After a month of making good on a New Year’s resolution, 45 percent of people give up. Gyms may be full of people trying to attain their fitness and weight loss goals in January, but the truth is, 67 percent of gym goers give up on their memberships because it gets hard to stay motivated. Luckily, science has a couple of ways for us to tap into the sweet spot for our ambitions.

In one study, researchers investigated the influence of financial incentives. One group of participants were asked to hit their keyboard as fast as possible and were rewarded with $300, while a second group was asked the same thing except they were rewarded with $30. Perhaps unsurprisingly, those who were getting paid substantially more hit their keyboard 95 percent more times than the group getting paid a fraction of the payout. In a second round of testing with the same payout ratios, instead of mindlessly hitting a keyboard, participants were asked to solve difficult math problems. Those being offered $300 for completing the math problems performed 32 percent slower than those being paid $30.

This is called the "distraction effect," when a person must divide their motivation (money) with the task at hand (math problem). There was more riding on how well they performed, which took away from their ability to focus on the task at hand. We see this in other instances, such as running a race for fun, versus running a race to win. The incentive to win sometimes causes greater distress than a less pressured circumstance. However, if someone runs a race for the win and then in the next race run for fun, researchers have found in brain scans that the anterior striatum and prefrontal cortex — brain regions linked to self-motivation — have decreased activity.

Experts believe this means rewards, such as winning a race, can cancel out a person's natural desire for self-play. And because play is the key motivator for long-term change and habit formation, it may be that having a little fun while going after a goal can lead to success.