A cost-benefit analysis can help us make New Year's resolutions that’ll be kept

livemint.com:

If you are planning on setting out New Year’s resolutions [or have already done so as the calendar flipped to 1 January 2024], you are in good company. Surveys suggest that about one-third of all Americans outline one or more goals for the New Year. The problem is that only about one in ten can stick with them.

So how do you make a resolution that will stick? The first step is to apply a core principle of economics: You should do things only when its benefits exceed the costs. While that may seem obvious, the trick lies is in the systematic thinking which ensures that you follow through with this obvious advice. That means breaking down larger and more general goals into smaller and more concrete ones.

Thus, instead of resolving to “exercise more," for example, ask yourself how much you would benefit if you spent another 15 minutes a week , say, exercising. The answer will depend on how much time you already spend exercising, what you would do with those 15 minutes if you didn’t use them to exercise, and a host of other benefits and costs that are surely unique to you. The trick, to borrow another term from economics, is to evaluate marginal benefits and costs, rather than total benefits and costs.

Breaking goals into small chunks helps you see the effects of an incremental (or marginal) change. If the benefits are high and the costs are low, then go ahead and make that resolution! Then consider adding another 15 minutes a week to the schedule, and so on. Even if a big, sweeping change is what you think you want, concrete goals are easier to achieve.