When the new year comes, everyone sets goals such as dieting, exercising, or quitting smoking. But putting this into practice is easier said than done. If you couldn’t keep your New Year’s goal, what would be the best excuse? Recent research shows that saying “I don’t have money” is much more effective in managing your image.
Dr. Janina Steinmetz’s research team at Bayes University in the UK conducted an experiment with about 1,200 people and found that those who cited ‘cost issues‘ as the reason for not keeping their New Year’s goals were evaluated as having higher self-control than those who cited ‘lack of time’ as the reason. The study was recently published in the European Journal of Social Psychology.
“Many resolutions or promises involve time or money, so lacking one or the other is a good excuse to break a promise without negatively impacting others’ evaluations of you,” Dr. Steinmetz said. “But the effectiveness of these two excuses is not the same.”
He explained, “In six experiments with 1,200 people, the excuse of not having enough money produced much better results in terms of personal perception than the excuse of not having enough time.”
In one of the experiments, the research team had 200 online participants read stories about people who had set a New Year’s goal to eat healthily and then failed to stick to it. Some said, ‘We failed because the cost of purchasing healthy ingredients was burdensome,’ and another group said, ‘We failed because we didn’t have enough time to cook after work.’
Participants rated the first group that mentioned cost issues as having better self-control and were more likely to view them as potentially good exercise partners.
The research team analyzed that this is because cost issues are variables that are more difficult for individuals to control than time issues. People often use lack of time as an excuse when they can’t do something. Moreover, if you say you don’t have enough time, you may expect that you will be seen as capable and in a high position.
But the reality is the opposite. “Research shows that people tend to assume that other people would somehow make time to exercise or eat healthy if they were sufficiently motivated,” Dr. Steinmetz said.
“Mentioning factors that are difficult for most of us to control, such as lack of money, can help us be perceived as having better self-control when it comes to giving up on New Year’s resolutions or breaking promises,” he added.
This research could also be helpful to people looking for a job or dating.
“In job resumes and survey questions on dating websites, people are often asked to talk about failures they have experienced in their lives,” Dr. Steinmetz said. “We have all experienced failures, but it can be wise to avoid the excuse of lack of time when explaining why, whether you are looking for a job or a romantic partner.”
