Resolve to think bigger in 2022

WHY do we make the same New Year's resolutions year after year? "This will be the year that I will lose 20 pounds (9 kg) and exercise 5 days a week." "I resolve to stop being late, again." "This year I will start volunteering."

We make these promises, but most of us continually fail to achieve them, which we attribute to a failure of will. Fitness companies and weight-loss programmes know that they have to sign us up in January, when our willpower is the strongest: by February, we begin to tire; by March, having lost 5 pounds, we revert to our old habits.

The deeper problem, as my father would put it, is the "triumph of hope over expectation". The only way to change the path of expectation is to face and dissect why our resolutions failed before. That road leads to many unexpected destinations far beyond willpower.