The Fresh Start Effect

I want to talk to you today about something I recently learned called the Fresh Start Effect. The Fresh Start Effect that research shows that makes us more likely to achieve our goals.

It happens on a Monday or like a start of a new week or the start of a new year or the start of a new month or on like a birthday or on a moment when you are like, I need to kick things into gear. When summer ends, when any like milestone or moment that you're met with and you're like, you know what, I'm gonna change the way I do things, or at least I'm gonna start to think about ways I could.

improve or things I want to change, things I want to update, or things I want to do differently or do better. The Fresh Start effect is a psychological phenomenon where temporal landmarks such as new weeks, months, years, birthdays, or holidays make people feel disconnected from their past failures and more motive motivated, motivated to pursue long-term goals.

All that says is that people are more motivated to pursue their goals or the things they want to do in life at a meaningful point in time. New year, birthday, Monday, new month, major life change or moment. And researchers have found that these yeah, I did research. Researchers have found that these moments create a mental separation from who we were before and who we want to become, making it easier to feel motivated to change.

I think that is what is so interesting. Like, that is what the fresh start effect is that it's a moment where we can finally like feel like, okay, I'm allowed to let that previous version of myself go and kind of like shed that to become something new or someone new or change things up. And it's really interesting. I think you'll really like this. Here are some statistics that support the fresh start effect, and this is not done for me.

Through me, because I didn't do this research, obviously. This was done through research at University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School about 10 years ago. And they found that there is a 33% increase in gym attendance at the start of a new week. So and every Monday you'll see more people at the gym, which is concurrent with what I've seen I see every week at the gym. Like people are always there Monday and Tuesday, and then and there's like a big drop-off Wednesday, Thursday, and then like nobody's there on Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

82% increase in diet-related Google searches at the beginning of a new year. So that also makes sense because people want to change their eating habits, their life habits, they want to lose weight, they want to gain muscle at the beginning of every new year. That's like the new year resolutions. And there was a 145% increase in goal setting commitments at the start of a new year, showing how fresh start starts motivate people to pursue personal goals. Here is a little bit more from the Fresh Start Effects research.

A fresh start creates a clean slate. People feel like they have an opportunity to start over and make positive changes, and that's great. Time creates psychological separation. Meaningful dates help people mentally separate their past mistakes from their future potential. And fresh starts increase motivation. People are more likely to pursue goals like exercising, eating healthier, and improving their lives with a fresh start.

All of these things, all of these reasons make the fresh start make total sense. Because I follow this, and I'm sure you follow this too, with or without knowing it, like without being consciously aware that we're doing it. I think we all follow this. We all like the idea of a fresh start and a clean slate. We all like the idea of separating our past and being like, that person is there and I did these things this way, but now, right this second, because of this fresh start, because of this meaningful date.

I am going to do things differently starting now. We like the idea of using that to increase our motivation. I like the idea of using that to increase my motivation. I'll speak for myself here. And we're much more likely, I'm much more likely to pursue my goals when I have a fresh start like that. But I want to provide a counter to this. And the reason I wanted to talk about this we with you today is because it's all made up. Like, not the research. I'm not giving you fake research and then just being like, ha, like made up. No, no.

It is the the fresh start effect is a psychological thing that like we tell ourselves. Like we tell ourselves that we have to wait for a moment or a milestone or a holiday or a birthday or a new week or a new month to make a change. We tell ourselves that we have to wait until that time to do things differently or to change our own lives. When in fact that is just complete and utter bullshit. Like that is bullshit that we feed ourselves.

We tell ourselves that we'll do it then, or we'll try again on Monday, or we'll start over again. Why not now? Like, why not start over right now? I think that the fresh start effect is this really funny phenomena that like we all follow. And why do we all follow that? Like, why is that something that we all do? Like, why are we kind of like sheep to the fresh start phenomena?

And i the the research supports it. And I think that like I see it with myself. I think if you're listening right now, you can probably see it in yourself too, where you're like, shit, like I also follow that. Like I also wait for a birthday or a moment or like a or or something to come up for me to be like, I can finally make that change, or this is the moment I can make that change. When in fact you can make that change right this second. Like

You can decide today to do things differently, but for some reason, not some reason, for this reason, we wait until a moment to separate our past self from our new self, to separate our previous mistakes and our mess-ups and our fuck-ups and our failures from the I'm gonna do things differently. And I think that also like perpetuates the idea that when we mess up after we set our goals, we completely set ourselves back and we've failed. I think it perpetuates the idea that in order

To change your life, you have to be completely successful 100% of the time. And anytime we mess up or we make a mistake, we feel like utter failures. And I think that's really bad. Like I think that's why we see so much drop-off. This I I didn't find the research to support drop-off of New Year's resolutions or like changing your life after a new year, but I'm sure there is something that supports the fact that like a after you lose your streak or

you lose a day or you don't do the thing that you set out to do every single day, you then stop. Like after 10 days, if the 11th day you miss it, then you're like, all right, well, I missed it once. I'll I'll try again next year. Or I'll try again next month. Like there's gotta be something that supports that too. And I think that's why this fresh start effect is so like bananas, because like bulg b what's the word I'm looking not bananas. I need to say bananas. I'm looking for the word. It's ja I just but it's bullshit. I think it's my bullshit

Thing. but it's true. I do the same thing. Like I wait till a Monday or a new month or something to come up in order for me to change what I'm doing, change my habits, change even like the smallest habits. The things that I want to do, but like the the thing about changing your life and changing the way you do things.

Is that there's never gonna be somebody that comes up to you and tells you that you have to do it. Like there's never gonna be somebody that comes up to you and shakes you and is like, Josh, you have to fucking make this change or you have to do this. It will improve your life if you do this. Not even you have to, you should do this. There's never gonna be somebody or a sign, like somebody holding up a sign that says, like, hey, you have to change your life, or if you do these things differently, like you will be happier.

You'll be better off, you'll be more confident, you'll be more confident in yourself and your abilities, and your self-esteem will go up, and all these things will change if you decide to do this, if you stop pushing off the things that you've wanted to do, if you decide to actually take action on the things that you have wanted to do, but you're afraid to do, if you actually decide to look at what's in the other side of fear and you stop being afraid of failure, and you just go and try.

There's never gonna be somebody that tells you that you have to do it. It's always up to you, and it will always be up to you. And that I think is one of the reasons we wait for these moments, we wait for these milestones, we wait for that fresh start effect to kick in, because there is nobody to tell us that we have to do it or we should do it. We wait for a moment for us to mentally kind of wrap our head around the fact that, like, okay, now we can make a change. When in fact you can make that change at any given moment in time. It doesn't have to be a Monday, it doesn't have to be the start of a week or the start of a month. It can be

Whatever time and date and moment you are listening to this right now, that is the moment that you can make that change. One day can quickly become day one if you believe that, if you get over the doubt, if you get over what you might think everybody's gonna think of what you're doing, if you get over the fear and the

Fear of failure and the idea that in order to change like you you just you have to get over all of that doubt and stop believing the things that are mi like pushing away your goals or stopping you from starting or even trying in the first place. I love this fresh start effect.

Because it is the perfect follow-up to last week's episode, and I found it in the perfect time too. Last week's episode, I talked about how to get back up again. And I talk about the idea of feeling so far off your path or far from where you want to be, or from the line that you hoped you would be on, or where you thought you would be on at this point in your life. And I think that everybody in your twenties, everybody in our twenties,

Can relate to what I'm saying right now. That one of the few things in life, whether it's your career or your relationships or where you live or what you're doing, or your mindset, or your confidence, or one of the things, like the big things that we compare to all of our friends, or we judge ourselves against friendships, relationships, all of the things, everything, earning, like the things that we look at and we're like,

Damn, how does does that friend have all of that together? When in fact, if you looked deeply at their situation or you understood their situation fully, which we never fully can because we're not that person, you would know that they don't have all of those things because nobody has all of this those things, especially not at the same time. It's impossible. But especially in our 20s and in this time of so much change and so much constant shifting and and motion and movement, we're looking around and comparing

To the other people in our lives that are doing things that we are surmising to be great. whether it's something on LinkedIn and somebody just got an amazing career jump or a promotion or did something that you're like, holy shit, how are they doing that? Or they moved in with somebody, or they got engaged, or they got a new apartment, or they moved on to their own, or they moved cities, or they moved careers, or they moved like whatever it is. We're looking every at all times around ourselves, the people around us in our lives.

And comparing to them. And that also takes us away from our goal because it doesn't matter what everybody else is doing. It doesn't help you to look at what everybody else is doing because it has nothing to do with you. But looking at all that, comparing yourself can take you even further away from where you want to be, and it can make you feel further away from where you are and where you wanna be, and it can feel like it's impossible to get back there.

And I think this is like the perfect kind of hand in hand handshake episode to last week. It's kind of runs in tandem with it because the fresh start effect is cool because it's true, but at the same time, it's also bullshit. Like you are allowed to start fresh any single day. And you don't need my permission to do that. Like you don't need me to say you're allowed to do that. We have to know that we can do that.

We have to know that when and and this takes time and it takes understanding and it takes you starting and trying to be like, wait, holy shit, I can do that. I have a great example for you. I have a personal example for you. I said to myself, by the end of summer, I am going to organize my apartment. Like I'm gonna get things in order. I'm going to no longer feel like everything's haphazard and there's stuff everywhere, and I don't know where this thing is or that thing is. And by the end of the summer,

By the end of September, I am going to or i I said August. By the end of August, I am going to have things in order and I'm gonna know where everything is and feel good about everything. And then September came around and I was like, okay, by the end of September, I'm gonna have everything in order, I'm gonna know where everything is, and I'm gonna know. And then October came around, and I'm still not fully there. But I kept waiting for these like temporal landmarks, these moments to come up to be like, this is my

Like cutoff. This is when I have to do this by. And I set myself to that. And it was just like a end of summer thing. And like that was my moment. What's stopping me from October, whatever the day it is right now, from that being the day that I make the change? Nothing. It's just my mindset around the fact of like waiting for previous me and new me to like meet up in the middle and be like, okay, here's the day. It's just me that's stopping me from doing that.

That's the only thing. It's me and my like want and desire for it to be a moment to kind of capture that and make it make sense to be like end of the month or beginning of the month or by this moment or by the end of the year or by by my birthday or whatever it is. Like it it doesn't have to take that moment or that milestone in order to make that change. Like I can very much so do that right now, today. I'm the person that's stopping myself from doing that.

And I think if you think deeply enough about it too, or not even that deeply, you probably have something that you've been either pushing off or pushing down or pushing away that you're waiting for a moment to come, or you're saying by the end of the month or by the next month next Monday or whatever it is, or by the end of the year, I'll do this thing. Why not today? Like, why not today? And I I think that that is a really interesting question that we don't ask ourselves enough. Like, why not right now? Like, what's wrong with right this second?

We have complete and utter autonomy of what we do right this second, nothing else. That is the only thing we have autonomy over, is ourselves and our own actions and what we do and the things we can actually make and change that day. And how much better will you feel tomorrow if you did that thing today? Like, how much more success would you feel like you set yourself up for if you did that thing today, and then you did it again tomorrow, and then did it again the next day, and then you're like, holy shit, I'm consistent with this thing, and I'm actually

Doing this thing. This thing that I was gonna wait another month for, I'm now three days into. Why did I take so long to get here? Why did it make me why did I make myself take so long to get here? Why did I stop myself? And then we all have our own reasons, whether it's the doubt of our ability or the doubt of it actually doing anything or making a change or changing our lives in the way that we hoped it would, or the

Perception we have of whatever. Like there there are so many things that we tell ourselves in order to stop ourselves from doing the things that want to do. And then when we start doing them, we're like, holy shit, we did it. And we see ourselves as a person doing it versus somebody that wants to do it. We see ourselves actually taking the action versus the person that wants to take the action. I saw this really good graphic recently on Instagram that was like the perfectionist versus the doer.

And the perf and it was two people on a diving board. It was a cartoon. And the perfectionist like kept looking ahead and like wanting to take the jump, but like didn't want to take the jump because they were afraid. And the doer just kept jumping and diving, climbing back, and then jumping and diving, climbing back up the ladder, and back and forth and back and forth. And the perfectionist never actually took the jump. They never took the leap because they wanted to get at the right angle and the right moment and the right thing and the right. And the doer just kept like throwing themselves down and then climbing back up, throwing themselves down, climbing back.

And I think that is the perfect kind of illustration for what I'm saying right now is that there's never gonna be the perfect moment. There's never gonna be the right moment. There's never gonna be the moment. There is only right now and what you do with right now. And when I heard this, this like fully inspired me because I'm like, I act like this. I'm very much a victim of the fresh start effect. I think it's funny to look at it like that. Like

I very much so love a New Year's resolution. I love a start of the month resolution and goals and all of that. I love my birthday because I think it's like a moment where I'm like, okay, I can look at the last year and I can look at the year ahead. And I don't have to wait for my birthday to do that. And neither do you. And I'm not and I I I I'm hopefully and I'm really gonna try to start now with the things that I wanna do. Like

I'm gonna clean up my apartment today, or whatever my goal is right now, which is clean up my apartment. I'm gonna do that right now. Why am I waiting till the end of the month to do that? And why am I waiting till like the fresh start to do that? And you can create your fresh start whenever the fuck you want. Literally whenever you want, you can change the things you want to change. You can enact or act on the things that you wanna do.

You are allowed to go do that. And you don't need my permission to do that. You can just go do it. And then see what happens. I think the best part about going to do something or putting yourself out there or going outside or going out and doing something is you don't know what that will do to you until you do it. You don't know what that will do for you until you do it.

You don't know how that's gonna affect you or motivate you or inspire you or make you feel something differently or understand something differently until you go do it, until you actually see yourself doing it and feel yourself doing it. You can't tell yourself or you can't know or understand what the effect will act effect will actually be until you go do it, until you put yourself in the place to do it. It doesn't matter the day of the week, it doesn't matter the time of day.

You can change right now, right there, wherever you are, whenever you want. You can decide on a random given day, and given is the important word here, because we are only given a certain amount of days, you know? Like you can decide whenever you want to change your life. And not enough of us know that. And not enough of us understand that deeply. Do you know what I mean? Like, not enough of us really internalize that.

And we kind of wait for that fresh start, or we wait for hopefully somebody to tell us or somebody to give us permission. Or you we a lot of the time we feel like life is happening to us when in fact we are the person making our life happen. And we forget that a lot of the time. Like we really do forget that. It's easy to forget, especially as so much shit is happening.

And hap it feels like it's happening to you, whether it's your job or your relationships or your friendships or the place you are or what you're in, whatever circumstance you're in, it just can feel like there is so much that throws you off from where you are and where your goals are and what you want to do. Let me take it even I'm gonna make it less vague. I'm gonna talk about a normal day. When you set out in your day to make a change or do something differently.

You then get a slack from your boss, and then you get an email from somebody, then you get a text from somebody, then you get a call from somebody. And you have all these external forces that are demanding your time and your presence and your energy and your effort that take you away from the thing you wanted to do. And you have to respond all these things. Like these are things we have to do. We have to respond our boss. We have to respond to that email. We have to make sure we finish that project or that presentation or that deck or whatever is demanded of us from our jobs.

We have to make sure we do that before we get to the rest of the stuff. And a lot of the time we can let that text, that email, that call, whatever it is, really throw us off from that other thing we set out to do at the beginning of the day or the end of the week or whatever it was. Like we really let all of those things sideline and sidetrack the thing we wanted to do and the thing we had our sight set on before our attention and our time and our energy and our effort was demanded and taken from us for something else.

So it is our responsibility to make sure that that light is still on, like that's still at least glimmering or it's glistening or it's like a like shuddering a little bit. You can see through the shutters that, like, okay, I still have to get to that. And that is important and that is on us to remember that thing. Like it's very easy after you respond to all the things and you do all the tasks you have to do and you accomplish everything you literally have to do, to then say, I'll do the rest of that, or I'll do that thing tomorrow. I'll get to that tomorrow. I'll do that when I can.

And push our dreams to the side or goals to the side, or the things, the habits, the tactics, the like literal things we want to change, as simple as cleaning up your room to as big as the dream of starting a podcast. Like we let all of our things we wanna do fall to the wayside because of the other responsibilities we have to accomplish and the things we have to do.

And I think that is why a lot of the time we wait for this fresh start to kick in. Because life and the things we have to do and the responsibilities we have to uphold get in the way of everything else. And that is the truth. That it does that stuff does get in the way of of everything. When you have to work from nine to five or nine to six, then your energy level is incredibly depleted and it's hard to then

Sit down for another few hours and write that business plan that you wanted to write out, or start writing that book you wanted to write, or make that recipe you wanted to make that you saved on TikTok, or call that friend you'd been meaning to call, or read that book you wanna read, or clean your room, or clean up your thing, or get your finances in order, or get your like l learn a language or whatever the thing you wanna do is.

To as small as cleaning up your space, to as big as starting a business, we let all of that fall to the wayside. And it's hard to maintain that. It's hard to stay consistent in those things. And it's it's even harder than staying consistent. It's harder to start. It's harder to get going. It's harder to sit down and actually do that again and get yourself in the place to do that. And the reason I'm saying all of that is because I

know how hard that is. Like I know firsthand that it feels impossible to do two things at once or three things at once or get all the things you want to do done. Especially in this time in our lives when nothing feels consistent or stagnant and everything feels like it's changing and moving and shifting around us and we're just like watching everything twister on by us and we don't know what's even going on.

Or what's happening because last year looks so different than this year, and next year might look so different than this year. And it's just a lot to handle and a lot to like settle down with. It always feels unsettled and it always feels like it's changing and it feels chaotic and it feels like never still. It always feels like it's in motion. And I feel like anybody in their twenties will understand exactly what I'm saying.

And there's a lot of anxiety associated with that. There's a lot of overthinking and like debilitating anxiety and and just like what the fuck am I doing? feeling, for lack of better word, that comes with all of that. And all of that pushes away the goals you set for yourself and the things you want to do and the things you want to accomplish or the things you just want to get to for all of the

Tasks and all of the anxieties, and that comes together to really make it hard to do the things you want to get done. So I'm saying all of that to say I fully completely understand that it's hard to start and it's so much easier to wait for a moment or a milestone to start, because that may give you that push forward. And that's fine. Like that is good. I really think whenever you start, it's a good thing.

But I really wanted to remind you that you don't have to wait for something like that to start. You don't have to wait for a moment or a milestone to start. If that is what it takes to start, then fine, great. Because as long as you start on what you want, as long as you at least try for what you want, and then you get back up and you try again for what you want or what you want to do, what you want to accomplish, what you want to see for yourself, the goals you have, the goals you've set. As long as you at least do try at some point, that's amazing.

But I'm here to remind you that you don't have to wait for a moment or a milestone to start. You don't have to follow the fresh start effect. You can start today. One day can be day one. And you don't need a major life event to start over or start again or start something new. Even something as simple as a Monday or a new month can provide a motivational boost, and that is great.

But you can also provide your own motivational boost right now. You don't need a moment or a day or a new week or a new month to do that for you. It is just never too late to take control of your time and your life and try again. What if you started today? Like, what if you started today? What could be by tomorrow? What could you do by tomorrow? By the next day, by next week.

If you started today, you will then see yourself as somebody that has started. You will see yourself as somebody in motion. You will see yourself as that person diving off the board and then climbing back up again, diving off the board and climbing back up again versus the person who never dives off in the first place. This is your reminder to get out of your own way. We're always in our own ways. Get out of your own way. Get out of your own head and into your feet.

Get into the place you are right now and try. And then try again. It's hard, right? It is really hard. I'm sure you fully hear what I'm saying and you know exactly what I'm saying because life gets in the way of your goals. Family things come up, friendship things come up, relationship things come up, career things come up, job things come up, things come up and life just gets in the way.

And then doubt gets in the way. And then you get in your own way. We all get in our own way all of the time. But you can decide today to do any of the things that you've been pushing off or being like, I'll get to that. To actually do it. You can decide that. You can provide that motivation for yourself at any given moment. Just being like, I'm gonna do this right now. I'm I'm going to do this right now. I want to do this and I'm gonna do this.

And then you will see yourself as somebody that's doing it. It is as hard and as simple as that at the same time. Get out of your own way and just see yourself as somebody that does it. It's never too late to take back control or take control of your life and your time. Get out of your way. Just do it. And just try. Nike's new slogan. But just try. Seriously. Just fucking try. See yourself as somebody that tries. You don't need a fresh start to change your life.

That is the episode. Thank you so much for listening to Guy Set, a guy's guide to what should be talked about. I'm Josh. I'm 26 years old, and I'm here every single week, every single Tuesday to talk about what should be talked about for guys. If you like this episode, I really hope you did. Please like, subscribe to this podcast. Five stars with review. That's one thing for five stars, not four, not three, not two, not one. It's five stars. Thank you so much for that. I really appreciate that.

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That is the episode. Thank you so much for listening, and I will see you guys next Tuesday. See you guys.