As January of a new year approaches, many people will soon be pontificating about possible future goals. How do they want to feel in the year ahead? What do they want to do? Where do they want to go? Who do they want to be? For these people - hopefully including you - This is an exciting time to entertain possibilities, explore novel ideas, and exclude past excuses.

Yet we’ve all heard - or even personally experienced - the discouraging statistics about New Year’s Resolutions1-2:

• For every 10 people who commit to a New Year’s goal, perhaps just 1-2 person succeeds long-term.
• Goal attrition is rapid. Upwards of a third of people give up their goal by the end of January. Over half by March.
• All goals categories seem to fail about equally: health, fitness, relationships, finances all share the same tragic pattern of initial optimism followed by fast entropy.

There are many reasons why well-intentioned people are unsuccessful with their New Year’s goals. For example, some people set goals too vague to inspire sustained progress (e.g., be happier, lose weight, get healthier). Other people mistakenly tether their goals only to short-term milestones (e.g., lose 10 pounds), with nothing to anchor their results or maintain their momentum. And still others find their plans waylaid by stress, injuries, or unexpected life events. No matter how passionate we feel about our goals in January, we each must cross a minefield of potential saboteurs to achieve them.

If this makes New Year’s goal-setting sound grim, there is good news. Successful goal achievement isn’t random. It relies much more on strategy than on luck or even willpower. In this blog, we’ll discuss how two similar-sounding goal-setting strategies can either crash or compound you results. These two strategies are 1) relying on short-cuts versus 2) using accelerators.

Short-cuts versus accelerators: what’s the difference?

Short-cuts promise us fast, easy results. Fueled by ubiquitous technology, advertisements, and social media influencers, short-cuts are now everywhere and for seemingly everything. Want to get rich? Lose weight? Fall in love? Get better sleep? Manage a health condition? Build muscle? If so, there is likely a supplement, app, hack, or cheat code guaranteeing you rapid progress towards your goal. The downside? Short-cuts - if they work at all3-4 - rarely produce lasting results. Chasing them wastes our limited time and money. Worst of all, the short-cut mindset distracts us from adopting more effective strategies. Spend 10 years pursuing short-cuts and not only are you likely at the same place you started, you now have 10 years less to implement a better strategy and enjoy the fruits of your labors.

If you’ve fallen for a short-cut in the past, however, it isn’t a character flaw. Short-cuts are seductive to us because they are aligned with the primal desires of our emotional brains. Human biology compels us towards solutions offering immediate gratification and paths of least resistance. For this reason, short-cuts have perhaps been around as long as civilization itself (e.g., the rise of "snake oil" products in the 18th and 19th centuries5). Modernity has simply mastered the formula for exploiting our native instincts for persuasiveness and profit.

Accelerators might sound the same as short-cuts. Yet they are a fundamentally different strategy for both speeding up progress and keeping the results. Whereas short-cuts tempt us with immediate returns based on magic proprietary ingredients and insider secrets, accelerators work by leveraging the scientific power of relationships, accountability, skills, and compounding interest effects. The essence of an accelerator is that they provide knowledge, support, motivation, and resources to help us progress short-term and long-term.

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To illustrate the difference, here are examples of short-cut versus accelerator strategies for common New Year’s goals.

Goal Short-cut strategy Accelerator

*Get in shape * Fitness fads, magazine programs Hire a personal trainer, have a workout partner, join an exercise class

*Get wealthy * Lottery tickets, cryptocurrency scams Setup an automatic 401k/investment plan, hire a financial advisor

*Lose weight * Start a new diet, weight loss supplements Track steps towards 10k/day, focus on protein, fiber, and 1-ingredient foods

*Fall in love * Pick-up lines, colognes & perfumes Attend regular social events, develop 1-2 skills you enjoy sharing

The most effective accelerators of all, however, are ones yielding returns across multiple areas. Think of these as "universal accelerators" in contrast to the above "specific accelerators".

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1. For example, getting 7-9 hours of sleep per night, coupled with a regular wake-up time, might be the most powerful universal accelerator of all because it simultaneously enhances every aspect of our physical, cognitive, and emotional function.
2. Spending at least a few hours each week (in person) with your most valued friends, family, and intimate partners is a second example of a potent universal accelerator. The benefits of these consistent interactions ripple across every area of life.
3. Regularly investing in personal development activities - reading, learning, seminars, working with coaches, therapists, and mentors - is yet a third broad spectrum accelerator that can improve our progress towards multiple goals at the same time.

Summary

Tired of chasing short-cuts and snake oil success strategies? If so, accelerators may offer you a new, science-based formula for achieving your health and quality of life goals. Unlike short-cuts, accelerators don’t rely on miracle programs or secret ingredients to produce results. Instead, they leverage the strengths of our human psychology to improve consistency, motivation, and social support, build long-term habits, and enable us to benefit from continuous learning even as we are advancing towards our goals.

Whatever your goals may be for the coming year, don’t settle for short-term solutions and temporary motivators. Accelerators are a proven long-term strategy that can both help you reach your goals faster and enjoy their benefits for many years to come.

References

1. Norcross JC, Vangarelli DJ. The resolution solution: Longitudinal examination of New Year’s change attempts. J Subst Abuse. 1989;1(2):127–134.

2. Oscarsson M, Carlbring P, Andersson G, Rozental A. A large-scale experiment on New Year’s resolutions: Approach-oriented goals are more successful than avoidance-oriented goals. PLoS One. 2020 Dec 9;15(12):e0234097. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0234097.

3. Cohen PA, Avula B, Katragunta K, Travis JC, Khan I. Presence and Quantity of Botanical Ingredients With Purported Performance-Enhancing Properties in Sports Supplements. JAMA Netw Open. 2023;6(7):e2323879. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.23879

4. Crawford C, Avula B, Lindsey AT, Walter A, Katragunta K, Khan IA, Deuster PA. Analysis of Select Dietary Supplement Products Marketed to Support or Boost the Immune System. JAMA Netw Open. 2022 Aug 1;5(8):e2226040. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.26040.