How to Use the Fresh Start Effect to Achieve your Goals
A review of the literature on the Fresh Start Effect and some applications of it in the real world
The Fresh Start Effect
Everyone has set a New Year’s resolution at some point in their lives. Some of us keep these resolutions. Many more of us do not.
This large increase in motivation to pursue a goal on the first day of the year is a powerful behavior change concept that was identified as the “Fresh Start Effect” in a paper published in 2014. This paper observed large increases in searches for the word “Diet” on Google on the first day of the week (defined as Monday), the first day of a month, and the first day after a federal holiday relative to typical search volume. Similar increases were observed in undergraduate gym attendance and the number of commitment contracts created on the app stickK.
These increases in goal congruent behaviors are not insignificant either. They are some of the largest effect sizes we observe in the behavior change literature. The Fresh Start Effect is a powerful concept that should be leveraged in our lives to work towards goals.
Since this seminal paper was published, the literature has observed similar goal congruent behavior increases…
