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What we found in our research is that when there is what we perceive as a chapter break in our life story, we
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really actually see our lives as if we're characters in a novel with these chapters. And whenever there is a
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chapter break and we enter a new era that feels like a new beginning to us, we're more motivated to pursue our
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goals. We feel disconnected from our past self. We can say, "That was the old
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me. This is the new me. The new me will be different." And those chapter breaks
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arise at predictable moments on the calendar as well as at times when we make uh meaningful change like a move to
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a new job or becoming a parent. New Year's is the biggest of the dates that signals a fresh start and a new
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beginning but it actually happens every Monday at the start of a new month. It happens when we celebrate birthdays. So
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these come up a lot and the psychology behind them is around this thing we do. It's called mental accounting in the
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words of Nobel laurate Richard Thaylor where we don't perceive time and other
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resources as fungeable across boundaries but instead we bracket them and so fresh
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starts arise a lot but New Year's is a really big one and we should seize