking the action we committed to.

When we believe that we own something, we attach some of our self-identity towards owning that thing or even that concept. Moreover, we are pulled to take actions toward preserving that ownership.

When we own decisions that we make, we take action towards them. We internalize it as being more part of us, which research shows raises our self-esteem.

Create Clarity

The etymology of decision comes from the Latin word “decidere” which means “cut off, cut out, settle, choose a course of action. The suffix “ion” indicates actions. So, a decision is the action of cutting something off.

When we cut off our options, we only have one that remains. That creates massive clarity.

I tend to eat a mostly plant-based diet. I will eat freshly caught fish when I’m near where they catch the fish. Mostly, it’s plant-based unless I know the source of the meat. The only caveat is, if you, dear reader, were kind enough to invite me over for dinner and were gracious enough to grill-up a steak, I’ll gratefully and joyfully eat the steak. Again, these are decisions I’ve made.

A couple years ago, our family took a cruise. The dinner restaurants and times were set for each party at the start of the cruise, which means that the same waitstaff took care of us all week. Made the service all the more personal & elevated. About the 3rd night of the cruise our waiter said to me after placing the vegetarian option in front of me that the chefs have been wondering who is ordering the vegetarian option. Apparently, I was the ONLY person at any dinner that ordered vegetarian.

It was not even a choice for me, I made a decision about the type of food that I would eat and the only thing on a cruise that met my criteria, was the vegetarian option. The choice for me was very clear.

Cognitive Dissonance

When you make a decision, going against that decision can create stress for us going against ourselves. So, we stick with our commitments.

Weaving into the self-identity of making a decision, our mind wants to lie into that person. Anything that flies in the face of that identity is a challenge and friction that our unconscious mind will create.

Therefore, when you decide to workout 5 days a week, your mind wants to make good on that decision. When you decide to take action towards your business goals, your mind does not want you to fall back to previous actions.

As you begin this year with new goals, new missions, new possibilities, take the time not just to make plans. Make decisions about what exactly you will do, when you will do it. Take advantage of the ownership, clarity and even the uncomfortableness of going against yourself that your decisions provide you.

Let’s decide to let Quitter’s Day provide some comical relief and maybe even a pat on the back, as you show up in your decisions on that second Friday of the new year.