In 2014, researchers at Wharton pulled attendance records for 11,912 gym members tracked over 442 days. What they were looking for were points in time in which people’s attendance at the gym rose.

The researchers found that attendance wasn’t random. People came more at the start of new weeks, new months, and new academic semesters, and, of course, around New Year’s Day.

This phenomenon was given a name: The “fresh start effect.” The idea is that temporal landmarks create enough psychological distance from a “past self” that goals which originally felt stalled suddenly feel reachable.

A current landmark we’ve all just experienced is September. It’s relevant not just for people who started a new school year. For most of us, the transition from summer mode to our regular routine comes with the thought: Time to get back on track.

For some people, that means going back to the gym. For others, it’s finding the right meal prep routine, deciding to drink less, or just making a vague promise that this year, they’ll eat better. This mindset of a fresh start probably sounds familiar to you, too. And if it is, maybe the next step is also familiar.

For many people, almost automatically, the desire that says, “I want to take care of myself” turns very quickly into, “I need to fix myself.”

When a Fresh Start Becomes a Referendum

This new voice inside your head is not a completely different person; it’s more like a different part of you. Compared to the compassionate, positive first voice, the second voice is less confident in your abilities and is more critical.

You say to yourself, “I want more structure around food,” then immediately feel exhausted from thinking about meal prep and counting calories. You want to use the new tracking app, but you simultaneously hate the idea of constantly monitoring yourself. Your first emotions are hope and happiness, but you also fear the moment this “new you” idea will fall apart, like it did in the past.

None of that means you don’t know what you want; it’s just that different parts of you may want different, and sometimes competing, things.

Why the Mind Doesn’t Speak With One Voice

Internal family systems (IFS) is a therapeutic model based on the idea that our psyche contains different parts, each with its own perspective and protective function. Just like in a real “family,” where one person is trying to set the rules while another is trying to break them—and yet another is trying to make everything feel better immediately—these different parts exist in each of us.

The IFS model of parts (the evidence for the clinical model is still developing—a 2025 scoping review found promising results but called for more rigorous research) reframes the idea that there should be one leading voice we should listen to when making resolutions about our habits, and in general. Instead of looking for one “winning voice,” we can ask what each voice is trying to protect us from.

The Research on Eating Backs This Up

It might not be easy to give room to several voices inside us. It’s easier to think that there is one voice we should follow—the “smart voice” that knows what we should and shouldn’t do. But often in real life, it can be difficult to make the decision we think we’re supposed to make.

A 2025 Annual Review of Psychology paper analyzed years of research on self-control and eating and found a complicated system that affects our decision-making process: an interaction between reward sensitivity, emotion, habit, situational cues, and deliberate regulation often happens at the same time, as the relative weight of each varies by person and context.

We judge it quickly as a lack of discipline, but on the inside, many competing processes are running at once. While you might hear a loud and clear voice that says, “I just need to be more disciplined,” other voices pull you in different directions.

A Fresh Start Doesn’t Have to Mean Starting Over

None of this means you shouldn’t use September as a reset point. It’s actually a great opportunity to set new routines and name something you want to change.

Self-Control Essential Reads

Just try to remember that a new beginning doesn’t have to become an indictment of who you were before. The part of you who is looking for more structure doesn’t have to defeat the part that wants more freedom; they can coexist and find balance. The desire to change doesn’t have to ignore the part of you that is already tired. The part that wants constant pleasure doesn’t have to run the show, but it can get some time to have fun.

This September, instead of asking yourself, “How do I finally become the person I want to be?” try asking, “Can I allow myself to listen to the different parts in me, without fear—and make a decision while leaving room for each of them?”