I have been reading some behavioural theories about why we humans struggle with keeping New Year's Resolutions.

This might sound a bit off the professional track, but think of the impact on organisational productivity if everyone was better at keeping their professional resolutions. You know, the type of thing that you know you want to do, know how to do it - but somehow get stuck on translating that from knowledge to action?

Some theorists have used the metaphor of two different people to explain why we struggle experts even explain this as we are all two different people. One person, the 'should' self wants to keep the resolution (say to eat fewer pies), while the other, the 'want' self desperately wants to give in (and eat all the pies). Looking at the challenge in this way offers different strategies: using one self to set plans to control the other (e.g. not buying the bumper pack of pies in the first place); discussing and agreeing between selves who is right (e.g. working out whether not eating pies is really the most important thing for you and reminding yourself of your decision when faced with temptation; or rationally negotiating with the 'want' self (e.g. agreeing with yourself that you will eat all the pies you like on Saturdays but be good for the rest of the week). This is all very well, but research suggests that we are rather deluded as to the likelihood of our 'should' self winning the battle for self-control in the heat of the moment (i.e. how likely we are to eat the pie when we are really hungry). For example, the overwhelming majority of women due to give birth say they will choose not to have pain relief, yet the overwhelming majority do end up choosing it at the time. This doesn't appear to be a lesson that it is easy to learn from experience, as the same applies to children subsequent to the first born.

It seems that one of the keys to self-control, or keeping our resolutions, may be to admit the extent to which we are likely to give in to temptation, so we can put into place some of the strategies we might use to mitigate this. For more on this and some other intriguing research into managing our own behaviour, I recommend Bazerman and Moore's Judgement in Managerial Decision Making.

In the meantime, I have some study-related resolutions to keep and my husband's current suggestion is that I try a new strategy for self-control by chaining myself to my laptop. Let's see how that one works. I will report back again once I've handed in the final portfolio and had a chance to reflect on what I've learnt from the MSc, overall.