Transformation
First Edition
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Course Textbook for TRANSFORMATION SPECIALIST
International Sports Sciences Association
800.892.4772 • ISSAonline.com
Transformation
First Edition
Claire Dorotik-Nana, MA, LMFT
Course Textbook for TRANSFORMATION SPECIALIST
Transformation
Claire Dorotik-Nana, MA, LMFT
Transformation (Edition 1)
Official course text for: International Sports Sciences Association’s Transformation Specialist Program
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Copyright © 2019 International Sports Sciences Association.
Published by the International Sports Sciences Association, Carpinteria, CA 93013.
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Disclaimer of Warranty
This text is informational only. The data and information contained herein are based upon information from various published and
unpublished sources that represents training, health, and nutrition literature and practice summarized by the author and publisher.
The publisher of this text makes no warranties, expressed or implied, regarding the currency, completeness, or scientific accuracy of
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their independent professional judgment. If you have a problem or concern with your health, or before you embark on any health, fitness, or
sports training programs, seek clearance and guidance from a qualified health care professional.
About the Author | iii
About the Author
Claire Dorotik-Nana, MA, LMFT, is a Licensed Marriage and Family
Therapist who specializes in post-traumatic growth, optimal performance,
and wellness. Earning her BS in Kinesiology from San Diego State University, Claire began her career as a personal trainer and worked for many
years specializing in weight loss, performance enhancement, and marathon
and ultra-marathon training. As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Claire has worked with the recovery population developing wellness
programs, in residential fitness camps as a clinical therapist, and in private
practice counseling individuals and families – including victims of the Aurora Theatre shooting.
As a course developer for International Sports Science Association, Professional Development Resources, and Zur Institute, Claire has written over
thirty continuing education courses on a variety of topics from Nutrition
and Mental Health, Motivation, Stigma, and her most recent course, Counseling the Victims of Mass Shootings. Additionally, Claire is the author of
Leverage: The Science of Turning Setbacks into Springboards, and pens the
popular blog on Psychcentral, Leveraging Adversity.
Claire is always thinking about ways to improve physical fitness and nutrition as a modality for improving mental health.
International Sports Sciences Association
Contents
Introduction, p1
Why Personal Trainers Need to Know About
Behavioral Change, p2
How This Information Can Help Personal
Trainers, p3
1
Stages of Change, p5
The Stages of Change and How to Identify
Them, p8
Assessing the Client, p9
Applied Skills for Each Stage of Change, p11
2
Motivational Interviewing, p14
The Motivational Interviewing Model, p15
The New Science of Motivation:
The Latest Research and
Motivation Skills, p28
Using Ambivalence to Motivate Your
Clients, p35
The Motivational Interviewing Coach: How
Empathy Enhances Change, p39
3
The ISSA Drawing-In Process, p47
Modifying Personal Behavior, p48
Modifying Your Client’s Behavior, p55
4
Positive Psychology, p62
The Positive Psychology Model, p63
Positive Psychology Skills for Personal
Trainers, p77
5
Commitment Strategies, p107
Commitment Strategies, p108
Part Two: To Win the Game, You Have to
Know the Rules, p140
6
Flow and Experience Sampling, p193
Flow and Why It Matters, p196
Appendix:
The Complete Change Workbook, p282
Self-Motivation Booster: At Home Exercises
to Supercharge Motivation, p285
Get Positive: Positive Psychology Skills to
Create a Winning Mindset, p288
Change Methods That Work: The Complete
Commitment Strategy Guide, p296
Am I Getting Better? How to Use Experience
Sampling to Propel Change, p299
Introduction
2|
Unit Outline
1.
Why Personal Trainers Need to Know About Behavioral Change
2. How This Information Can Help Personal Trainers
Why Personal Trainers Need to Know About
Behavioral Change
Personal trainers have every right to expect that
what they learn in certification programs will
fully prepare them to help their clients adopt
healthier behaviors. While new protocols for
exercise specifics may emerge, or new information about nutrition may slightly alter our
understanding of how best to lose weight, the
premise is that the core of information available
is enough for personal trainers to sufficiently
(and hopefully excellently) perform their duties.
Also, many personal trainers state they are satisfied with the certification training they receive,
especially as new modifications, alternative
forms of exercise, and fitness specializations have
been adopted in such certification programs.
However, many personal trainers report feeling very unsure of how best to create behavior
change within their clients. It is here that we
must also admit that there is—and perhaps
always will be—a disconnection between the
idealistic presentation of academia and certifications programs and the practical realities of
working in the trenches.
Perhaps a larger reality is that academic
Transformation Specialist
preparation for personal trainers, like any other
helping profession, cannot possibly teach all
of the skills and knowledge to work with the
huge variety of clients who will likely walk
through a personal trainer’s door. Professional
preparation is simply not equipped to teach
personal trainers everything they need to know
and the best solution for every possible case.
What preparation can do though—and what it
does quite well—is to teach personal trainers to
make informed decisions about which exercises to use with which types of clients, how to
prescribe and prepare exercise plans, and how
to minimize the risk of injury.
However, what professional preparation does
not do is teach personal trainers what is now
consistently recognized as the most essential
component of behavioral change—that is, the
relationship they need to develop with their clients. What I am mean here is all of the relational
and emotional characteristics that teach not just
what to do with clients, but more importantly,
how a trainer should be with clients. This is
important as research in behavioral change now
clearly recognizes that, regardless of the model
Introduction | 3
of behavioral change used, the relationship with
the personal trainer (or coach or therapist) is the
strongest predicator of long-lasting behavioral
change. It is this human connection that serves
as the glue that sustains the difficult aspects of
behavior change. And while there are transformative factors that are needed for change to
occur, without first developing a trusting and
authentic relationship with a personal trainer,
clients simply will not change.
Yet it is not only in the field of personal training that the cardinal components of behavioral
change are being overlooked; with obesity
rates now skyrocketing, and diversifying into
younger populations, how to change peoples’
behavior is something that is missing the mark
on a national scale. While there is now greater
access than ever before to information about
healthy nutrition, campaigns to encourage the
adoption of healthy behavior, and even incentive programs (for instance, many insurance
companies offer lower premiums, and many
states have considered raising taxes on unhealthy foods), the obesity epidemic is showing
no signs of slowing down.
Personal trainers, like national campaigns to
fight obesity, have plenty of useful information
about exercise and nutritional; yet, all of this
information is predicated upon not simply
eating healthier and exercising, but also upon
changing a person’s behavior at a fundamental
level. What is needed—and what this course
offers—is not more of the same, but rather,
an inside look at the most up-to-date, evidence-based, and innovative approaches to
changing behavior.
How This Information
Can Help Personal
Trainers
Personal trainers are under more pressure
than ever before to quickly and swiftly create
change in their clients, to prove the efficacy
of their methods, and to stand out among the
competition—which comes in many forms as
more clients turn to medication, plastic surgery, Botox, and liposuction to confront their
unhealthy compositions.
And yet, without first understanding the clients, such as what stage of change they may be
in, their motivations for change, their ambivalence about change, and any mitigating life
factors, any personal trainer’s efforts to inspire
behavioral change will be hindered. That is to
say, inspiring change in a client begins with
first understanding the client on a fundamental level. From this point, personal trainers
can then tailor change approaches directly and
uniquely to that client, avoiding a “one size
fits all” approach that overlooks the client’s
unique circumstances. Further, a client who
feels understood is much more likely not only
to return to that personal trainer, but also to
more fully engage in the process of changing
their behavior.
Understanding behavior change can help personal trainers:
•
To understand how the stage of change a
client is in influences the thoughts, feelings,
behaviors, motivations, and challenges of
the client.
International Sports Sciences Association
4|
Self-efficacy: confidence
that allows changes to be
made and sustained across a
variety of situations.
•
To develop the skills to identify the stage of change the client is in
and how best to work with the client through the different stages
of change.
•
To utilize the pivotal skills of relationship building to develop a
strong rapport with any client.
•
To incorporate powerful motivational interviewing techniques to
raise a client’s awareness of the benefits of change and to shift the
client’s decisional balance toward change.
•
To harness the three core elements of motivation to ignite the
client’s intrinsic desire for change.
•
To incorporate powerful positive psychology skills to raise the client’s self-efficacy, to teach the skills of optimistic thinking, and to
restore the client’s confidence in change.
•
To teach commanding positive psychology skills to boost the client’s mood and to generate greater levels of fulfillment, meaning,
and achievement.
•
To utilize innovative commitment strategies to dramatically motivate change, and to maintain it throughout the stages of change.
To incorporate progressive experience sampling methods to help
clients uncover their unique state of flow and to utilize optimal
experience to boost autonomy, mastery, and deeper purpose—the
powerful components of lasting change.
It should be noted that behavior change is not exclusive to weight
loss or improving health. Changing behavior underlies every training situation a personal trainer may face—from coaching a team
sport to developing a corporate wellness program, to rehabilitating a
shoulder injury. The personal trainer who is equipped with the indispensable skills of behavior change is not only better prepared to face
a variety of clients, but also to inspire powerful change within them.
Transformation Specialist
UNIT 1
Stages of Change
6 | Unit 1
Unit Outline
1.
The Stages of Change and How to Identify
Them
3. Applied Skills for Each Stage of Change
4. Summary
2. Assessing the Client
Originally developed by James O. Prochaska and colleagues in the
1970s, the stages of change model grew out of the transtheoretical
model of behavioral change, and was later refined into a set of six distinctive stages that described the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of
people in the process of making a change. The model later went much
further to clarify the motivational conflicts that people experience
when making a change. For example, in the early stages of behavior
change, people tend to weigh up the benefits and risks of a change before preparing for action. Additionally, preparation for action—where
discussion revolves around planning the steps to take—precedes any
action steps associated with the change.
Stages of change model:
model that describes the
different cognitive processes
that underlie behavior
change.
Stage-matched
interventions:
interventions that are
matched to each individual’s
stage of change.
Decision balance:
an assessment of the
advantages (the “pros”)
of changing against the
disadvantages (the “cons”).
Transformation Specialist
The stages of change model also helps describe the different cognitive processes that underlie behavior change. For example, in the
early stages of change, people engage in more evaluative processes,
such as reconsidering their behaviors and raising their consciousness
level about the change they would like to make; whereas in the later
stages, people focus more on their commitment to the change, and
on environmental conditioning and their social support. Research by
Prochaska and colleagues showed that interventions to change behavior are more effective if they are “stage-matched,” that is, “matched to
each individual’s stage of change” (Prochaska & Velicer, 2009). Particularly in the field of weight loss, the stages of change model has been
shown to be effective, with successful rates of change 10% or more
above control groups, which makes it the most effective model to date
(Johnson, et al., 2008). Much of the reason for this is that the stages
of change model focuses not only on matching the intervention to
the stage of change, but also recognizes that the following factors are
necessary for people to change:
•
An increased awareness of the decision balance, i.e., that the
Stages of Change | 7
advantages (the “pros”) of changing outweigh the disadvantages
(the “cons”).
•
Self-efficacy, which is described as the confidence that a person can
make and maintain changes across a variety of situations.
•
Strategies to help make and maintain change—these are called the
processes of change.
The stages of change model describes ten processes of change:
1.
Consciousness-raising: increasing awareness of the benefits of
change and the risks of not changing.
2.
Dramatic relief: relief from aversive feelings about one’s own
behavior, and feelings of hope when seeing other people in similar
change situations.
3.
Self-reevaluation: the recognition that healthy behavior is an
important part of who we are and who we want to be.
4.
Environmental reevaluation: the recognition that unhealthy
behavior has negative effects on others around us.
5.
Social liberation: feeling supported socially in making a change.
6.
Self-liberation: feeling confident in one’s ability to change and
“liberated” from the negative effects of not changing.
7.
Helping relationships: feeling supported by others in making a
change.
8.
Counter-conditioning: conditioning healthy behaviors and
replacing unhealthy ones.
9.
Reinforcement management: associating positive rewards
with healthy behaviors and reducing the rewards from unhealthy
behaviors.
10. Stimulus control: learning to control environmental triggers to
promote healthy behavior, and to reduce unhealthy behavior.
Particularly for understanding the “decisional balance,” the stages of
change model is helpful for describing how people in the early stages
of change often see the cons of changing as being greater than the
pros, but as this balance shifts (with the pros being considered more
strongly than the cons), a person moves toward more solid steps of
change (Hall & Rossi, 2008). Further, this model also helps describe
the role that self-efficacy plays in behavior change, namely that, as
Consciousness-raising:
increasing awareness of the
benefits of change and the
risks of not changing.
Dramatic relief: relief from
aversive feelings about one’s
own behavior, and feelings
of hope when seeing other
people in similar change
situations.
Self-reevaluation: the
recognition that healthy
behavior is an important part
of who we are and who we
want to be.
Environmental
reevaluation: the
recognition that unhealthy
behavior has negative effects
on others around us.
Social liberation: feeling
supported socially in making
a change.
Self-liberation: feeling
confident in one’s ability to
change and “liberated” from
the negative effects of not
changing.
Helping relationships:
feeling supported by others
in making a change.
Counter-conditioning:
conditioning healthy
behaviors and replacing
unhealthy ones.
Reinforcement
management: associating
positive rewards with healthy
behaviors and reducing
rewards from unhealthy
behaviors.
Stimulus control: learning
to control environmental
triggers to promote healthy
behavior and reduce
unhealthy behavior.
International Sports Sciences Association
8 | Unit 1
a person moves through the different stages of
change, their self-efficacy increases, which can
predict a lasting change in behavior (Prochaska
& Velicer, 2009). Let’s now take a look at the five
stages of change.
The Stages of Change
and How to Identify
Them
equally. Because of this, the decisional balance
(where they see the pros as being equal to the
cons) can often cause a stalemate, with change
behavior put off for some time. At this stage, a
person may also have a high degree of ambivalence, while their sense of self-efficacy is not
quite developed. People at this stage will often
say things like, “I know I will feel better if I
lose weight, but I just don’t know if I can”, or,
“I know I will be happier if I start working out,
but I’m not sure I can fit it in.”
Stage 1: Precontemplation (Not
Ready)
Stage 3: Preparation (Ready)
People at this stage are often either unaware
of the risks of their behavior, or they mentally
minimize the concern of others about the risks.
For this reason, clients will often say things like,
“I don’t see anything wrong with what I do, but
I guess my wife wanted me to come here,” or, “I
think I’m fine, but my doctor said I should see
you.” Statements such as these indicate that the
person is in the precontemplation stage and has
not thought much about making the change,
and does not have any concrete plans to start
a new healthy behavior in the near future (i.e.,
within the next 6 months). Further, those in the
precontemplation stage have a decisional balance that doesn’t support change (they see more
cons than pros), and may not feel a high sense
of self-efficacy about making a change.
People in the preparation stage see the pros as
being greater than the cons, meaning that the
decisional balance has shifted in favor of change
and they are now ready to take action. In this
stage, people will often begin to plan out and
initiate small steps toward making the change;
however, they will usually still experience some
doubt about their success as their sense of
self-efficacy is still low. For this reason, this stage
is characterized by thinking about and planning
change in preparation for taking action. Here,
people will often say things like, “I am going to
start working out three times a week, starting
from next week, but I’m still not sure how I will
fit everything in,” or, “I am planning to eat lowcarb from here on out, but I don’t know what I
will order when I eat out with friends.”
Stage 2: Contemplation
(Getting Ready)
Stage 4: Action
People in the contemplation stage are more
aware of the pros and cons associated with the
change, and at this stage they weigh them up
Transformation Specialist
People in the action stage will have taken measurable steps toward changing their behavior,
within the last six months. In this stage, people give more weight to the pros of changing,
and less to the cons, which further shifts the
Stages of Change | 9
decisional balance toward change. Also, as a
positive and measurable change has already
been made, their sense of self-efficacy is higher,
and hence people will speak with greater confidence about the change; albeit at the same time,
they may still express some doubt. They may
say things like, “I’m really happy that I’ve been
able to maintain my diet for the past few weeks,
I just hope I can keep it up,” or, “I can see my
body changing, and I like it, but I just hope I
keep on losing weight.”
Stage 5: Maintenance
As people in the maintenance stage have maintained their positive changes for more than six
months, they will speak with greater confidence
about themselves, experience higher levels of
self-efficacy, and will consistently rate the pros
of change as being greater than the cons. Now
that their behavior is more stable, they are
much more likely to continue their healthy behavior; however, there is still a risk that people
in the maintenance stage may relapse toward
unhealthy behavior when in stressful situations.
They may say things like, “I’m feeling really
confident with my weight now, so I’m wondering if I can start eating some of the things
I used to really like,” or, “I thought that maybe
because I’ve been doing so well in my exercise, I
could take a few days off.”
Now that you are familiar with the characteristics of each stage, the language your clients may
use, and the decisional balance and self-efficacy
they may experience, let’s take a look at how to
assess which stage your clients are in.
Assessing the Client
As you can see, each stage is characterized
by specific motivational conflicts, decisional
balance, and the sense of self-efficacy. Also, the
language people use in speaking about a change
is unique to the particular stage that they are
in. In terms of assessing the stages then, you,
the trainer, can gain a wealth of information
through listening to how your clients speak
about the change, their thoughts about it, their
descriptions of their understanding of the risks
and benefits of the change, and their feelings of
confidence about making changes. The use of
open-ended questions can be very helpful here
in engaging your clients in a conversation about
change, which will help reveal the stage of
change they are in. However, you can also use
the following more specific questions to assess
their stage of change:
•
Tell me what your thoughts are about making
this change?
•
Is there anything specific that motivated you
to make a change?
•
How would you describe the benefits of making a change?
•
How would you describe the costs of making
the change?
•
At this point, do the benefits outweigh the
costs?
•
On a scale of 1–10, how confident are you in
your ability to make the change?
•
On a scale of 1–10, how strong are the factors
that could derail your change?
•
At this point have you made any plans to
change?
International Sports Sciences Association
10 | Unit 1
•
Have you taken any measurable steps toward changing?
•
If you haven’t taken any steps toward change, do you plan to do so
in the next six months?
The way in which your clients answer these questions will help you
better understand their thoughts about changing their behavior, and
more importantly help you identify their stage of change. In terms
of knowing just which stage they may be in, here are some important descriptors:
Precontemplation
stage: characterized by an
unawareness of the risks of a
behavior, or a minimization
of the concern of others
about the risks.
Precontemplation (Not Ready)
Contemplation stage:
characterized by a high
degree of ambivalence in the
contemplation stage, and
where the decisional balance
is at a deadlock.
Contemplation (Getting Ready)
Preparation stage:
characterized by a readiness
to take action, and an
understanding of the pros as
being greater than the cons,
meaning that the decisional
balance has shifted in favor
of change.
Preparation (Ready)
Action stage: characterized
by measurable steps that
have been taken toward
changing behavior within
the last six months.
Action
Maintenance stage:
characterized by positive
changes that have been
maintained for more than six
months.
Transformation Specialist
The hallmark of a precontemplator is someone who underestimates
the pros of changing, overestimate the cons, and is often in denial
about this misperception.
Someone in the contemplation stage is more aware of the pros of
changing and the risks of not changing; however at this point, the
pros and cons often receive equal weight, which can lead to a high
level of ambivalence about the change.
The preparation stage is characterized by a person who is ready to
start taking action within the next 30 days. Often, people in this
stage will speak about their plans to change, and tell their friends
and family that they want to change their behavior.
People at this stage have already changed their behavior; however,
because the change has occurred only within the last six months,
they may still experience some urges to return to unhealthy
behavior.
Maintenance
Even though the maintenance stage is defined by changes that have
Stages of Change | 11
been made more than six months ago, and
where their new behavior has begun to develop
more consistency, people in this stage may still
continue to experience urges—especially in
stressful situations.
Applied Skills for Each
Stage of Change
they can take that would raise their confidence.
Also, a discussion about the obstacles to change
can help reduce any self-doubt your clients
may feel about external events that may deter
change. Questions such as, “What might get in
the way of change? What seems to be making
change difficult?” can help your clients reduce
the power these things have over them, and
help them see that change may not be as costly
(or have as many cons) as they initially thought.
Lastly, people at this stage can be helped with
encouragement about their ability to change.
Stage 1: Precontemplation (Not
Ready)
Stage 2: Contemplation
(Getting Ready)
As people in the precontemplation stage are
either unaware of the benefits and risks (i.e.,
the pros and cons) associated with changing
or may deny them, in order to help them move
toward change, the decisional balance needs to
be moved (to where the benefits outweigh the
cons) in order to support change. To do this,
you can educate your clients about the healthy
behavior they are considering as well as encouraging them to educate themselves. It is also
helpful to ask your clients about their perception of the negative affects their behavior might
be having on their lives, or the lives of others by
asking questions such as, “Describe how your
unhealthy behavior affects you on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis? What long-term outcomes do you think your behavior might lead
to? In what ways might your behavior be affecting those around you?” In terms of raising their
sense of self-efficacy about the change, it is also
helpful to ask clients to rate their confidence
in their ability to change, and ask what steps
As there is a high degree of ambivalence in
the contemplation stage, and as the decisional
balance is usually at a deadlock in this stage,
efforts toward raising self-efficacy and heightening awareness of the benefits of change can
be very helpful. To do this, you can draw your
clients’ attention to some additional benefits
of changing that they might have overlooked.
Questions such as, “In what ways might your
relationships improve if you changed? In what
ways might your work life (or productivity)
improve if you changed? In what ways would
you see yourself differently if you changed?” can
help your client begin to broaden the benefits
of changing to other areas of their lives. Further, it can be helpful to tell your client about
others like them who have changed and the
ways in which their lives have improved as a
result. Turning your clients’ attention to previous challenges in their lives that they have been
able to overcome (or changes they have been
able to make) can help to raise their sense of
Now that you are familiar with each of the stages and how to identify them, let’s take a look at
how to work with a client in each stage.
International Sports Sciences Association
12 | Unit 1
self-efficacy. You can do this by asking questions like, “Can you describe a time in the past
when you were able to make a positive change?
Describe other challenges that you have been
able to overcome? How did you manage those
changes?” Lastly, in this stage, it can be helpful
to have your clients make a list of their skills
that will help them make a change.
Stage 3: Preparation (Ready)
Once in the preparation stage, the decisional
balance has shifted toward change, and clients are ready to start taking action. However,
because their sense of self-efficacy about the
change has not been formulated yet, efforts to
raise their self-efficacy can be especially helpful in this stage. In particular, addressing the
fears associated with failing can help mitigate
self-doubt. Questions such as, “What is your
attitude toward failing? Can you learn from
failing? Does failing mean that you cannot try
again? “If your fail one time at making this
change, does that mean you have failed altogether and cannot start again?” can help your
clients begin to reframe any potential failure
as a normal part of the learning process—and
one that they can learn from. Additionally, as
self-efficacy is highly linked to feeling supported and believed in, efforts to help build your clients’ social support networks can be effective in
raising their confidence levels. To do this, you
can have your clients make a list of their supporters and get your clients to inform them of
their goals and ways in which they can support
them in making changes. Lastly, to overcome
fears about not being able to maintain change,
it can be helpful to address situations where
your clients are likely to give in to impulses,
Transformation Specialist
have trouble maintaining change, or art risk of
relapsing to unhealthy behaviors, and make a
plan for how to navigate these situations.
Stage 4: Action
As the action stage is characterized by change
that is very new (i.e., within the last six
months), people at this stage have increased
levels of self-efficacy, and now see the benefits
of changing as much greater than not changing;
however, in this stage, the novelty of the change
has worn off. For this reason, focusing on
commitment strategies (which we will discuss
in a later section) to maintain the change can
be useful in overcoming the urge to slip back to
unhealthy behavior. To do this, you can teach
your clients techniques that utilize incentives
and penalties to maintain change. Focusing on
strategies like avoiding the unhealthy section
of the grocery store, removing unhealthy food
from the home, using text reminders of the
benefits of an activity while performing it, and
increasing awareness of the positive feelings
associated with exercise will help maintain
your clients motivation toward change. Lastly,
incorporating the three drivers of motivation
(which we will discuss in detail in the section
on motivation), namely autonomy, mastery,
and purpose, into your clients programs can
enhance their motivation. To do this, questions
such as, “In what ways do you feel more confident now that you have changed? What do you
feel like you are really getting good at? What
steps have you taken on your own (or come
up with) to help keep your change going? Can
you describe any underlying or deeper reason
for this change?” can help increase your clients
Stages of Change | 13
awareness of their sense of mastery, autonomy,
and purpose in changing their behavior.
Stage 5: Maintenance
Once in the maintenance stage, there is greater
consistency in behavior as people now feel a
greater level of confidence in their ability, have
overcome some obstacles on the path toward
change, and have also experienced some benefits associated with change. However, in this
stage, stressful situations can pose a risk for
relapse to unhealthy behavior. For this reason,
addressing any stressors (or stressful situations) can help your clients develop a strategy
for how to manage stress in a positive way.
Questions such as, “Who can you turn to for
support when in a stressful situation? What is
your attitude toward stress? Can stress be used
in a positive way? What are three things you
can do to respond to stress in a positive way (as
opposed to reacting in a way that might hurt
yourself or others)? What skills do you have
that help you deal with stress? What skills can
you learn to help you better manage stress?” can
help your clients face stressful situations without relapsing to unhealthy behavior. Lastly, in
maintaining change, it can be especially helpful to help your clients engage ongoing social
support for making changes. To do this, you
can ask the following questions: “Who most
supports you in your healthy behavior? Who
motivates you to continue being healthy? Who
do you (or can you) share your healthy experiences with? Are there any accomplishments you
would like to take on now that you are healthier
(such as running a marathon, doing a bike ride,
or learning a new sport)?”
Summary
While personal trainers are equipped to help
clients in a variety of ways, arguably the most
needed way in which clients can be helped is
through behavioral modification. However,
for most trainers, the information, techniques,
and skills needed to create a lasting behavioral
change are missing. However, when trainers
begin with a solid understanding of behavioral
change, they are equipped to meet clients at the
different stages of change they are in, utilize effective techniques to create and sustain motivation, and can offer powerful strategies to boost
mood, fortify change efforts, and invite optimal
experience. All of this begins with a thorough
understanding of the stages of change model,
and the ability to accurately assess a client’s
stage of change and then utilize strategies that
are specific for that stage.
International Sports Sciences Association
UNIT 2
Motivational Interviewing
Motivational Interviewing | 15
Unit Outline
1.
The Motivational Interviewing Model
a.
The Five Principles of Motivational
Interviewing
b. PowerPoint: Three MI Skills You Need To
Know: Reflective Listening, Joining With
Resistance, and Scaling
2. The New Science of Motivation: The Latest
Research and Motivation Skills
a.
PowerPoint: How to Boost Your Client’s
Internal Motivation
3. Using Ambivalence to Motivate Your Clients
a.
PowerPoint: Three Steps to Address Clients’ Ambivalence
4. Using Change Talk to Promote Commitment
a.
PowerPoint: Three Ways to Boost Your
Clients’ Commitment
5. The Motivational Interviewing Coach: How
Empathy Enhances Change
a.
PowerPoint: Three Ways to Express
Empathy
6. Summary
The Motivational Interviewing Model
While motivational interviewing (MI) originally began as a way to
counsel substance abuse clients, it has now become a widely accepted method of assisting any type of behavioral change. In part
developed by clinical psychologists William R. Miller, Ph.D., and
Stephen Rollnick, Ph.D., MI is a method that works on facilitating
and engaging intrinsic motivation within a client in order to change
behavior. Because it draws on the early work of humanistic psychologists, such as Carl Rogers, and places the power to change within
the client, it is typically well received by a variety of clients. The idea
behind motivational interviewing is that all people have a desire for
self-actualization, and through free choice and unconditional acceptance they seek to realize their potential.
Motivational
interviewing: a method
that works on facilitating
and engaging intrinsic
motivation within the client
in order to change behavior.
MI differs from the humanistic approach in an important way: it
holds that people often experience ambivalence about change, but
through resolution of the disconnect between their desired goals and
behavior, they can make the steps to change, and so the goal of the MI
coach is to expose a client’s ambivalence, whereas, a humanistic psychologist allows the client to explore their own internal states (which
may or may not include ambivalence). In the motivational interview,
the coach becomes a partner with their clients, developing a curiosity about them, through which the discrepancy between their stated
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16 | Unit 2
Change talk: language a
client uses about the change
itself.
goals and behavior (ambivalence) can be unmasked. By using various
types of questions—such as open-ended and scaling—the coach elicits
self-motivational statements and behavioral change talk with the goal
of creating a discrepancy that can enhance the motivation for positive
change (Davidson, 1994; Miller & Rollnick, 1991). Because motivational interviewing draws upon the universal feelings of self-actualization and ambivalence, it activates the capacity for beneficial change
that everyone possesses (Miller & Rollnick, 1991). It is in this way that
regardless of whatever change processes a person ultimately utilizes,
motivational interviewing can be a vital launching point from which
to begin further change.
Motivational interviewing as a behavioral change method is based
upon the following assumptions:
Collaborative: working in
a way that uses the client’s
own resources as important
tools toward change.
•
All people possess the capacity and desire for self-actualization.
•
The power to change is within each client.
•
Ambivalence is a normal part of change that can become a motivational obstacle in the process of change.
•
Ambivalence can be overcome through the coach–client alliance
as a collaborative partnership that incorporates the expertise of
both parties.
•
An empathic and supportive, yet clearly defined counseling style
allows change to occur. (Conversely, an overly directive, argumentative, or shaming style tends to decrease client motivation and
reduce change efforts.)
Additionally, MI sessions are guided by a set of principles that differentiate MI from other behavioral change interventions.
The Five Principles of Motivational
Interviewing
To effectively use motivational interviewing, keep these five general
principles in mind:
Empathy: a specifiable
and learnable skill for
understanding another’s
meaning through the use of
reflective listening.
Transformation Specialist
1.
Express empathy to your client through reflective listening.
2.
Uncover ambivalence.
3.
Avoid argument and direct confrontation.
Motivational Interviewing | 17
4.
Adjust to client resistance rather than opposing it directly.
5.
Support the client with encouragement and
optimism.
Let’s look at each of the five principles more
closely.
since we added a snack meal to your daily
diet. Well, what would you think if we added one more healthy snack meal later in the
day?” approach.
•
Principle #1: Express Empathy
Empathy is a specifiable and learnable skill
for understanding another person’s meaning
through the use of reflective listening. An empathic style:
•
Communicates respect for and acceptance of
your clients and their feelings. It’s that, “I hear
what you’re saying” response by you when
your client tells you something.
•
Encourages a nonjudgmental, collaborative
relationship between you and them. It’s that,
“We’re a team that’s going to make good
things happen for you” approach.
•
•
Allows you to be a supportive and knowledgeable expert who is there to help them.
It’s that, “You’re doing great and I’d like you
to try a new way of doing an exercise that I
think you’re going to like” approach.
Sincerely compliments rather than tries to
gain advantage by belittling them and their
efforts. It’s that, “Look at how far you’ve come
and how good you’re doing” approach.
•
Listens rather than tells. It’s that, “You were
saying how much you like doing those dumbbell incline flys. Well, if you like them, just
wait till I show you a great new exercise that
I’d like you to try” approach.
•
Gently persuades, with the understanding
that the decision to change is, and always will
be, the client’s. It’s that, “You were saying
how much increased energy your body has
Provides support throughout every part of
the client’s program to change their body
and life. It’s that, “You are doing so good and
I’m proud of just how far you’ve come. Please
let me know if you have any questions about
what we’re doing or about anything else on
your mind that I might be able to help you
with” approach.
Your client wants to feel that whenever they are
with you, they are in a safe, open, and nonjudgmental environment, and they want to know
and feel assured that you will understand their
unique perspective, feelings, and values. Motivational interviewing is most successful when a
trusting relationship is established between you
and your client. The key is to listen.
If you are not listening reflectively, but are
instead imposing direction and judgment, you
are creating barriers that could impair your
relationship with your client.
Let’s take a look at the 12 Barriers to Effective
Listening that every personal trainer should
know:
1.
Ordering or directing. Directing someone involves assuming the role of authority
or power in the relationship, such as where
the trainer is viewed by the client as being
in a position of power, or it may be where
the trainer’s words are simply phrased and
spoken in an authoritarian manner.
2.
Warning or threatening. Threats and
warnings are similar to ordering, but include
an overt or covert threat of impending negative consequences if the advice or direction
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18 | Unit 2
3.
4.
5.
is not followed. The threat may be one the
personal trainer will carry out or simply a
prediction of a negative outcome if the client
doesn’t comply; for example, “If you don’t
listen to me and do what I’m telling you,
you’ll be sorry.”
8.
Giving advice, making suggestions,
or providing solutions prematurely
or when unsolicited. This is where a
message recommends a course of action
based on the personal trainer’s knowledge
and personal experience. These recommendations often begin with phrases such as,
“What I would do is….”
Shaming, ridiculing, labeling, or
name-calling. Shaming and ridiculing are
forms of contempt, and express overt disapproval and intent to correct a specific behavior or attitude. There is perhaps no greater
barrier to communication and listening than
shaming.
9.
Interpreting or analyzing. Personal
trainers can be frequently and easily tempted to impose their own interpretations on a
client’s statement and to find some hidden,
analytical meaning. However, interpretive
statements can seem to imply that the personal trainer knows more about the client’s
real problem than the client does.
Persuading with logic, arguing, or lecturing. Persuading, and especially lecturing,
implies that the client is either not capable
or has not reasoned through the problem
adequately and needs help to do so.
Moralizing, preaching, or telling
clients their duty. Moral statements, like
ordering, assume a position of authority or
dominance, and often contain such words
as “should” or “ought” to convey moral
instructions.
6.
Judging, criticizing, disagreeing, or
blaming. Blaming and criticizing almost
always shut down communication as they
imply that something is wrong with the
client or with what the client has said. Even
simple disagreements may be interpreted as
criticizing.
7.
Agreeing, approving, or praising. When
everything the client has said is agreed with,
no matter what that is, the underlying message is that whatever the client does has no
relevance—as everything will always be approved. Unsolicited approval can also interrupt the communication process (sometimes
clients feel that they are not listened to) and
can imply an uneven relationship between
the personal trainer speaking and the client
Transformation Specialist
who is listening. Reflective listening does not
require agreement.
10. Reassuring, sympathizing, or consoling. Personal trainers often want to make
the client feel better by offering consolation.
However, such reassurance can interrupt the
flow of communication and interfere with
careful listening.
11. Questioning or probing. Personal trainers
often mistake questioning for good listening.
Although the personal trainer may ask questions to learn more about the client, the underlying message is that the personal trainer
might find the right answer to all the client’s
problems if enough questions are asked. In
fact, intensive questioning can interfere with
the spontaneous flow of communication and
divert it in the directions of interest to the
personal trainer rather than the client.
12. Withdrawing, distracting, humoring, or changing the subject. Although
humor may represent an attempt to take the
client’s mind off the barriers and obstacles to
that client making changes in their life, it also
can be a distraction that diverts communication and implies that the client’s statements
are unimportant.
Motivational Interviewing | 19
Principle #2: Uncover Ambivalence
In uncovering ambivalence, the goal is to create a discrepancy (a
difference) between where a person is (their current lifestyle choices, which include diet and exercise) and where they would like to
be (e.g., losing weight, exercising more, looking and feeling better).
Understanding that this discrepancy exists is a huge “aha!” moment
toward change. Once your clients understand this, they are much
more aware of their own internal resistance to change, as well as
the ways in which their ambivalence thwarts the process of change.
Often, this means that clients will also be much more receptive
to working with you as they are aware of the need for support to
achieve their goals.
Uncovering ambivalence:
a way to create a discrepancy
(a difference) between where
a person is (their current
lifestyle choices, which
include diet and exercise)
and where they would like to
be (losing weight, exercising
more, looking and feeling
better).
You will help them make those changes faster and more effectively
by listening carefully to your clients when they talk to you about
what is important to them.
As your clients communicate with you, you’ll be able to get a sense
of the important “focus areas” that they keep coming back to as they
describe their lives, the past, the present, and the future. Additionally, you will get a sense of what is holding your clients back. For
example, let’s say that a client consistently shows up for sessions, but
also continues to overeat at night. While you know that becoming
healthy is important to your client (as evidenced by the fact that
they show up for sessions regularly), you also know that they are
engaging in a behavior that is not aligned with their ultimate goals
(to become healthy). By exposing this discrepancy through a simple
reflection, such as, “I can see that you are really concerned about
becoming healthy because you are so consistent in your sessions, but
I also hear you saying that you are overeating at night, which doesn’t
line up with your goals,” you can help your client become aware of
their seeming ambivalence.
Simple reflection: simplest
approach to responding
to resistance is with
nonresistance, by repeating
the client’s statement in a
neutral form.
As you listen carefully to your clients, your goal should be to detect
any discrepancies, which you can then bring to their attention. To do
this, it is important to listen both to what is important to your clients,
and what they are telling you about how they experience the process
of change—as this is often where ambivalence forms. Essentially,
this is the major difference between clients who stand in front of you
in the gym ready to make healthy changes in their lives, and clients
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20 | Unit 2
who later go home, feel overwhelmed, doubt themselves, and act on
impulses that are not aligned with their goals. What is important to
understand is that ambivalence is not just something we all experience (for instance, less than half of the people who make New Year’s
resolutions keep them), but it is also an integral component of change.
That is, in order for change to be long lasting, we have to go through
ambivalence. Skipping ambivalence, while it may make the job of a
coach easier, typically will not lead to lasting change.
More importantly, uncovering your clients’ ambivalence through
careful listening and reflective statements will not only develop a
powerful alliance between them and you, but will also motivate
their own desires for change.
Principle #3: Avoid Argument
You may occasionally be tempted to argue with a client who is unsure about changing or is unwilling to change, especially if the client
is hostile, defiant, or provocative. However, trying to convince a client that a problem exists or that change is needed could precipitate
even more resistance. If you try to prove a point, the client is likely
to take the opposite side. Arguments with clients can rapidly degenerate into power struggles and do not enhance their motivation for
beneficial change.
However, when it is the client, not you, who voices arguments for
change, progress can be made. In this situation, the goal is to be
supportive and understanding and to “walk” with your clients and
not “drag” them along.
Principle #4: Avoid Resistance
Resistance points: areas of
change that need more time
to overcome than others.
Transformation Specialist
Client resistance is a normal reaction at any given time. Each client
is different and each will have “resistance points” that they need
more time to overcome than others. Sometimes, a client will show
resistance by behaving defiantly. Others may show it by “just going
through the motions” and not making any real efforts toward the
changes they have told you they desire to make. Whenever the client
exhibits resistance, look at it as a signal to you to change direction or
listen more carefully. Resistance actually offers you an opportunity
Motivational Interviewing | 21
to respond in a new, perhaps surprising, way and to take advantage
of the situation without being confrontational.
Adjusting to resistance is similar to avoiding arguments, in that
it offers another chance to express empathy by remaining nonjudgmental and respectful, encouraging the client to talk and stay
involved in the program. Try to avoid evoking resistance whenever
possible, and instead aim to divert or deflect the energy the client
may invest in resistance toward positive change.
How do you recognize resistance? And when might you expect to
see signs of resistance?
Client resistance can happen at any time. Some clients may exhibit
resistance at the beginning of their interaction with you. Others
may initially hide it, but will reveal resistant attitudes and behaviors
as your time with them progresses.
To help you deal with client resistance, follow these seven strategies.
1. Simple Reflection
The simplest approach to responding to resistance is through nonresistance, e.g., by repeating the client’s statement in a neutral form.
This acknowledges and validates what the client has said and can
elicit an opposite response.
Client: I don’t plan to change what I’m doing anytime soon.
Personal trainer: You don’t think that exercising and eating better
would work for you right now.
2. Amplified Reflection
Another strategy is to reflect the client’s statement in an exaggerated form, i.e., to state it in a more extreme way but without sarcasm. This can move the client toward positive change rather than
resistance.
Amplified reflection:
strategy to reflect the client’s
statement in an exaggerated
form, i.e., to state it in a more
extreme way but without
sarcasm.
Client: I don’t know why my family is worried about my weight and
how I look. I don’t look much different than most of my friends.
Personal trainer: So what you’re saying is that you think people
around you are worrying needlessly.
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Double-sided reflection:
acknowledging what the
client has said but then also
stating contrary things the
client has said in the past.
3. Double-Sided Reflection
A third strategy is acknowledging what the client has said but then
also stating contrary things that the client has said in the past. This
requires the use of information that the client has offered previously,
although perhaps not in the same session.
Client: I know you want me to give up junk food completely, but I’m
not going to do that!
Personal trainer: I remember you saying before that you know that
too much junk food can keep you away from the changes you’d like to
make, but it sounds like you’re not at that point to think about stop eating junk food altogether.
Shifting focus: defusing
the client’s resistance by
helping them shift focus
away from obstacles and
barriers.
4. Shifting Focus
You can defuse your clients’ resistance by helping them shift focus
away from obstacles and barriers. This method offers an opportunity to affirm your clients’ personal choices regarding the conduct of
their own lives.
Client: I can’t stop eating junk or fried or fatty food when all my friends
are doing it.
Personal trainer: You’re way ahead of me. We’re still talking about
whether you can… (insert different topic here, like get a new job, meet
someone to be in a relationship, meet new friends). We’re not ready yet
to decide how your eating habits fit into your goals.
Agreement with a twist:
agreeing with the client, but
with a slight twist or change
of direction to propel the
discussion forward.
5. Agreement with a Twist
A subtle strategy is to agree with the client, but with a slight twist or
change of direction that propels the discussion forward.
Client: Why are you and my friends so stuck on my being overweight?
What about all their problems? You’d be unmotivated and eat like I do
too, if your friends and family were nagging you all the time.
Personal trainer: You’ve got a good point there, and that’s important.
There is a bigger picture here, and maybe I haven’t been paying enough
attention to that. It’s not as simple as one person’s eating or exercising. I
agree with you that we shouldn’t be trying to place blame here.
Transformation Specialist
Motivational Interviewing | 23
6. Reframing
A good strategy to use when a client denies personal problems is reframing, i.e., offering a new and positive interpretation of negative
information provided by the client.
Reframing: offering a new
and positive interpretation
of negative information
provided by the client.
Client: My husband is always nagging me about my eating and exercising and is always calling me lazy and fat. It really bugs me.
Personal trainer: It sounds like he really cares about you and is concerned, although he expresses it in a way that makes you angry. Maybe
we can help him learn how to tell you he loves you and wants the best
for you in a more positive and acceptable way.
7. Siding with the Negative
One more strategy for adapting to client resistance is to “side with
the negative” and to take up the negative voice in the discussion.
Typically, siding with the negative is stating what the client has
already said while arguing against change, perhaps as an amplified
reflection.
Siding with the negative:
taking up the negative voice
in the discussion.
If your client is ambivalent, you taking the negative side of the argument can evoke a “Yes, but…” from the client, who then expresses
the other (positive) side. Be cautious, however, in using this too early
in your talks with the client.
Client: Well, I know some people think I eat too much, but I still don’t
believe I’m too fat.
Personal trainer: We’ve spent some time now going over your positive feelings and concerns about your eating, but maybe you still don’t
think you are ready or want to change your eating patterns. Maybe
changing would be too difficult for you, especially if you really want to
stay and look and feel the same. Anyway, I’m not sure you believe you
could change even if you wanted to.
Principle #5 Support Your Client with Optimism
and Enthusiasm
Many clients do not believe they have the power to make lasting
changes in how they look and feel. However, as a personal trainer,
you know they do, and you see it time and time again: People might
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begin with little belief and have many doubts, yet in a short time,
they transform their bodies and lives into something amazing.
That’s just the kind of thing your doubting client needs to hear from
you. You have the knowledge and power that can transform anyone’s
body and life. And by giving your client hope, optimism, and encouragement that they can change and you’ll be there to help them every
step of the way, you can infuse your client with the power they may
need to keep them committed to making the changes they desire.
Moving Clients from Resistance to Being Ready to
Change Their Bodies and Lives
Once the resistance is over, the fun part begins! It’s time to start
talking about how you and your client can change your client’s
body and life.
Here are four great ways to do it.
Strategy 1: Ask Open-Ended Questions
Open-ended questions:
questions that help trainers
to understand the client’s
point of view and elicit
their feelings about what’s
important to them.
Asking open-ended questions can help you understand your clients’ point of view and elicit their feelings about what’s important to
them.
For example:
•
How has your body changed since we started working together?
•
Which of the nutritional changes we’ve made do you like best and
why?
•
Besides having more energy, strength, and tone, what other things
have you noticed that eating better and exercising more have made
you feel?
Open-ended questions encourage dialog; they cannot be answered
with a single word or phrase and do not require any particular
response. They are a means to solicit additional information in a
neutral way. Open-ended questions encourage clients to do most of
the talking, help you avoid making premature judgments, and keep
communication moving forward.
Transformation Specialist
Motivational Interviewing | 25
Strategy 2: Listen Reflectively
Reflective listening is when you show you have accurately heard and
understood a client’s communication by restating its meaning. That
is, you hazard a guess about what the client intended to convey and
express this in a responsive statement, not as a question. Reflective
listening is a way of checking rather than assuming that you know
what is meant.
Listen reflectively:
listening in a way that
accurately hears and
understands a client’s
communication by restating
its meaning.
Reflective listening strengthens the empathic relationship between
you as the personal trainer and your client. Reflective listening helps
your client and reduces the likelihood of resistance by encouraging your client to keep talking. It helps to communicate respect,
strengthens the trainer-to-client connection, clarifies exactly what
the client means, and reinforces motivation. Using reflective listening can help you really know your clients as they give you verbal and
nonverbal responses and their possible meanings can help you zero
in on just what your client needs.
Here’s a good example of reflective listening between a client and
personal trainer:
Personal trainer: What else concerns you about your exercise and
eating habits?
Client: Well, I’m not sure I’m concerned about it, but I do wonder sometimes if I’m not doing enough or am eating too much.
Personal trainer: Too much of…?
Client: Too much junk food for my own good, I guess. Sometimes when
I wake up in the morning, I feel really awful, and then I feel awful for the
rest of the day.
Personal trainer: It messes up how you feel.
Client: Yes, and it makes me tired and lethargic for the rest of the day.
Personal trainer: And you wonder if that might be because you’re
eating too much?
Client: Well, I know it is sometimes.
Personal trainer: You’re pretty sure about that. But maybe there’s
more….
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Client: Yeah, even when I’m not eating so much, my body aches and I
have such a lack of energy and I wonder….
Personal trainer: Wonder if…?
Client: If not getting enough exercise or that eating the wrong kinds of
foods is affecting my body, I guess.
Personal trainer: You think that can happen to people? Maybe to you?
Client: Well, can’t it? I’ve heard about other people having health issues
later on in life.
Personal trainer: Um-hmm. I can see why you might be thinking
about that.
Client: But I don’t think I’ve reached that point yet.
Personal trainer: You don’t think you’re that bad off, but you do wonder if maybe you’re overdoing it with the food and not doing enough
with the exercise and not helping yourself in the process.
Client: Yeah.
Personal trainer: Tell me, what else are you thinking about?
Strategy 3: Summarize
Summarizing: distilling
the essence of what a
client has expressed and
communicating it back to
them.
Personal trainers can find it useful to periodically summarize what
has occurred in a current or past one-on-one session with a client.
Summarizing consists of distilling the essence of what a client has
expressed and communicating it back. Summaries reinforce what
has been said, show that you have been listening carefully, and help
prepare the client to move on. Summarizing is also a good way
to begin and end each training session and can provide a natural
bridge when the client is transitioning between the stages of change.
Summarizing also serves some strategic purposes.
In presenting a summary, you can select what information should be
included and what can be minimized or left out. Correction of a summary by the client should be invited, and this can often lead to further
comments and discussion. Summarizing helps clients consider their
own responses and contemplate their own experiences. It also gives
you and your clients an opportunity to notice what might have been
overlooked as well as picking up on anything incorrectly stated.
Transformation Specialist
Motivational Interviewing | 27
Strategy 4: Affirm and Validate
When it is done sincerely, affirming and validating your client’s
words and experiences helps build trust with your client.
Affirm and validate:
strategy that involves
affirming and validating the
client’s statements as a way
to build trust with the client.
By affirming, you are saying, “I hear you and I understand you,” and
this helps validate your client’s experiences and feelings.
Affirming also helps your clients to feel confident about tapping
into their inner power to take action and change their behavior.
Emphasizing past experiences can help your clients remember their
strengths, successes, and power they possess and can help prevent
discouragement.
Powerpoint: Three MI Skills You Need To
Know: Reflective Listening, Joining With
Resistance, and Scaling
Reflective Listening
Reflective listening means listening to your client without interrupting, correcting, or judging, and simply reflecting back to your client
what you heard them say. Reflective listening includes both repeating content (i.e., the words your client said) as well as emotion (i.e.,
the implied emotion behind their statements).Reflective listening
is a powerful way to dramatically improve rapport, help clients feel
understood, and connect with your client on an authentic level.
Joining With Resistance
Joining with resistance means not arguing, debating, or even attempting to overcome resistance, but simply accepting it as a normal part of the change process. When you join with resistance, you
include the client in the process of looking for solutions to obstacles
to change, which is a very effective way to build rapport.
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Scaling
Scaling questions:
questions that ask clients
to rate themselves (usually
on a scale of 1–10) on
anything from their
motivation to change, to
the degree to which they
feel overwhelmed by the
obstacles in their way.
Scaling questions are a very effective way to draw the client’s attention to the processes that are influencing their behavior. Scaling
questions ask clients to rate themselves (usually on a scale of 1–10)
on anything from their motivation to change, to the degree to which
they feel overwhelmed by the obstacles in her way.
The New Science of Motivation:
The Latest Research and
Motivation Skills
Motivation is perhaps one of the most misunderstood concepts
today. Ask people what motivation comprises and most will answer
with something like “the desire to do something,” “wanting something,” and “willpower.” But the real question for personal trainers
is, “HOW can we help our clients to have the desire, want, or willpower to do something?”
Do we simply provide incentives for our clients? We could offer them prizes for making changes in their lives—sort of like a
pay-for-performance plan in the workplace. We could try negative
reinforcement, such as charging them more for sessions when they
fail to make changes. This would be similar to teachers whose pay
might be dropped when their students fail to achieve minimum
standardized test scores. But, if you experiment with these techniques, you will find that neither works.
In a groundbreaking study performed by Edward Deci in 1969, the
experimenter used rewards—in the form of money—to incentivize
people to complete soma puzzles (i.e., a rubix cube). However, after
splitting participants into two groups (one paid, and one not), Deci
did something interesting. First, he gave the paid group money for
puzzles and then in the last trial, he told them that he’d run out of
money and so gave them nothing. He found that in that last trial,
the non-paid group outperformed the once-paid group (Pink, 2011).
Deci concluded that “when an external reward is used for some activity, subjects lose intrinsic interest in the activity” (pp. 31,34).
Transformation Specialist
Motivational Interviewing | 29
It turns out that this “intrinsic interest” is an integral part of motivation, and a whole lot more important than once thought.
Why? It has been found that rewards can actually transform an
interesting task into a drudge. This is what is known as the “Sawyer
Effect.” On the other hand, take away the rewards and make something fun again and the intrinsic motivation goes back up.
A study performed by Mark Lepper and David Greene further
elaborated the Sawyer Effect. In their study, school children were
divided into three groups: Expected Award, Unexpected Award,
and No Award. The “Expected Award” group was shown a “Good
Player” certificate and then asked if they wanted to draw to earn the
certificate. The “Unexpected Award” group was asked if they wanted
to draw, and then if they did, they were given an award unexpectedly. The third group was given no award. Two weeks later, when the
teachers set out paper and crayons during the children’s “free play”
period, the “Expected Award” group showed much less interest and
spent much less time drawing than both the “Unexpected Award”
group and the “No Award” group (Pink, 2009).
But in practice here, it wasn’t the rewards that negatively affected the
children’s motivation; it was only the contingency (“if you do this,
then you’ll get that) that produced the negative effect.
So, if intrinsic interest is essential to motivation and if contingent
rewards don’t work to increase motivation, what does work?
Motivation is comprised of three key elements: autonomy, mastery,
and purpose, whereby:
Autonomy: state in which
one is not controlled by
others.
1.
When people are given the autonomy to choose what they want to
do, their motivation increases.
Mastery: having full
command or understanding
of a subject.
2.
When people can achieve mastery over what they are doing, their
motivation increases.
Purpose: fixed intention to
do or achieve something,
such as an aim or goal.
3.
When people have a deeper sense of purpose for the things they
do, they are much more motivated to do them.
International Sports Sciences Association
30 | Unit 2
Autonomy
Definition of autonomous: the state of being not
controlled by others.
Step one: Educate your clients about
the relationship between autonomy
and motivation
In educating your clients about the relationship
between autonomy and motivation, present
your clients with the following Autonomy/
Motivation Spectrum, and related examples. In
doing so, emphasize that as autonomy increases, motivation increases, and as autonomy is
diminished, motivation declines.
Step two:
Identify current level of autonomy
Once your clients understand the relationship
between autonomy and motivation, they are
ready to identify their own level of autonomy.
To help this process, present your clients with
the following set of questions, making sure to
instruct them to answer in general, and with
their first response.
1.
How frequently do you feel as if you know
exactly what you are supposed to do?
☐☐ every day (3)
☐☐ once a week (2)
☐☐ rarely (1)
☐☐ never (0)
Autonomy/Motivation Spectrum
2.
How frequently do you feel as if you perform
tasks well?
☐☐ every day (3)
☐☐ once a week (2)
☐☐ rarely (1)
☐☐ never (0)
High Autonomy
Low Autonomy
High Motivation
Low Motivation
3.
How frequently do you feel confident in
what you do?
☐☐ every day (3)
☐☐ once a week (2)
High autonomy /
High motivation
Low autonomy /
Low motivation
Discretion over what you
do
Being forced to do something not of your own
choice
Being allowed to choose
when you do things
Being told when something must be done
Being allowed to choose
how you do things
Being told how something must be done
☐☐ once a week (2)
Discretion over who you
work/play with
Being told who you must
work or play with
☐☐ rarely (1)
Transformation Specialist
☐☐ rarely (1)
☐☐ never (0)
4.
How frequently do you feel as though you
could teach others what you do?
☐☐ every day (3)
☐☐ never (0)
Motivational Interviewing | 31
5.
How frequently do you get to choose what
you do?
☐☐ on a daily basis (3)
☐☐ once a week (2)
☐☐ rarely, if ever (1)
☐☐ never (0)
6.
How frequently do you get to choose how
you do things?
☐☐ on a daily basis (3)
☐☐ once a week (2)
☐☐ rarely, if ever (1)
☐☐ never (0)
7.
How frequently do you get to choose when
you do things?
clients a gage of their level of autonomy. You
should inform your clients that as autonomy
exists on a spectrum, there is no such thing as
the “wrong” amount of autonomy, and also that
through specific steps it can be increased.
Step three:
Identify any barriers to autonomy
Once clients understand the importance of
autonomy and have identified their own level of
autonomy, the next step is to identify what may
be standing in the way of autonomy. To help
your clients do this, use the following questions:
1.
Who do you feel restricts your autonomy
the most?
2.
What events or circumstances in life most
restrict your autonomy?
3.
What places most restrict your autonomy?
☐☐ on a daily basis (3)
☐☐ once a week (2)
☐☐ rarely, if ever (1)
☐☐ never (0)
8.
How frequently do you get to choose with
whom you do things?
☐☐ on a daily basis (3)
☐☐ once a week (2)
☐☐ rarely, if ever (1)
☐☐ never (0)
Scoring guide:
10–12
Very high autonomy
7–9
Moderately high autonomy
4–6
Moderately low autonomy
3 or less
Very low autonomy
To score the questionnaire, total the numbers that correspond to each response. Once
these numbers are tallied, the total can then
be matched to the scoring guide to give your
Step four: Create concrete methods to
increase autonomy
Once the importance of autonomy is instilled
and the barriers to autonomy have been identified, your clients must create solid steps to
increase autonomy. To do this, present your
clients with the following:
1.
Identify three steps to increase the amount
of control you have over what you do.
2.
Identify three steps to increase the amount of
control you have over when you do things.
3.
Identify three steps to increase the amount
of control you have over how you do things.
4.
Identify three steps to increase the amount
of control you have over with whom you do
things.
International Sports Sciences Association
32 | Unit 2
By completing these steps, your client increases
autonomy and feels more motivated. This success experience can then facilitate and promote
increased autonomy in the future.
Mastery
Definition of mastery: having full command or
understanding of a subject.
Step one: Educate your clients about
the relationship between mastery and
motivation
To begin the process of educating your clients
about the relationship between mastery and motivation, first clarify that mastery and motivation
are directly linked, whereby as mastery increases, motivation follows suit, while decreases in
mastery tend to have a deleterious effect on motivation. The following figure and examples will
help your clients better understand the concept.
Step two:
Identify the current level of mastery
Once your clients have been presented with
some examples of high and low mastery and are
clear about the role mastery plays in motivation,
they are ready to identify their current level of
mastery. To do this, present your clients with
the following questions:
1.
How frequently do you feel as if you know
exactly what you are supposed to do?
☐☐ every day (3)
☐☐ once a week (2)
☐☐ rarely (1)
☐☐ never (0)
2.
How frequently do you feel as if you perform
tasks well?
☐☐ every day (3)
☐☐ once a week (2)
☐☐ rarely (1)
☐☐ never (0)
3.
How frequently do you feel confident in
what you do?
☐☐ every day (3)
☐☐ once a week (2)
High Mastery
High Motivation
☐☐ rarely (1)
Low Mastery
☐☐ never (0)
Low Motivation
4.
High mastery /
High motivation
Low mastery /
Low motivation
Performing a task that
you know well
Feeling intimidated by a
task
Knowing exactly how to
do something
Feeling unclear about
the steps to take when
performing an activity
Transformation Specialist
How frequently do you feel as though you
could teach others what you do?
☐☐ every day (3)
☐☐ once a week (2)
☐☐ rarely (1)
☐☐ never (0)
Motivational Interviewing | 33
Scoring guide:
10–12
Very high mastery
7–9
Moderately high mastery
4–6
Moderately low mastery
3 or less
Very low mastery
To score the questionnaire, total the numbers
that correspond to each response. The total can
then be matched to the scoring guide to give
your clients a gage of their level of mastery. Here
again, you should inform your clients that mastery exists on a spectrum and that no amount of
mastery is too low or too high. The questionnaire
is therefore only a guide from which desired
changes in mastery can be made.
Step three:
Identify any barriers to mastery
To move in the direction of increased mastery,
your clients must both understand the importance of mastery in motivation, and be aware of
their current level of mastery. From this point,
the next step is to identify what is currently impeding their mastery. To do this, present your
clients with the following questions.
1.
What internal factors (fear, intimidation, lack
of trust) most stand in the way of your sense
of mastery?
2.
What external factors (people, places, things)
most stand in the way of your sense of
mastery?
Step four: Create concrete methods to
build mastery
Now that your clients are aware of what stands
in the way of their sense of mastery, they are
ready to make a plan to increase it. To do this,
pose the following questions:
1.
What three steps can you take to overcome
the internal barriers to mastery?
2.
What three steps can you take to overcome
the external barriers to mastery?
This process increases your clients’ sense of
mastery as they takes positive steps toward
overcoming what may have seemed insurmountable in the past. Now that your clients
understand these steps, they will be prepared to
use them again in the future.
Purpose
Definition of purpose: a fixed intention in doing
something: an aim or goal.
Step one: Educate your clients about
the relationship between purpose and
motivation
To begin the process of addressing and managing your clients’ sense of purpose, review the relationship between purpose and motivation with
your clients. In this step, it is important that your
clients understand that as their sense of purpose
increases, their motivation will increase as well,
and when lacking purpose, their motivation will
suffer too. The following Purpose/Motivation
Spectrum illustrates this relationship.
International Sports Sciences Association
34 | Unit 2
Step three:
Create concrete steps to increase
purpose
High Purpose
Low Purpose
High Motivation
Low Motivation
High purpose /
High motivation
Low purpose /
Low motivation
Feeling connected to
those around you
Feeling detached from
those around you
Feeling as if your efforts
have a measurable impact
Feeling as if your efforts
do not matter
Feeling as if your efforts
are appreciated by those
around you
Feeling as if your efforts
are not appreciated by
those around you
Step two:
Identify a unique purpose
While identifying a unique sense of purpose
can be somewhat challenging, it is a very important part of the process. Utilize the following questions to prompt insight:
Now that your clients are aware of the role that
purpose plays in instilling motivation and now
they are also much more conscious of their own
unique sense of purpose, they are ready to take
steps to increase it. Ask the following questions:
1.
What steps can you take to increase the sense
of connection to those around you?
2.
What three steps can you take to increase the
importance of your actions?
3.
What three steps can you take to increase the
appreciation your actions are given?
Step four:
Connect the purpose to a larger
context
In terms of maintaining a sense of purpose, the
act of connecting it to a larger context cannot
be overlooked. Not only does this step solidify
the process of identifying purpose, but it also
ensures that it is supported by the external environment. To help guide your clients through
this last step, ask the following questions:
1.
When do you feel most connected to those
around you?
2.
When do you feel as if your efforts matter
the most?
1.
Who do you feel would most support your
actions/efforts?
3.
When do you feel as if your efforts are appreciated the most?
2.
What steps can you take to connect yourself
more to this person or organization?
4.
When do you feel as though your efforts
have the most impact?
Transformation Specialist
Enhancing, promoting, and developing motivation is an ongoing process, and by directing
your clients through these methodical steps, the
odds for success are increased immensely!
Motivational Interviewing | 35
PowerPoint: How to Boost Your
Client’s Internal Motivation
themselves, and in what ways will people see
them differently).
Allow Your Clients to Have
Autonomy
Using Ambivalence to
Motivate Your Clients
Asking your clients what they would like to do,
what is important to them, and how they think
they are doing are all ways of allowing your
clients to have some autonomy in the training
program. When your clients feel like they have
some control over their change process, and
choose the activities they enjoy doing, their
motivation will soar.
Focus on Mastery
People naturally want to feel competent and
skilled, and not surprisingly, this is a very powerful component of motivation. Finding ways
within the training program to develop your
clients’ unique skills and to hone their sense of
mastery will not only increase their confidence
but will dramatically boost their motivation too.
Identify the Deeper Purpose
Understanding why we are doing something
and identifying the deeper purpose beneath it,
powerfully connects us with our desire to continue. You can help your clients connect with
their underlying purpose by asking them what
is most important to them, and what would
be most dramatically affected should they
manage to successfully change their behavior.
You can also ask them to describe and clarify
for you what achieving their desired goals will
mean to them (how will their lives be different,
in what ways will they feel differently about
Changing behavior is not a seamless process.
For many people, they experience a mixture
of feelings about the process itself. On the one
hand, they may say that they want to lose weight,
for example, and yet continue to engage in the
very behaviors that lead to weight gain. Similarly, they may join a gym and begin a training
program, but after the first week, lose steam
and fail to show up again. Inconsistencies and
disparate feelings such as these are a normal
and expected part of the process of change.
The theory of motivational interviewing pivots
around accepting ambivalence as the primary
cause of lack of motivation (Miller & Rollnick,
1991). It is through exposing people’s opposing
attitudes (I do want to lose weight, but going to
the gym takes too much time) that opportunities
for tremendous growth occur. When a client is
allowed to uncover their own ambivalence and
then, with your support, finds ways to overcome
it, they also uncover strengths and skills they
were most likely unaware of. It is in this way that
ambivalence can be construed not as resistance,
but instead as a sign of a potential for growth.
However, when ambivalence is characterized as
denial or resistance, your relationship with your
clients will suffer, as does their motivation.
In handling ambivalence, here are few things to
keep in mind:
•
Ambivalence is a normal part of the change
process that is experienced by everyone.
International Sports Sciences Association
36 | Unit 2
•
Ambivalence presents a powerful opportunity
for growth.
•
Your clients’ motivation is dependent on overcoming their own ambivalence.
•
Your clients must be allowed to overcome
ambivalence in their own way.
•
When ambivalence is construed as resistance,
your clients’ motivation will suffer, as does
your relationship with them.
When handled correctly, ambivalence can be a
very powerful motivational tool. Through the
use of scaling questions (which ask a client to
rate themselves on a scale of 1–10), resources
can be directed toward overcoming ambivalence and activating change. Let’s take a look at
just how to use scaling questions to turn your
clients’ ambivalence into motivation:
Step One: Ask scaling questions about
your clients’ desire for change
Because they draw your clients’ attention to the
thoughts, feelings, and actions that influence
their behavior, posing scaling questions that ask
them to quantify the extent to which they desire
change can help clients’ increase their awareness of their motivation toward change. Here
are some examples of scaling questions: “On a
scale of 1–10, how much do you want to become
healthier?”, “On a scale of 1–10, how much do
you want to lose weight?” Often when asked
alongside other questions about the things that
are holding them back, scaling questions can
help your client to understand that their motivation toward change is reflected in the ratio of
their desire for change and their own resistance
to the change itself.
Transformation Specialist
Step Two: Ask scaling questions about
the things that are holding your clients
back
Once your clients are aware of the things that
are holding them back (even when these things
arise from within themselves) posing scaling
questions can be a wonderful way to help them
understand the power these things have over
them. For example, asking your clients questions such as, “On a scale of 1–10, rate how
much you feel you might not be able to reach
your health goals?”, “On a scale of 1–10, rate
the likelihood that you will not change your
behavior?” In identifying their ambivalence
toward change in a quantifiable way, reducing
(and eventually overcoming) it becomes a much
more manageable process.
Step Three: Ask your clients what
actions they can take to reduce the
power their resistance has over them
Now that your clients are aware of the extent of
both their desire for change and their ambivalence about it, questions that ask them what
small steps they can take to reduce the power
their ambivalence has over them will orient
them toward solutions to initiate the process
of change. Instead of focusing on what is holding them back, or ways in which change has
not been accomplished, these questions should
focus on what resources your clients possess to
begin activating their natural desire for change.
Positioned in this way, your clients’ ambivalence can ignite their most powerful tool in the
process of change: their motivation.
Motivational Interviewing | 37
PowerPoint: Three Steps to
Address Clients’ Ambivalence
Draw Your Clients’ Attention to
Their Discrepancies
Once you notice that there is a disconnection
between what your clients are saying about
their desire to reach their goals and their
behavior toward those goals, drawing their
attention to it is the first step to addressing their
ambivalence.
Ask Your Clients How They Would
Like to Proceed
When your clients are aware of their discrepancies, asking them how they would like to
proceed (as opposed to telling them what to do),
puts the responsibility for change in their court.
Asking, as opposed to directing, is also a way of
respecting that ambivalence is an internal state
that must be resolved by each client alone.
Ask Your Clients What They Intend
to Do
Like asking your client how she would like to
proceed, asking her what she intends to do, is
a much stronger way of ensuring change than
telling her what to do, as people are much more
likely to follow their own intentions, as opposed
to others’ directions for them.
Using Change Talk to Promote
Commitment
Change talk is the language a client uses about
the change itself. When speaking about change,
clients may express a variety of feelings and attitudes, from desire, to commitment, resistance,
self-doubt, and anxiety. While change talk has
long been considered a powerful component
of change—relating how clients speak about
change through their intentions to change,
plans to change, and awareness of the risks of
not changing—the work of psychologist Paul
Armhein distilled change talk into one powerful parameter. What Armhein found was that
the more a person’s language revealed a commitment toward change, the more likely that
change was to occur. Here, commitment was
found to be different from the desire for change,
intent to change, and awareness of the need for
change, which, although they were considered
to be preparatory change talk components, did
not predict behavior change. Further, Armhein found that the pattern of commitment
change talk also significantly correlated with
a positive outcome; whereby a positive slope
of commitment across the MI session was
linked to an increased likelihood of success in
making a change, with the strongest predictor
being derived from the client talk at the end of
the session (Armhein, et al., 2004). Armhein’s
findings were later replicated in studies into
drug abuse, where commitment change talk
predicted an increased likelihood of success
in abstinence (Aharanovich et al., 2008), and
again with problem gamblers (Hodgkins et al.,
2009). Here again, preparatory change talk—as
expressed through desire, intent, and need for
change—did not predict client change.
The takeaway from studies such as these is that
talk matters, and specifically talking about commitment to change matters. While expressing
the desire to change can indicate a preparation
International Sports Sciences Association
38 | Unit 2
to change, expressing a commitment to change is
a much stronger predictor of future change. Put
another way, it’s the difference between a person
stating that they are motivated to change and a
person speaking about measurable actions they
are going to make toward that change. In this
sense, commitment change talk is much more
“action-oriented,” while preparatory change talk
is more closely related to the thoughts and excitement about change.
Let’s now take a look at how to use scaling
questions to increase your clients’ commitment
to change talk:
Step One: Ask scaling questions about
your clients commitment to change
Like asking scaling questions about your
clients’ ambivalence, asking scaling questions
about your clients’ commitment to change can
help to orient them toward measurable actions
that they can take to reinforce their commitment. Here are some examples of scaling questions about commitment to change: “On a scale
of 1–10, how committed to becoming healthy
are you?”, “On a scale of 1–10, how committed
to exercising every day are you?” Questions
such as these can help your clients consider
their commitment as a regulating component
of change. That is, change will begin when they
are ready to take action steps toward it.
Step Two: Ask about small steps your
clients can take toward change.
Once your client is aware of their level of
commitment to making a change, asking them
about what small steps they could take toward
Transformation Specialist
change can help direct their focus toward just
how to initiate that change. Further, because
you are asking your clients about what small
steps they can take toward change (as opposed
to how to reach their long-term goals, which
may seem overwhelming), these steps seem
much more attainable and their confidence and
commitment will increase.
Step Three: Ask your clients scaling
questions about these steps.
Identifying the small steps your clients can take
toward change is an important part of activating change. However, your clients’ commitment toward change can be further increased
through asking scaling questions about the
steps themselves. Here are some examples: “On
a scale of 1–10, how likely are you to walk every
day?”, “On a scale of 1–10, how likely are you to
reduce your sugar intake?” Keep in mind that
these questions ask about the steps that your
clients themselves mentioned (as opposed to
steps that you, the trainer, might consider important). By drawing your clients’ attention to
their commitment to the steps themselves, you
help them understand how manageable these
steps (and the overall process of change itself)
feel.
Through focusing on your clients’ commitment to change, and what actionable steps they
can take toward initiating change, you help
them harness their resources in a way that not
only predicts change, but also enhances their
motivation.
Motivational Interviewing | 39
PowerPoint: Three Ways
to Boost Your Clients’
Commitment
Ask Your Clients What They Will
Be Able to Do (That They Have not
Previously Been Able to Do) If They
Reach Their Goals
Envisioning future goals and desires helps draw
our focus to accomplishments that we might
not have ever before imagined possible. Your
clients may have never thought that they were
capable of running a marathon, taking a boxing
class, learning tennis, or riding a horse, yet by
asking them about these things, the desire for
change, and the processes that determine it are
powerfully activated.
Ask Your Clients What They Will
Miss Out on by not Changing
Similar to “sunk costs” (which we will discuss
in the section on commitment strategies), the
fear of missing out is a very strong motivator
for behavior change. By drawing your clients’
attention to what they stands to lose (or miss
out on by not changing), you will help increase
their awareness of just why change is so important to them.
Ask Your Clients Who Will Be
Affected by Their Change
Not surprisingly, people are naturally more
motivated toward action when that action
affects the lives of others—especially those that
are close to them. By asking your clients about
those people in their lives who will be affected
by their positive change, and conversely, the
way in which they may be harmed if they do
not change, connects them to the social context
in which change occurs—that is, others’ lives
will also be improved.
The Motivational
Interviewing Coach:
How Empathy Enhances
Change
The relational component of motivational interviewing relies heavily on the empathy of the motivational interviewing coach and links accurate
empathy to the efficacy of the approach (Miller
et al., 1980). These findings were later supported
by a study that demonstrated positive outcomes
between therapist empathy and twelve-month
drinking outcomes (Gaume, 2008). In another
study, clinician interpersonal skills were found
to correlate significantly with measures of the
client involvement (Miller et al., 2004). Further,
Rollnick and Miller (1995) found three crucial elements to the spirit of motivational interviewing:
1) it should be collaborative rather than authoritarian; 2) it should evoke the client’s motivation
rather than trying to install it, (3) it should honor
the client’s autonomy.
Let’s now take a look at how you can use each of
these factors to boost your clients’ motivation:
Collaborative Rather Than
Authoritarian
Acting in a collaborative rather than authoritarian manner with your clients means developing
an alliance with them that values them as an
International Sports Sciences Association
40 | Unit 2
integral part of the change process. Working
collaboratively also involves using the clients’
resources as important tools toward change,
avoiding directing the change, and working together with your clients to design the steps and
strategies toward change.
3.
Ask your clients why they really want to
change.
Honor Clients’ Autonomy
1.
Ask your clients what they think they should
do as opposed to telling them what to do.
2.
Ask your clients what they feel would be
helpful in the process of change.
Honoring the clients’ autonomy means working
with them in a way that allows them to have a
sense of choice in the process of their change
(perhaps choosing the types of exercises they
would like to do, the order of the exercises, and
the goals to focus on), provides them with a
sense of control over the process of change, and
encourages them to take responsibility for the
change.
3.
Ask your clients how they feel they are doing
(at changing their behavior).
Here are three ways to honor your clients’
autonomy:
Here are three ways to work collaboratively
with your clients:
Evoke Clients’ Motivation Rather
Than Trying To Install It
1.
Allow your clients to have a sense of choice
in the process of change.
When you focus on your clients’ motivation as
opposed to trying to supply it for them (or generate it through external means for them), you
create a powerful resource toward change. As
your clients begin to develop their own sense of
mastery, autonomy, and deeper purpose in the
change (i.e., what is most important to them),
they activate the crucial elements of internal
motivation, which is far more influential in
promoting change than any form of external
motivation.
2.
Ensure that your clients feel in control of
their change process.
3.
Encourage your clients to develop their own
strategies to overcome their ambivalence.
Here are three ways to evoke your clients’
motivation:
1.
Ask your clients when they feel the most
competent (strong).
2.
Ask your clients what steps they can take,
and what plans they have, to move toward
change.
Transformation Specialist
Powerpoint: Three Ways to
Express Empathy
Listen Fully and Openly
Listening without judgment, interruption, or distraction sends a direct message to the clients that
they are important, and that they matter to you.
Open Up
While you don’t have to spill your life story
to your clients, you can look for ways to connect with them, such as by sharing similar
life events, feelings, and challenges. Especially
Motivational Interviewing | 41
because clients often see trainers as models of
perfection— often as paragons of health—opening up about difficulties, flaws, and faults can
help clients not just feel accepted, but also show
that you care about their feelings—because you
experience similar ones.
Be Mindful
Being mindful with your clients means focusing your attention outward, toward what
is most important to them, and noticing what
their unique needs, skills, and desires. Devoting
100% of your attention to your clients this way
not only expresses empathy toward your client,
but also builds your own empathy as well.
Summary
The motivational interviewing models hold
that all clients possess the capacity for change,
and that the ambivalence they feel is a normal
part of the change process. Through joining
with the client to expose and work through
this ambivalence, personal trainers can be
very effective in helping clients identify and
utilize resources within themselves to motivate change. Further, when personal trainers
make use of the five principles of motivational interviewing—expressing empathy to the
client through reflective listening; uncovering
ambivalence; avoiding argument and direct
confrontation; adjusting to client resistance
rather than opposing it directly; and supporting the client with encouragement and optimism—clients respond much more favorably.
Understanding the three core elements of motivation—mastery, autonomy, and purpose—is
also of critical importance, and when trainers
draw upon strategies to increase the client’s
feelings of each of these elements, motivation
shifts from that which is externally based, to
the more lasting internal motivation.
International Sports Sciences Association
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Motivation Assessment
Date:
Client:
Autonomy: the state of being not controlled by others
High Autonomy
Low Autonomy
High Motivation
Low Motivation
High Autonomy / High Motivation
Low Autonomy / Low Motivation
Discretion over what you do
Being forced to do something not of your own choice
Being allowed to choose when you do things
Being told when something must be done
Being allowed to choose how you do things
Being told how something must be done
Discretion over who you work/play with
Being told who you must work or play with
1.
How frequently do you feel as if you know exactly what you are supposed to do?
☐☐ every day (3)
☐☐ once a week (2)
☐☐ rarely (1)
☐☐ never (0)
5.
How frequently do you get to choose what you
do?
☐☐ on a daily basis (3)
☐☐ once a week (2)
☐☐ rarely, if ever (1)
☐☐ never (0)
2.
How frequently do you feel as if you perform
tasks well?
☐☐ every day (3)
☐☐ once a week (2)
☐☐ rarely (1)
☐☐ never (0)
6.
How frequently do you get to choose how you
do things?
☐☐ on a daily basis (3)
☐☐ once a week (2)
☐☐ rarely, if ever (1)
☐☐ never (0)
3.
How frequently do you feel confident in what
you do?
☐☐ every day (3)
☐☐ once a week (2)
☐☐ rarely (1)
☐☐ never (0)
7.
How frequently do you get to choose when you
do things?
☐☐ on a daily basis (3)
☐☐ once a week (2)
☐☐ rarely, if ever (1)
☐☐ never (0)
4.
How frequently do you feel as though you could
teach others what you do?
☐☐ every day (3)
☐☐ once a week (2)
☐☐ rarely (1)
☐☐ never (0)
8.
How frequently do you get to choose with
whom you do things?
☐☐ on a daily basis (3)
☐☐ once a week (2)
☐☐ rarely, if ever (1)
☐☐ never (0)
Scoring guide:
10–12
Very high autonomy
4–6
Moderately low autonomy
7–9
Moderately high autonomy
3 or less
Very low autonomy
Please note: possession of this form does not indicate that its distributor is actively certified with the ISSA. To confirm certification status, please call 1.800.892.4772 (1.805.745.8111 international). Information
gathered from this form is not shared with ISSA. ISSA is not responsible or liable for the use or incorporation of the information contained in or collected from this form. Always consult your doctor concerning
your health, diet, and physical activity.
1015 Mark Avenue • Carpinteria, CA 93013
1.800.892.4772 (toll-free) • 1.805.745.8111 (international)
© 2018 International Sports Sciences Association
issaonline.edu
Barriers to Autonomy
1.
Who do you feel restricts your autonomy the most?
2.
What events or circumstances in life most restrict your autonomy?
3.
What places most restrict your autonomy?
Increasing Autonomy
1.
Identify three steps to increase the amount of control you have over what you do.
2.
Identify three steps to increase the amount of control you have over when you do things.
3.
Identify three steps to increase the amount of control you have over how you do things.
4.
Identify three steps to increase the amount of control you have over with whom you do things.
Please note: possession of this form does not indicate that its distributor is actively certified with the ISSA. To confirm certification status, please call 1.800.892.4772 (1.805.745.8111 international). Information
gathered from this form is not shared with ISSA. ISSA is not responsible or liable for the use or incorporation of the information contained in or collected from this form. Always consult your doctor concerning
your health, diet, and physical activity.
1015 Mark Avenue • Carpinteria, CA 93013
1.800.892.4772 (toll-free) • 1.805.745.8111 (international)
© 2018 International Sports Sciences Association
issaonline.edu
Motivation Assessment (continued)
Mastery: having full command or understanding of a subject
High Mastery
Low Mastery
High Motivation
Low Motivation
High Mastery / High Motivation
Low Mastery / Low Motivation
Performing a task that you know well
Feeling intimidated by a task
Knowing exactly how to do something
Feeling unclear about the steps to take when performing an activity
1.
How frequently do you feel as if you know exactly what you are supposed to do?
☐☐ every day (3)
☐☐ once a week (2)
☐☐ rarely (1)
☐☐ never (0)
3.
How frequently do you feel confident in what
you do?
☐☐ every day (3)
☐☐ once a week (2)
☐☐ rarely (1)
☐☐ never (0)
2.
How frequently do you feel as if you perform
tasks well?
☐☐ every day (3)
☐☐ once a week (2)
☐☐ rarely (1)
☐☐ never (0)
4.
How frequently do you feel as though you could
teach others what you do?
☐☐ every day (3)
☐☐ once a week (2)
☐☐ rarely (1)
☐☐ never (0)
Scoring guide:
10–12
Very high autonomy
4–6
Moderately low autonomy
7–9
Moderately high autonomy
3 or less
Very low autonomy
Barriers to Mastery
1.
What internal factors (fear, intimidation, lack of trust) most stand in the way of your sense of mastery?
2.
What external factors (people, places, things) most stand in the way of your sense of mastery?
Please note: possession of this form does not indicate that its distributor is actively certified with the ISSA. To confirm certification status, please call 1.800.892.4772 (1.805.745.8111 international). Information
gathered from this form is not shared with ISSA. ISSA is not responsible or liable for the use or incorporation of the information contained in or collected from this form. Always consult your doctor concerning
your health, diet, and physical activity.
1015 Mark Avenue • Carpinteria, CA 93013
1.800.892.4772 (toll-free) • 1.805.745.8111 (international)
© 2018 International Sports Sciences Association
issaonline.edu
Build Mastery
1.
What three steps can you take to overcome the internal barriers to mastery?
2.
What three steps can you take to overcome the external barriers to mastery?
Purpose: a fixed intention in doing something: an aim or goal
High Purpose
Low Purpose
High Motivation
Low Motivation
High Purpose / High Motivation
Low Purpose / Low Motivation
Feeling connected to those around you
Feeling detached from those around you
Feeling as if your efforts have a measurable impact
Feeling as if your efforts do not matter
Feeling as if your efforts are appreciated by those
around you
Feeling as if your efforts are not appreciated by those
around you
Unique Purpose
1.
When do you feel most connected to those around you?
2.
When do you feel as if your efforts matter the most?
Please note: possession of this form does not indicate that its distributor is actively certified with the ISSA. To confirm certification status, please call 1.800.892.4772 (1.805.745.8111 international). Information
gathered from this form is not shared with ISSA. ISSA is not responsible or liable for the use or incorporation of the information contained in or collected from this form. Always consult your doctor concerning
your health, diet, and physical activity.
1015 Mark Avenue • Carpinteria, CA 93013
1.800.892.4772 (toll-free) • 1.805.745.8111 (international)
© 2018 International Sports Sciences Association
issaonline.edu
Unique Purpose (continued)
3.
When do you feel as if your efforts are appreciated the most?
4.
When do you feel as though your efforts have the most impact?
Increase Purpose
1.
What steps can you take to increase the sense of connection to those around you?
2.
What three steps can you take to increase the importance of your actions?
3.
What three steps can you take to increase the appreciation your actions are given?
Purpose in the Larger Context
1.
Who do you feel would most support your actions/efforts?
2.
What steps can you take to connect yourself more to this person or organization?
Please note: possession of this form does not indicate that its distributor is actively certified with the ISSA. To confirm certification status, please call 1.800.892.4772 (1.805.745.8111 international). Information
gathered from this form is not shared with ISSA. ISSA is not responsible or liable for the use or incorporation of the information contained in or collected from this form. Always consult your doctor concerning
your health, diet, and physical activity.
UNIT 3
The ISSA Drawing-In Process
48 | Unit 3
Unit Outline
1.
Modifying Personal Behavior
a.
Fear and Self-Esteem
2. Modifying Your Client’s Behavior
3. Summary
Modifying Personal Behavior
Conditioning Your Mind
Beyond pumping iron and careful eating, there is another kind of
preparation you can do to optimize your chances of success, one
that involves subtle factors concerning your attitude and mental
approach to training, whether it be for fitness, sports, or bodybuilding. You can achieve great things with your body if you learn how
to use your mind. Learning to harness the power of your mind can
advance your physical training a giant step further. It can also mean
the difference between winning and losing and even between success and failure to achieve your goals.
Mind power and success through mind conditioning only come
with a sustained and sincere effort. You can’t just make a wish and
then sit back and hope that it comes true and forget about working
on it. The mind reacts much the same way the body does. If you
train and condition it regularly, it responds with great efficiency and
effectiveness. On the other hand, if you assume, as so many people
do, that it’s good enough the way it is, your chances of achieving
your maximum potential are greatly diminished. If you had foolishly assumed that attitude with your body, you would never have
entered the gym to train in the first place.
Motivation: state of mind
that generates positive
feelings about achieving a
purpose.
Transformation Specialist
Some of the key ingredients to an effective mind conditioning program are: motivation, incentive, visualization, and, most important
of all, belief.
The last point cannot be overstated. You’ve gotta believe! You’ve gotta believe in yourself, in your talents and capabilities, in your goals
and in all you hope to achieve, and in your methods for achieving
The ISSA Drawing-In Process | 49
them. The key to understanding what your mind holds in store for
you is a simple realization. The realization that within you is all the
power you need to succeed, both in your training and in life. Within
you already lies all the potential for success. Within you is the brain
power of an infinitely superior person, physically, spiritually, and
mentally. Once you make this realization—that your mind holds a
vast wealth of knowledge, information, control, power, ability, and
potential—you can start to tap into it. You can delve into your own
secret depths and find out what you’re really made of.
Motivation and Discipline for Mind Conditioning
Motivation is the state of mind that generates positive feelings about
achieving a purpose. Some people are motivated by financial rewards, others by primitive urges for physical pleasure. For you, the
most highly motivating element in your life MUST become your
dream of acquiring unsurpassed, mind-blowing power and mass.
But to be motivated isn’t enough. It also takes discipline. Discipline
is what keeps you consistently scientific in your actions as you strive
to achieve your goal. Here is a simple step-by-step method to achieving what you want:
Discipline: skill that keeps
you consistently scientific in
your actions as you strive to
achieve your goal.
Step 1: Define your ultimate goals clearly and write them down.
This means being specific about what you want. What kind of
improvements are you looking for? Do you want simply to increase
your overall strength, your lean body mass, or reduce your percent
body fat? Maybe you’ve chosen powerlifting to excel in! Or tennis!
That, friend, is GOOD, you’ve made your choice! Now, concentrate
specifically on the actual aspects you want to improve, and write
them down. You’ll be surprised at how much clearer you can make
it by simply putting it into words. When you have to select the exact
words to define what you want, you tend to develop a super-clear
image of your goal.
Step 2: Devise a series of short-term goals which will ultimately lead
to you realizing your main goals. It’s easier to attain a short-term
goal that’s within reach than to try and make great leaps in progress
all at once. When you try to do too much at once and fail you tend
to get discouraged. Instead, set a number of short-term goals that
International Sports Sciences Association
50 | Unit 3
you can accomplish and then knock them off
one at a time. Focus exclusively on the shortterm goal you wish to achieve most of all, without even thinking about the next short-term
goal or the long run. Achieving each one of
your short-term goals should lead you to completion of your major goal. Each short-term goal
is thus a stepping stone, not an end in itself.
That’s why they have to be accomplished one at
a time. And as you complete each short-term
goal, you will find that you are all the more motivated to continue your trek to greatness.
Step 3: Create your strategy for success. This is
your game plan, your INTEGRATED training
program. On the same sheet that you wrote
your long-term goal and listed the short-term
goals that will get you there, you should break
down your daily activities into the best means
to get you where you’re going. This means the
routines, exercises, sets, reps, intensity, practice,
rest periods, diet, naps, practice, and so on.
Follow your own plan toward success. Prepare
a daily schedule that takes you in the direction you want to go, and recognize right from
the start that you are a unique individual and
require a program that’s necessarily different
from anyone else’s. Keep your goal sheet current and review it day by day. A good place to
start is with “daily clocks” that map out precisely what you will do throughout the day, when to
take which supplement, each meal, each visualization session, and so forth. These daily clocks
are devised to allow you to take advantage of
all the various technologies science has to offer
and—at the same time—allow you to thoroughly PERSONALIZE your goal-oriented training.
So, the hardest part is already done for you!
Transformation Specialist
Step 4: Visualize yourself succeeding. No one
would attempt to build a house without a set
of blueprints. Likewise, you must plan your
success strategy, and actually “visualize” yourself, in your mind’s eye, accomplishing your
goals. Your inner feelings, your thoughts, your
daydreams must all be filled with images of
your ultimate success. Twice a day—once after
training and once before bedtime—read your
goal sheet out loud. Then, close your eyes and
with crystal clarity see yourself becoming exactly how you want to be. But visualize yourself
actually accomplishing your goals of acquiring
muscular size, low body fat, or your sports skills
perfectly, don’t just wistfully think about how
nice it would be to look or perform that way.
Step 5: Align your mind, body, and spirit with
achievement. By affirming your commitment
to your stated goals and by actually visualizing
and verbalizing your commitment, you will
find that your mind, body, spirit, and emotional
self all become one. The power of this union
will send an emotional supercharge to your
body by actually stimulating secretion of your
body’s “emotion-producing” biochemicals. This
alignment is accomplished by actually verbalizing your commitment while visualizing it. For
example, say, “I am committed to becoming the
most massive and cut bodybuilder in history.”
Or perhaps, “I am committed to looking and
feeling great by next summer”. Repeat your
commitment statement before, during, and
after your success visualization every day.
Step 6: Give yourself a reward for your accomplishments. After you’ve achieved a sub-goal
or your ultimate goal(s), reward yourself in a
significant fashion. I don’t mean just having an
The ISSA Drawing-In Process | 51
ice cream cone after a training cycle! That’s not
significant enough to “anchor” the significance
of your achievement firmly in your mind and
soul. Personally dwell upon your achievement
and your success. Congratulate yourself and
savor the feelings of pride and confidence in
having taken direct action to achieve you goal,
whether that was to make yourself bigger or
stronger or whatever your goal was. The key
to mental conditioning is to make your new
thoughts and new approach a habit. The more
regular your new habit becomes, the more
quickly old and destructive habits fade away.
The only way to continue making progress is
to regularly reinforce your new, goal-directed
integrated training.
It usually takes about three weeks to implement
this revised way of thinking. During that time,
you’re likely to feel tempted to return to old
patterns and habits, feeling that the old way was
easier and “good enough.”
Don’t do it!
The more you resist old habits, the stronger
you’ll become, until you develop an iron will
to succeed and you no longer even think about
returning to old habits. Going back to your old
mental habits would be akin to leaving the gym
forever. Remember to create a goal, visualize it
as real, and work regularly to successfully attain
a firm footing on each of the stepping stones
that will take you to your ultimate goal. When
you get there, you’ll know.
How to Get Motivated and Stay
Motivated
Let’s back up for a minute before we review the
steps toward goal achievement. What got you
into your chosen sport or activity? Was it seeing
a bodybuilding show or watching the Olympics? Was it the incredibly muscular kid next
door? Your older brother or sister? Whatever it
was, it no doubt fostered in you a deep, abiding
sense of passion for your sport or activity. That’s
the way all champions begin—with abiding
passion for what they do. With such passion,
motivation almost always comes naturally.
Passion is a hard word to define. What “turns
your crank” may be different from anyone else.
It’s easier to describe what passion is NOT:
Passion is NOT a need to achieve. Instead, it’s a
burning desire to exceed ALL limits! It’s NOT
commitment to excellence, but utter disdain for
anything less! And it’s NOT endless hours of
practice. It’s PERFECT practice! It’s NOT the
ability to cope. Rather, it’s the total domination
of ALL situations! And it’s NOT setting unrealistic or vague goals, because doing so too often
prescribes performance limits! Passion is NOT
doing what it takes to win. Instead, it’s doing
what it takes to EXCEED! And it most certainly
is NOT the force of skill or muscle. Rather, it’s
the explosive, calamitous force of WILL!
If you believe in and practice these things,
then for you, winning is neither everything
nor the only thing. It’s a FOREGONE CONCLUSION! But if, along the way, you somehow
stumble, PROFIT from the experience! Then,
vow, by the power of Almighty God, it’ll NEVER happen again!
So, you see, PASSION is all-consuming. That is
what it takes to become a champion, and that is
what it’ll take for you to achieve your ultimate
International Sports Sciences Association
52 | Unit 3
training goals. If you haven’t acquired passion yet, seek it out first.
Find it. Do not begin without it, for without it you will be severely
limited in your quest for greatness.
Incentive: The Mother of Motivation
Intrinsic reward: reward in
and of itself.
Extrinsic reward: external
rewards, such as money,
trophies, or prizes.
Motivation—and passion—begins and ends with incentive. You
have to know what you want and why you want it, and achieving
it may be reward in and of itself. This is called “intrinsic” reward;
whereas, “extrinsic” rewards are things such as money, trophies, or
prizes. In both cases, the rewards serve as an incentive to continue. This may mean that achieving a specific improvement provides
the incentive for going after it. More strength, stamina, cuts, muscle mass, skill, or greatly improved health and vitality are various
incentives. But they may also be a part of larger incentives, such
as being liked and admired, being a winner or achiever, enjoying
success, shaping a personal identity, gaining peer acceptance, and so
on. Recognize incentive as a powerful motivating force, not as something potentially destructive, evil, trivial, or shameful.
Steps to Goal Attainment
Follow these eight steps to goal attainment:
Transformation Specialist
1.
Set realistic short-term goals.
2.
Short-term goals should lead you to a long-term goal. Allow for
occasional setbacks along the way, but regard them as learning experiences; thereby turning those setbacks into something positive.
3.
Set a training schedule and stick to it. (Again, the best place to find
such a training program is from among the integrated training
programs described right here in this text.)
4.
Make pain and fatigue work for you, as signs that your all-out
effort is helping you attain your goals.
5.
Constantly challenge yourself in your training.
6.
Devise your own, personal definition of success. It’s what you say it
is, not what someone else says.
7.
Believe in yourself and foster positive aggression in your training.
8.
Build a strong ego, but a restrained one.
The ISSA Drawing-In Process | 53
Your Emotional State
Your mind and your emotions are tightly tied
together. It’s up to you to find a balance between them and to exert absolute control over
them. Your emotional state plays a large role
in your overall training. The way you’re feeling
inside has repercussions on your behavior and
performance on the outside. There are many
different factors that go into the makeup of a
solid emotional base, including:
any case, your mental appraisal of yourself—i.e.,
your self-esteem—counts for a great deal in
your performance.
•
personal life,
•
sex life,
•
family life,
However common this sort of scenario may
be, it is not the sort of thing to be sought after.
It would be far better if your self-esteem going into the gym or competition was such that
ONLY a superlative performance throughout
was possible. Building ONLY the possibility
of success into your training—day after day,
month after month—through the careful,
integrated application of science will help to
maintain a peak mental attitude and constant
feelings of self-esteem.
•
job,
Success begets success.
•
daily schedule,
•
diet,
•
financial matters,
•
health concerns, and, most importantly,
•
self-esteem.
Your own self-esteem contributes greatly to the
level of your sports performance. Self-esteem
can vary greatly, even within the time confines
of a single training session, and it can mean
the difference between winning and losing in
a competition setting. One minute you might
hate yourself over an error you’ve committed
on the posing platform, playing field, or in the
gym, but then a few moments later you could
reverse that feeling completely by performing
exceptionally.
This sort of event can—and often does—lead to
superlative performance throughout the remainder of your training session in the gym, or
in your onstage or on-the-field performance. In
Fear and Self-Esteem
Fear of Failure
Fear, depression, anxiety, or over-arousal can
all lead to sub-par training or poor competition
performance. For every winner, there are many
losers, and often the distinguishing feature
between being a winner or loser is attitude,
positive thinking, and the absence of inhibiting
fear in winners. Fear of the competition, for instance, can put you in a defeatist frame of mind
even before the competition begins. For that
matter, this could even be something like going
on a sugar binge or getting drunk. If you’re so
“psyched out” that you consider your opponent
unbeatable, or your old habits unshakable, then
you have defeated yourself.
Instead, your goal must be to foster belief in
yourself, to train hard to achieve the means to
victory, and then to realize that you have made
International Sports Sciences Association
54 | Unit 3
your belief work for you. All your success comes
first out of a belief in yourself. In fact, belief and
success go hand in hand. Once you rid yourself
of fear, you begin to see yourself as potentially
better than your opponent or addiction, and
that’s the key to winning!
If you give in to a state of fear, you will never
see yourself as potentially better than your opponent or addiction. So, it’s obvious then, that
your state of mind determines, to a large extent,
whether or not you will ever “see” victory.
Fear of Injury
Fear of injury is another common inhibiting
factor. Doubtless you’ve heard of “oft-injured”
athletes who are forever on the injured list.
Sometimes, when these athletes return to active
play, they can be slightly gun-shy, afraid of
injury, and might even alter their style of play
to protect themselves from injury. Ironically,
playing to protect yourself against injury often
leads to it, because you’re e.g., pulling up, not
following through with movements, or contracting your muscles irregularly. The same sort
of protective training occurs in all sports and
fitness-related activities. The effects of a torn
rotator cuff, a pulled hamstring, or whatever
injury you may have suffered, all tend to linger
long after the injury is healed sufficiently to be
trained again. Of course, being careful is prudent, but being overcareful will serve for nothing but keeping you from your goal.
Fear of Success
Picture this scenario. Your best buddy is your
training partner. He or she means a lot to you,
Transformation Specialist
and so you don’t want to embarrass them by
showing them up with your superior physique,
lower body fat, and greater strength or pain
tolerance, or whatever.
What do you think this concern or fear will lead
to? Believe me, this sort of “fear” is not all that
uncommon! Being pals is one thing. But a real
pal will recognize (although perhaps not fully
acknowledge or accept as permanent) your superior abilities. Far better then to turn your friendship with your training partner into a healthy,
constructive, friendly competitive situation!
But if you do feel that your training partner
is holding you back, don’t train with them
anymore! If you’re an aspiring bodybuilder or
athlete, your training program isn’t going to
match theirs anyway. Being buddy-buddy to the
extent of following identical training programs
rep-per-rep, exercise-per-exercise, day after day
is downright stupid.
Some other situations involving unreasonable
fear of succeeding are:
•
Not wishing to attain your ultimate goal for
fear of no longer having anything to strive for.
•
Not wishing to be forced to accept the socio-psychological responsibilities associated
with winning or succeeding.
•
Not being willing to totally commit to doing everything necessary in order to win or
succeed.
The first step in eliminating these sorts of fears
is to realize that they exist. Then, it’s a simple
matter of using intellectual reasoning to figure
out why such fears exist and how utterly silly
such fears really are.
The ISSA Drawing-In Process | 55
A skilled sports hypnotherapist or sports psychologist may be able to assist you in eliminating these potentially debilitating roadblocks to
success.
Concentration
Success in sports performance can be likened
to the practice of Zen masters. Their aim is
that concentration should be so complete that
there is no consciousness of such concentration.
Athletes must be one with their sport in order
to execute it to their optimal ability. You have
no doubt been in a situation where your entire attention was so rapt and absorbed in one
thought that you completely blocked out everything else. This was most probably due to your
high concentration level on some thought of
great importance to you. This kind of focus can
be a great confidence builder.
The more you focus on what you’re working to
achieve, the less distractions enter your awareness. This lifts you out of the state of mind that
can’t “visualize” success. Once you begin to
“visualize” success, you consider yourself potentially better than the competition, or above
your old addictions. Little by little, you will be
able to concentrate more and more, until you
reach a state where you’re unaware of anything
in your way. You see your way clearly to victory
and success. This is total concentration.
This kind of total concentration comes to those
who have developed total self-confidence. You
must have high self-esteem, high motivation,
and be consistent in your training program.
You must develop your mind to the point
that total concentration is merely a learned
response, one you never consciously think
about anymore.
Then, apply this sort of laser focus rep-per-rep
and set-per-set in your workouts. Apply it when
following your daily integrated training program. Just as success begets success, remember
that imperfect practice makes your performance
imperfect and needs to be nipped in the bud.
Modifying Your Client’s
Behavior
Psychological Considerations
When it comes to fitness, we can divide people
in to two classes of people: the fit and the unfit.
Clearly these people further exist on a continuum, meaning that some are fit or almost fit and
some are barely fit or downright unfit. Now,
most of the fit people exercise regularly, while
most of the unfit do not. Furthermore, most
of the fit are conscientious of the quality of the
food they eat, while the unfit are not. Then too,
depression, procrastination, laziness, and a host
of other psychological anomalies seem to occur
more frequently among the unfit. Clearly, medical problems of every sort are far more prevalent among the unfit. Can we not see then that
there is a crying need for there to be developed
a psychology of fitness as a legitimate area of
scholarly research?
The task of developing such an academic discipline falls squarely on the shoulders of those
people who most understand the interconnectedness of mind, body, and spirit, such as:
•
healthcare professionals,
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•
nutritionists,
•
psychologists,
•
medical practitioners,
•
health and physical education teachers,
•
gym owners,
•
personal fitness trainers, and
•
fitness experts.
This unlikely cadre of professionals seem to be the only ones (other
than the unfit themselves) who actually have a stake in all this. And
they are also the best equipped to provide solutions to the problem,
which (as we are all aware) is of pandemic proportions in the modern world. In truth, the whole of society is negatively affected as the
unfit suffer from a host of medical, nutritional, and psychological
problems.
The ISSA has a huge stake in this effort, both because we are fitness
professionals ourselves and because we play a role in educating
and certifying trainers worldwide to tackle and seek to reverse this
historic pandemic. We cannot fail at this task. The cost of failure is
too great to bear. And, decades of experience of teaching others has
told us at ISSA, in crystal-clear terms, that success is going to take a
strong interdisciplinary effort.
A Case for the Study of Fitness Psychology
Fitness psychology: study
of the psychological and
spiritual elements of fitness.
The academic discipline of fitness psychology is a fledgling area
of interest, with most of the research reports appearing in relevant
journals over the past decade or two, but with a small handful of
research reports published as long ago as the ‘70s and ‘80s as well. In
fact, most of this research was done against the backdrop of exercise
behavior, and has focused on the factors that contribute to describing, explaining, predicting, and improving exercise behavior in a
culture whose sedentary, generally unhealthy lifestyle is resulting in
increasingly poorer health (1).
Exercise is important for achieving optimum fitness, to be sure. But
the bumpy road of life involves more than just having a body that
Transformation Specialist
The ISSA Drawing-In Process | 57
is fit. Your health, diet, and percentage of body
fat play important roles too, perhaps every bit
as important as exercise. Also, psychological
and spiritual health—as elements of fitness that
probably have more to do with driving people
into the gym in the first place—play pivotal
roles. Since its inception in 1988, ISSA has described fitness as a wheel having no fewer than
18 spokes. These include aspects such as:
•
cardiovascular/cardiorespiratory endurance,
•
healthy body composition,
•
metabolic health,
•
freedom from stress,
•
psychological/spiritual peace,
•
freedom from disease,
•
freedom from injury,
•
preventive lifestyle.
•
As well as the physical attributes that contribute to efficient human movement, namely:
•
limit strength,
•
starting strength,
•
explosive strength,
•
strength endurance,
•
speed endurance,
•
local muscular endurance,
•
agility,
•
flexibility,
•
static balance,
•
dynamic balance.
We all intuitively know that a wheel works best
if all of the spokes are strong. Clearly, following an integrated approach to achieving sound
fitness is necessary. So, in this section, we focus
on the factors that contribute to describing,
explaining, predicting, and improving those
behaviors that contribute to a heightened level
of fitness, and that contribute to each individual
ultimately adopting a new fitness lifestyle. Make
no mistake, as a personal fitness trainer, your
job goes far beyond just the confines of the gym
you work in. Your professional obligation is to
help your clients adopt a fitness lifestyle.
Problems Fitness Trainers Face
Now the fight begins. You see, no one has yet
come up with a viable intervention strategy that
will effectively and permanently change healthor fitness-related behavior (2, 3). However, there
have been dozens of conceptual frameworks
presented in the research literature that seek to
address this problem. But almost all end with
the conclusion, “More research is needed.”
In 2007, writing in the Journal of the American
Board of Sport Psychology, Mark Anshel presented an extensive review of the literature pertaining to fitness psychology, and lamented that
his review revealed equivocal and disappointing
results. (1) No one, it seems, has yet been able
to provide a means of providing people with a
positive, long-term strategy for beginning and
maintaining a fitness lifestyle.
That’s where you come in. You see, you have
an ace in the hole. When a new client comes to
you, and pays you for your expertise, you must
assume that there is at least a modicum of commitment on their part. They are motivated, they
recognize their need for improved health and
fitness, and recognize that their behavior must
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be modified. They also recognize that they can’t
do it on their own, so they came to you. It is by
far the greater population of Americans who
are in dire straits, and who never even tender
the thought of going to a gym, let alone hiring a
personal fitness trainer.
Exercise psychology is a far-reaching field.
Here, we do not discuss the psychological
variables involved in getting people to want to
join a gym, problems with special populations,
athlete behavior, child obesity, and the host of
other factors traditionally identified as being
within the remit of interest of an applied exercise psychologist. Instead, we concern ourselves
with that population with whom we have come
into direct contact with, i.e., the clients.
Why Did Your Client Come to You?
Simple anthropometric measurements could
reveal the physical deficiencies that likely
prompted them to seek your help. But what
sorts of behaviors got them to that point in the
first place? How can those behaviors be extinguished and replaced with healthier options?
How will you change the way your clients perceive themselves? Do your clients have mental
barriers or a negative attitude toward exercise?
Toward dieting? Toward themselves?
Search for some specific reasons for your clients
seeking your help. Is there a genetic predisposition in their family that they are concerned
with? Are they concerned about the fact that
they’re getting older? Did they read something
in a magazine or see a program or advertisement on television that prompted their interest?
Transformation Specialist
The “Health Belief Model”, first proposed by
Becker and Maiman in 1977, posits that your
clients will be far more likely to comply if they
believe that exercise and sound nutrition are
both healthy and desirable (4). Discuss these
points during each day you meet with your client, and take careful note of any points that will
likely help you during the drawing-in process.
Social Facilitation
Clients whose friends or family members
exercise regularly are more apt to comply. In
fact, they will be more likely to internalize the
value of exercise and nutrition if social factors
are involved in their decision to exercise. It is
conceivable that socializing while at the gym
will be highly motivating for them. If so, make
a suggestion for such clients to bring along a
friend to exercise with them (5).
Unrealistic Expectations
Often a client will want to lose a huge amount
of weight, or may desire the incredible physique of a competitive bodybuilder or want to
become a marathon runner. Such goals are
almost always beyond the ability of your client
to achieve, and will thus set them up for failure. You must direct them to a path where they
learn how to walk before they run, and ensure
that they are provided constant feedback as to
their progress. The last thing you or your client
needs is a loss of perceived competence (6). A
fully fifty percent of individuals who join a gym
drop out within 6 months because of feelings of
no progress or lack of skill in performing their
exercise program (7).
The ISSA Drawing-In Process | 59
Self-Efficacy
One of the elements of the ISSA drawing-in process involves “guided
discovery.” Does it not seem likely that a client will be more likely to
comply and actually grow to like their exercise protocol if they are
the one who chooses the exercise or protocol? This is in fact the case.
In a 1998 review of over 100 studies on exercise behavior, McAuley
and Mihalko found that self-efficacy was higher if the individual
was allowed to select the exercises, the degree of effort expended
on the activities, and the degree to which they would persist at the
activities over time (8). They called this “perceived choice.”
Of course, you are the one providing the various exercise options for
your client, especially during the guided discovery phase. So, you
are ultimately in control. However, be sure that their choices are in
line with sound science. Remember too that providing your clients
with positive feedback based upon performance data will heighten
their feeling of self-efficacy.
Disconnect
It is likely that many of your clients’ lifestyles have been long devoid
of exercise, and thus they are firmly entrenched in their behavior. It
may be that they have an array of long-held negative attitudes that
are reflective of negative experiences they have had with exercise.
Perhaps a physical education teacher disciplined them with pushups. Perhaps an injury from a previous attempt at exercise remains
fresh in their minds. Or, it may be that an unacceptably high degree
of physical discomfort from the stress of previous exercise dampened their short-lived attempt to exercise (9).
Disconnect: when negative
behaviors persist despite
your client knowing the
value of a fitness lifestyle.
A disconnect can exist if these negative behaviors persist despite
your client knowing the value of a fitness lifestyle, and that their
slovenly behavior is not in their best interests. This disconnect exists
because the client has made the decision (wittingly or unwittingly)
that the benefits of exercising do not outweigh the costs or long-term
consequences. In this scenario, their free time, the avoidance of discomfort, the cost of a gym membership or hiring a personal fitness
trainer, or being criticized for their obese state are of paramount
concern to them.
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However, the fact that they came to you is clearly indicative of a value shift. It is up to you then,
as a professional, not to let their old habits cause
another disconnect. These individuals need
constant reminding of the value of exercise and
good health, and constant praise with accomplishment, however slight. The disconnect must
be made unacceptable.
Exercise Barriers
Of all the barriers to exercise, the most common excuse is “lack of time.” This excuse is
easily overcome, however, by: 1) allowing your
client to pick the most convenient time for
them, and 2) by pointing out that only three
hours per week is being asked for—less than 2%
of the total hours in a week, involve only a small
sacrifice of TV time, snacking time, internet
time, or phone time (10).
Helping your client develop their time management skills and showing them how any barriers to exercise are easily overcome by simply
rearranging their exercise schedule may well
represent one of your most important skills in
helping your client adopt a fitness lifestyle.
Seven Strategies
As a professional fitness trainer, you are going
to be challenged constantly in regard to drawing your client into a fitness lifestyle. You will
have to develop ways to overcome their objections, and provide convincing reasons for your
client to continue. Here are seven strategies to
consider (11).
1.
Be aware of your client’s psychological
dispositions that could cause disconnect
(anxiety, depression, self-consciousness,
Transformation Specialist
need achievement, intrinsic motivation, fear
of failure, eating disorder, addiction, … to
name a few).
2.
Create a sense of urgency for a client to continue exercising (provide quantitative data
on a client’s fitness level or lack thereof) and
the consequences of quitting.
3.
Foster a positive attitude in your client (perceived competence, setting realistic goals).
4.
Continually provide instructive feedback so
that continued improvement takes place.
5.
Provide social support by praising your client
in front of their friends, or by getting one of
their friends to be their exercise partner.
6.
Provide educational materials (magazines, internet) on exercise techniques and nutrition.
7.
Work with your client beyond just the confines of the gym or exercise circuit in areas
such as nutrition, how to shop for food, how
to reduce stress through meditation, visualization techniques, and sports participation,
and generally on fostering good health and
fitness habits.
Conclusion
Anyone could squeeze Ms. Jones into a size 5
dress for the first time since college. Simply
wire her mouth shut and keep her moving hard.
Right? But will that actually solve her problems?
No, it will in fact exacerbate them! Your job, if
we may risk being overly repetitive, is to draw
your client into a fitness lifestyle! That’s going to
take careful planning far beyond just setting a
weight training or aerobics program.
ISSA’s method of helping clients find their way to
a fitness-centered lifestyle is actually predicated
on several tenets of applied exercise psychology.
The ISSA Drawing-In Process | 61
Summary
What a personal trainer represents to a client plays a pivotal role in the client’s ultimate
ability to change, and their overall success.
When trainers symbolize positive change—the
ability to set larger goals, break them down into
smaller pieces, develop a strategy for success,
visualize success, and overcome obstacles such
as fear of failure, fear of success, fear of injury,
low self-esteem, and poor concentration—they
act magnetically on clients, effectively drawing them into the change process. Yet, moving
clients from unfit to fit is a major challenge that
trainers face today. Clients often have unrealistic expectations, yet lack self-efficacy, which
creates a disconnect between their behavior
and the outcome. Further, clients may also have
exercise barriers that preclude certain types of
exercise. One way trainers can be helpful—and
draw clients in—is to be aware of the disconnect clients often come with, create a sense of
urgency around change, then foster a positive
attitude, effective instruction, and social support to pave their path to fitness.
International Sports Sciences Association
UNIT 4
Positive Psychology
Positive Psychology | 63
Unit Outline
1.
The Positive Psycholog Model
a.
The Importance of Learning to Think Optimistically
b. Using Strengths to Repurpose Adversity
c.
Flourishing: PERMA: The Five Cornerstones of Positive Psychology
2. Positive Psychology Skills for Personal Trainers
a.
The Optimism Test and Assessment
b. Attribution Exercises to Boost Optimism
c.
Cultivating and Activating Strengths to Propel Performance
d. Identifying and Generating Engagement and Flow
e.
Positive Exercises and Skills
f.
Finding and Activating Meaning
g. Using Small Changes to Create Large Achievements
3. Summary
The Positive Psychology Model
When the study of psychology was in its infancy, the aim was to
identify, characterize, study, and eventually alleviate psychological disorders. The thought was that through studying what caused
people distress, it would be better understood how to treat symptoms and return people to a state of normal functioning—or at least
“pre-distress” functioning levels. Positive psychology, which became formally recognized when Martin Seligman took the helm as
president of the American Psychological Association in 1998, takes
a sharply different look at people. The concern that Martin Seligman
raised—and which is now well supported—is that by only studying
what is wrong with people (their disorders), we only come to a partial, and indeed quite limited understanding of them. As he warned,
the exclusive focus on pathology—although it has dominated so
Positive psychology:
a branch of psychology
that seeks to use people’s
strengths to move them
beyond distress and toward
recognizing their best selves.
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much of the discipline—results in a model of the human being
lacking the positive features that make life worth living. What we
miss, according to Seligman and many others, is an understanding
of what makes life worth living: what Seligman calls “the good life”.
The factors Seligman was concerned with were those that contribute
the greatest value toward life—things like hope, wisdom, creativity,
future mindedness, courage, spirituality, responsibility, and perseverance. Seligman further defined the good life as, “Using your
signature strengths every day to produce authentic happiness and
abundant gratification” (Seligman, 2002).
Flourishing: a term that
describes the following
elements of positive
psychology: positive
emotions, engagement,
positive relationships,
meaning, and achievement.
Positive psychology is now widely referred to as a strengths-based
approach, and one that seeks to identify, cultivate, and use strengths
to create a life filled with meaning. As opposed to studying the
symptomatology of disorders, positive psychology looks to the
constellations of strengths exemplified in extraordinary people to
understand how to move people not simply back to baseline, but to
a state of flourishing (Seligman, 2011). The idea is that psychologists
should not just be relieving people of their distress, but looking to
access their strengths in unique and creative ways to move them
beyond their “pre-distress” levels. In many ways, it is the study of
the top half (or above baseline levels) of functioning, as opposed to
the bottom half (below baseline).
It is here that positive psychology also takes a different approach. As
happiness is defined as a construct that can be operationalized, it is
also something that can be learned, practiced, and improved. While
traditional psychology had few words to say about happiness, and in
many ways described what many know as “positive states”—such as
elevation, courage, humanity, justice, and transcendence—as defense
mechanisms for underlying and unresolved distress, positive psychology looks to these strengths as a way to transcend distress. The idea
is that through identifying, cultivating, and expressing our strengths,
we raise our levels of happiness, such that we move past simply surviving, to a state of thriving (or flourishing). The strengths that positive psychology is concerned with can be measured in many ways, but
one of the most popular methods is through what is called the “VIA
Strength Survey,” which was created under the direction of Martin
Seligman. The test comprises 120 questions designed to identify 24
Transformation Specialist
Positive Psychology | 65
“signature character strengths.” It is regarded
as the central tool of positive psychology and
has been used in hundreds of research studies,
and been taken by over 2.9 million people in 34
countries (VIA Institute on Character, 2015).
While we take a look at the VIA Strength Survey
in the section on cultivating and activating client
strengths, what is important to remember for
now is that when people flourish—that is, when
they lead lives imbued with meaning, achievement, positive emotions, positive relationships,
and engagement—positive psychology purports
that their distress symptoms will naturally become less defining, and less severe.
This is not to say that positive psychology
ignores distress symptoms altogether. Rather, it redefines them. Distress is not viewed as
a weakness, as negative symptoms, or even
as something to be avoided. Instead, distress
is viewed as a catalyst for growth. Similar to
Nietzsche’s famous quote, “That which doesn’t
kill you, makes you stronger,” positive psychology believes that is through facing adversity
and searching for meaning in the aftermath of
difficult life events that we find strengths we
didn’t know we had, and where we improve our
thought processes and ultimately expand upon
our understanding of the world.
It is in this way that positive psychology draws
upon the work of many earlier theorists, such
as Erich Fromm, Abraham Maslow, and Victor
Frankl. Fromm, for one, wrote extensively about
humans’ need to grow, expand their understanding, and overcome “existential angst.” Pointing
to the story of Adam and Eve, Fromm described
their instinctive drives—that they ultimately
gave in to—as precisely what separated them
from animals. According to Fromm, the guilt
and shame that Adam and Even felt is embodied
in what he called the “disunited human existence,” the cure for which can be found through
the cultivation of our strengths (Fromm, 1941).
As Fromm wrote, “I believe that the man choosing progress can find a new unity through the
development of all his human forces, which are
produced in three orientations. These can be
presented separately or together: biophilia (love
for humanity and nature), and independence,
and freedom” (Fromm, 1997). Fromm further
defined eight basic needs: relatedness, transcendence, rootedness, frame of orientation, sense of
identity, excitation and stimulation, unity, and
effectiveness (Mohammed, 2014; Engler, 2008).
According to Fromm, it is through satisfaction of
these needs, i.e., the enduring desire for growth,
that we become more human. Fromm’s theory
that humans have needs that must be satisfied
in order to grow and overcome existential angst
(the desire for meaning) is not far from Maslow’s
theories. Through studying what he called
exemplary people, such as Albert Einstein, Jane
Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Frederick Douglass, rather than mentally ill or neurotic people,
Maslow came to understand that, “The study
of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy
specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy” (Maslow, 1954).
Maslow proposed a “hierarchy of needs” that
describes the development progression through
which needs are satisfied and growth occurs.
According to Maslow, physiological needs, such
as hunger, thirst, and warmth, must be satisfied
before more elaborate ones, such as safety, love,
belonging, esteem, and self-actualization, can
be met. Maslow later added self-transcendence
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to this list of needs, positing that self-actualization (realizing one’s true potential) can only
be accomplished through self-transcendence
(giving oneself to a higher goal outside oneself,
such as altruism) (Maslow, 1996). The work of
Victor Frankl, who is regarded as the father of
“logotherapy,” and the author of Man’s Search
for Meaning, dovetailed that of Fromm and
Maslow. Drawing upon his experiences as a Holocaust survivor, Frankl described the search for
meaning in two ways: it is an essential human
need to have a sense of meaning in life and it is
through finding meaning in distress that we can
endure it. As Frankl writes in Man’s Search for
Meaning, “When Man cannot express himself
in positive action, when his only achievement
may consist in enduring his sufferings in the
right way—an honorable way—in such a position
Man can, through loving contemplation of the
image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment” (Frankl, 2006). According to Frankl, it
was through the ultimate recognition that his
“only achievement” may be in how he chooses to
endure his sufferings (in the “right way”) that he
can also become fulfilled, and find meaning in
his existence.
While Fromm drew upon the satisfaction of human needs to overcome the “disunited human
existence” and arrive at a “new unity,” Maslow
pointed to the essential need to fulfill our potential (self-actualization), through service to
something larger than ourselves (self-transcendence) as a way to overcome a “cripple philosophy,” and Frankl found reprieve from suffering
by choice to endure it in the “right way,” which
meant to find meaning in it. For all, the point is
the same: it is through developing our strengths
that we overcome our weaknesses.
Transformation Specialist
Here are the important points to take away:
1.
Positive psychology looks to the constellation of strengths exemplified by extraordinary people to better understand how to
move people from baseline to above average
functioning.
2.
Unlike traditional psychology, positive psychology does not study weaknesses, rather it
studies strengths.
3.
Positive psychology looks to adversity as a
catalyst for growth.
4.
Positive psychology recognizes the universal
human need for growth—to experience fulfillment, meaning, and mastery—and looks
to the ways in which our strengths can be
used to enhance our growth.
In the upcoming sections, we learn how the central concepts of positive psychology—learning
to think optimistically, flourishing, cultivating
the components of “the good life,” and finding
flow—can help us to move from an understanding of what is wrong, to one of what is right, and
further, how this understanding can help us create a more fulfilled, meaningful, and happy life.
The Importance of Learning to
Think Optimistically
The early work of Martin Seligman—who many
refer to as the father of positive psychology—
centered around how people’s thoughts affect
their levels of happiness. Originally he began
his work by studying behavioral conditioning in
dogs, when Seligman noticed something interesting. Seligman’s experiment began by separating the test dogs into three groups: Group 1 (the
control group) was put into a harness and then
released; Group 2 was put into the same harness
Positive Psychology | 67
and then delivered an electrical shock, which could be stopped by
pressing a lever; and Group 3 dogs were wired to the Group 2 dogs
and experienced the same shock’ however, because the lever was
pressed by the dogs in Group 2, it appeared to the Group 3 dogs
that the shock ended at random. Next, Seligman placed all three of
the groups into a shuttle-box apparatus, which comprised a cage
in which the dogs could escape the shock by jumping over a low
partition. While both the Group 1 and Group 2 dogs jumped over
the partition to escape the shock, the Group 3 dogs didn’t even try.
What Seligman noticed was that the Group 3 dogs had “learned”
that their responses had no bearing over whether or not they were
shocked—he termed this “learned helplessness.” And, perhaps
more importantly, Seligman also noticed that the dogs with learned
helplessness behaved much in the same way as clinically depressed
people do. This inspired Seligman to investigate the connection further. Thus, curious as to what could explain why the clinically depressed failed to act when exposed to adverse situations where relief
is possible, Seligman began studying their thought processes. What
he found was that the way a person interprets a situation (known
as their attributional style) determines how they will respond to
the situation (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978). According
to Seligman, what a person says to themselves about the events in
their life—where the theory accounts for both positive and negative
events—also explains why some people seem resilient (or even grow
stronger) in the face of adversity, while others seem to be only made
weaker (Peterson & Seligman, 1984).
Seligman later developed what is now known as the “Optimism
Test” to measure these attributional styles. For both positive and
negative events, attributions are categorized in three separate dimensions: permanence, pervasiveness, and personalism. A permanent attribution occurs when a person believes that events have a
permanent or long-lasting quality. Statements such as, “This always
happens,” and “I never win,” fit into this dimension. Pervasive
attributions, on the other hand, occur when a person believes that
one negative event colors many aspects of their life. A person who
gets fired from their job and later says to themselves, “I am such a
loser,” is exhibiting a pervasive attribution. Lastly, personal attributions can also occur, such as when a person believes that events are
Optimism test: test that
assesses a person’s level of
optimistic thinking through
attributions to positive and
negative events.
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caused—or at least directly related to—them.
Using the example above, a person who gets
fired from their job and then says, “It’s all my
fault, I’m just no good,” would be using a personal attribution style.
When bad events happen and we interpret them
in permanent, pervasive, or personal ways, we
are exhibiting what Seligman termed a “pessimistic explanatory style,” which is one that does
not easily allow us to recover from such bad
events. People using this style, Seligman argued,
tend to respond to negative events much in the
same way the dogs with learned helplessness responded in the shuttle boxes. That is, even when
harm is avoidable, they don’t take action.
As you might expect, a pessimistic explanatory
style responds just the opposite way to positive
events. When something good happens, people with this style do not see it is long lasting,
do not see it as a stable character trait (rather,
attributing it to chance causes instead), and do
not see themselves as responsible for it. Getting
a promotion at work, for example, might be
explained with statements such as, “I was just
lucky” (not personal), “I will probably get demoted soon anyway” (not permanent), or “My
marriage is still on the rocks,” (not pervasive).
While typically good events will boost happiness levels, for those with a pessimistic explanatory style, this is not the case. In fact, good
events seem to have little to no effect.
An optimistic explanatory style, on the other
hand, interprets bad events as impermanent,
not pervasive, and not personal. For optimists,
when bad things happen, they don’t last forever (they don’t use words such as “always” and
Transformation Specialist
“never” to describe them), they are able to compartmentalize them (they do not let them bleed
into all areas of their lives), and they do not see
them as personal (while they take responsibility
for what is truly their fault, they do not disproportionally attribute fault to themselves). When
these people get fired, while there is a temporary hit to their happiness levels, their attributional style—where they say things like, “Sometimes crappy things happen” (not permanent),
“I’m a good worker, but perhaps I just wasn’t the
right guy for the job” (not pervasive), or “Maybe
the boss just had a bad day” (not personal)—
quickly allows them to rebound. That is, they
take action to swiftly remedy adversity.
Also optimists, unlike pessimists, do get a boost
from good events—again, because they interpret them differently. Unlike their pessimistic
counterparts, optimists explain good events in
permanent, pervasive, and personal ways. Getting promoted, for example, happens “Because I
always work really hard and do a great job” (permanent), “Because I’m smart and I add a lot to
the company” (pervasive), or “Because I worked
really hard on that last project” (personal).
Seligman’s findings later formed what many
would consider the cornerstone of positive
psychology—that is, that if helplessness can be
learned, optimism can also be learned (Peterson, Maier, & Seligman, 1995).
Learning to be optimistic has many important
implications. Studies have consistently demonstrated that people who do not feel that they
have a sense of control, and who see bad events
as largely inescapable, not only suffer emotionally and physically, but also have difficulty with
Positive Psychology | 69
problem-solving tasks (Roth, 1980; Wortman
& Brehm, 1975). And perhaps because they also
adopt a habit of passivity in the face of adversity, whereby pessimists often neglect their diet,
exercise, and medical treatment. Complicating
the problem even more, stress seems to have a
compounding effect on pessimists, whereby the
more they experience, the less control they feel
they have, and the less hope they hold for the
future (Sullivan, Liu, & Corwin, 2012; Henry,
2005; Jones, 2010). Not surprisingly, a pessimistic
explanatory style also correlates strongly with
depression (Chang & Sanna, 2007) and difficulty engaging in the very cognitive processes that
enact problem-solving skills (Henry, 2005; Welborne et al., 2007). Pessimists also suffer from
more immunity problems and are at greater risk
of heart diseases and a plethora of other diseases
(Bennet & Elliot, 2005). And much in the same
way that a pessimistic explanatory style can
reinforce depressive symptoms, it also appears
to affect both motivation—e.g., those who have
failed at tasks previously are unlikely to try again
(Stipek, 1998)—and social relationships—as
those who exhibit a learned helplessness style
typically give up trying to gain social respect
(Ramirez et al., 1992).
Here are the important points to take away:
1.
Our level of optimism is determined by our
attributional style, and can be measured
through the use of the Optimism Test.
2.
Those with a “pessimistic attributional style”
see negative events in permanent, pervasive,
and personal ways, and see positive events
as just the opposite, i.e., as not permanent,
pervasive, or personal.
3.
Those with an “optimistic attributional
style” see negative events as not permanent,
pervasive, or personal, and positive events as
permanent, pervasive, and personal.
4.
Optimism can be learned, and correlates
strongly with mood, health, social relationships, and motivation.
Optimism is something that plays a powerful
role in our lives, and crucially, it can be learned.
While we will address specific ways to learn
how to think optimistically in the upcoming
sections of this course, what is important for
you to remember at this point is that the way we
explain the events that occur in our lives (our
attribution style) colors not just how we respond
to these events, but the way we feel about ourselves, the future, and the world around us.
PowerPoint: Three Ways to
Teach Your Clients to Think More
Optimistically
Look for the Hidden Opportunities in
Setbacks
Setbacks can often feel like there is nothing
positive to be gained. However, setbacks, like
any adversity we face, present a set of circumstances that demands our skills. And this is the
opportunity that setbacks offer: an opportunity to learn new skills and to refine existing
ones. When you teach your clients to reframe
setbacks in this way and to look not to what is
difficult, but at what must be learned, you help
them take a powerful step toward thinking
more optimistically.
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Use Paradoxical Thinking
Paradoxical thinking is about seeing everything in life as a paradox: with both good and
bad qualities. While in love there is joy, there
is also loss, and with success, there is also
struggle. Using paradoxical thinking not only
helps us see life in a more balanced way, but
helps us find creative solutions that we might
have otherwise overlooked. Teaching your
clients paradoxical thinking helps them see
things from multiple perspectives, which is a
critical part of thinking optimistically.
Identify Strengths
Facing challenges gets a whole lot easier when
you know what your strengths are and how
they can be used. By asking your clients what
their strengths are, and how they use them,
you not only boost their confidence immediately (speaking about strengths as opposed
to weaknesses has a lasting positive effect on
mood), but you also help them to see that these
strengths can be used effectively to help them
face the many challenges that life brings.
Using Strengths to Repurpose
Adversity
The path that Martin Seligman took—and the
path that positive psychology follows—veers
sharply from that of traditional psychology in
many ways. Traditional psychology seeks to
identify, study, and treat disorders, and here
the manual that is used for everything from
diagnosis and treatment planning to insurance
authorization is the Diagnostic Manual of Mental
Disorders (DSM). This manual is a listing of all
of the current classifications of disorders, along
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with the corresponding criteria to differentiate
them. While the purpose of traditional psychology is to return people to baseline levels of
functioning—thereby alleviating the criteria that
qualify them as disorders, or at the very least, to
help them better manage their symptoms—what
occurs above the baseline is unaddressed.
Positive psychology, on the other hand, takes a
much different approach. While those in the field
would not shy away from referring to the DSM
if necessary, this is not the manual that governs
the field. Instead, because positive psychology
seeks to identify, study, and cultivate strengths,
the manual it uses is a handbook of people’s
strengths. Developed in 2004 by Martin Seligman and Christopher Peterson, the Character
Strengths and Virtues Handbook is a counterpart
to the DSM. Where the DSM seeks to classify
disorders (and find ways to treat them), the Character Strengths and Virtues Handbook seeks to
classify strengths and virtues and find adaptive
ways to express them. In researching the book,
Peterson and Seligman looked across several
cultures to distill universal strengths and virtues
that were independent of any moral constraints.
Their list included six character strengths (each
with three to five sub-entries): wisdom/knowledge, courage, humanity, justice, temperance,
and transcendence, which have also been shown
to be highly valued from ancient civilizations
to contemporary Western culture. In order to
classify a strength it must be fulfilling; intrinsically valuable; non-rivalrous; trait-like, but not
the opposite of a trait, and not the combination
of two traits; personified; observable; nurtured in
society; and absent in some individuals (Peterson
& Seligman, 2004). The VIA Strength Survey
and Brief Strength Survey—which we discuss in
Positive Psychology | 71
the section on cultivating and activating strengths— was also designed by Seligman as a way to assess strengths.
In allowing a better understanding of strength and virtues, and
ways in which they may elevate peoples’ lives beyond what would be
considered baseline, positive psychology paved the ground for what
many now refer to as a “strength-based approach.” That is, it is an
approach that starts with strengths and not weaknesses.
The methodology for which weaknesses are addressed then also
differs sharply from in traditional psychotherapy. According to traditional psychology, weaknesses arise because people have disorders,
and treating them requires focusing on them. Positive psychology,
on the other hand, holds that weaknesses arise out of a failure to
fully develop and express strengths. Much like Maslow would have
argued that when people cannot fully self-actualize, their lives will
feel incomplete. In order to overcome this incompleteness—or what
Frankl would have called “existential crisis”—we must find ways
to utilize our strengths to create lives imbued with everything that
makes a life worth living: meaning, connection, fulfillment of our
potential, positive relationships, love, and belonging.
Positive psychology seeks to develop a way of facing adversity that
goes beyond simply mitigating the negative symptoms and emotions that may accompany it. As opposed to attempting to develop resistance to adversity, positive psychology seeks to find a use
for it. Much like Frankl had to find a use for his suffering, using a
strength-based approach looks for ways in which difficult life experiences can be used as catalysts for growth. It is here that a strengthbased approach incorporates the concept of post-traumatic growth.
Originally defined by Richard Tedeschi and Richard Calhoun,
two psychology professors at the University of North Carolina,
post-traumatic growth reframes everything we think about traumatic and adverse life experiences. That is, that more people report
growth after difficult life experiences than report distress symptoms
(Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004).
Post-traumatic growth:
growth that occurs in the
search for meaning after a
traumatic event and that
exceeds pre-trauma levels of
functioning.
Post-traumatic growth is obviously a dramatic step away from
the DSM, which contends that adverse life experiences cause
mental disorders—or at the very least negative symptomatology.
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Post-traumatic growth, on the other hand,
contends that it is in the struggle with adversity that growth occurs. When life events
cause a dramatic rupture in our lives, such
that we must reconsider them, and search for
new meaning, we come to identify our greatest strengths. But we also engage in the very
cognitive processes that optimize the skills of
problem-solving and adaptive thinking. It is in
this way that it can be argued that, in post-traumatic growth, adversity is the stone upon which
our skills are sharpened.
But it is also important to differentiate a
strength-based approach from separate concepts such as emotional toughness, resilience, or
even optimism, in that post-traumatic growth
involves a transcendence beyond pre-trauma
(or adversity) levels of functioning. This growth
can be characterized into five separate domains:
increased openness; appreciation for life (gratitude); enhanced sense of personal strength;
deeper, more meaningful relationships; and a
deeper understanding of faith. For this growth
to occur, however, the struggle with trauma
is imperative, as people who score highly on
the coping skill dimensions may not report
growth following a stressful event (Tedeschi
& Calhoun, 2004). The reason for this, Tedeschi and Calhoun suggest, is that for people
who already exhibit adaptive functioning, not
much skill sharpening has to take place. On
the other hand, those who have lower levels
of coping, have more room for improvement.
It is in this way that adversity itself is viewed
through an adaptive lens, that is, it is a tool for
refinement. Unlike resilience, which seeks to
better resist stress and adversity, post-traumatic
growth seeks to use it as a launch pad for the
Transformation Specialist
development of strengths and skills. Also different from resilience, emotional toughness, or optimism, each domain of post-traumatic growth
has a paradoxical element. Life is viewed as
being more precious and more fragile, people
report feeling both more vulnerable and stronger, and while some relationships are more
tenuous, others are much deeper. It is in this
way that post-traumatic growth is defined not
as the absence of negative emotion, but rather the presence of both positive and negative
emotions (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004). Further,
post-traumatic growth surpasses simply becoming more resistant to challenging life events and
describes the way in which adversity can spawn
the emergence of adaptive skills that would
otherwise not be developed. Where a resilient
person might better plant their feet against the
incoming waves, a person exhibiting post-traumatic growth would duck dive under them.
Here are the important points to take away:
1.
While traditional psychology uses the Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) for
mental disorders, positive psychology uses
the Character Strengths and Virtues Handbook as a guide to classify and understand
strengths.
2.
Positive psychology begins with a study of
strengths, and sees distress as an outcome
of a failure to fully develop and express
strengths.
3.
Post-traumatic growth contends that adversity is a catalyst for growth.
4.
The five domains of post-traumatic growth
are: openness, appreciation for life, enhanced sense of personal strength, deeper,
more meaningful relationships, and a deeper
sense of spirituality.
Positive Psychology | 73
5.
Each domain of post-traumatic growth is
paradoxical in nature, meaning that growth
is defined as the presence of both positive
and negative emotions.
6.
Post-traumatic growth differs from concepts
such as resilience, emotional toughness,
and optimism in that it is characterized by
an adaptive response to adversity—one
that goes beyond pre-trauma levels of
functioning.
While we discuss specific ways in which
strengths can be identified and harnessed
to transform our lives in the cultivating and
activating strengths section of this course,
what is important to understand now is that
a strength-based approach involves using our
strengths not just to transcend our weaknesses, but to also transform adversity into a
springboard for growth.
PowerPoint: Three Exercises to
Use Setbacks to Build Your Clients’
Strength
Ask What Skills Can Be Learned
When we can learn to look at setbacks as
opportunities to build strength, not only are
we more aware of our own strengths, but we
are also more focused on the process of building strength. By teaching your clients to see
setbacks in this way, you help them develop a
growth mindset—one that sees abilities as dependent on effort (not inherited talent), and setbacks as a crucial part of the learning process.
Invite Vulnerability
Strength is often construed as the absence
of weakness. However, growth and learning
depend on vulnerability. What vulnerability
allows is the ability to embrace flaws, faults, and
imperfections in the service of learning. When
you encourage your clients to invite vulnerability, you not only help them see that vulnerability
is acceptable (and a crucial part of learning),
but that strength (and self-growth) is comprised
of both positive and negatives.
Encourage Openness
Openness is a vital part of learning to adapt to
setbacks. What openness allows us to do is to
shift, modify, or completely change our approach
in order to learn a new and more effective way.
When you teach your clients to embrace openness, you not only help them counteract rigid
thinking, but help them develop an approach to
dealing with their setbacks that involves looks
for new solutions and innovative thinking, as
opposed to only seeing obstacles.
Flourishing: PERMA: The
Five Cornerstones of Positive
Psychology
When Martin Seligman first introduced his
theory that optimism can be learned, his goal
was to increase life satisfaction. To this end,
he measured life satisfaction through the use
of self-reporting questionnaires (people were
asked to rate their life satisfaction on a scale
from 1–10). To achieve life satisfaction, Seligman’s theory held that life satisfaction depended on three things: creating positive emotion
(through optimistic thinking), experiencing
engagement (through finding flow), and finding
meaning in life (through the dedication of one’s
services to something larger than oneself).
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And while optimism can be learned, and life
satisfaction can be increased, the problem
Seligman realized was that his theory had two
major flaws. The first flaw Seligman identified
was that his theory didn’t include success and
mastery—he neglected that some people like to
achieve just for the sake of winning. The second
flaw was that life satisfaction was defined as a
summative measure—when in fact, well-being
is better defined as a construct with several
independent components, each worth pursuing
for their own sake.
Because Seligman’s original theory had pivoted
around the idea that happiness (he measured
this through life-satisfaction surveys) is the
definition of a “good life,” he realized he had
elevated happiness to a status which, in fact,
it hadn’t earned. The idea that a good life can
only be measured through reports of happiness
ignores the fact that sometimes we do things
that ultimately do make our life better, but in
the moment, we may not report feeling happy
about them. People who are in highly engaged
states (known as flow), for example, in many
ways report the opposite of happiness, that is,
they report having no feeling (Seligman, 2012).
Pursuing meaning is another example. If we go
back to the life experiences of Victor Frankl, we
can say that he was pursuing meaning while in
a concentration camp, and this indeed made his
life better. But, to be sure, his mood was probably not happy at the time he was doing it.
In addition, Seligman also construed happiness
to mean “always being in a cheerful mood.”
And if happiness is the measuring stick with
which we evaluate our lives, certainly a life that
has no room for any mood other than happiness, would be nothing more than a happiology.
Transformation Specialist
But more importantly, it would overlook the
value of difficult emotions—such as anger, fear,
sadness, and anxiety—that can cause us to
pause and reconsider those areas of our lives
that need attention. As you saw in the previous
section, negative emotions that arise as a result
of adverse life events are crucial components
of growth. Further, by hinging life satisfaction
on being in a good mood, adverse events themselves are given no construct for which to be
understood or utilized to inspire growth. This
approach, it would seem, would assume that a
person does not face adversity, or simply tries
to maintain a happy mood while going through
it—which is wholly unrealistic.
The summative measure of happiness also
overlooks that sometimes people do things
for their own sake, which may or may not be
directly related to happiness. Achievement is
an example of this as we can say that many
people are driven to excel, and that the pursuit
of mastery is quite different from the pursuit
of positive emotions. For one, mastery involves
some degree of challenge, which may result in
emotions such as fear, anxiety, and excitement.
This is quite different from an activity such as
laying on a beach, reading a book, or getting
a massage, which would all result in positive
emotions, yet have no degree of mastery associated with them.
What Seligman ultimately realized was not only
that his theory had flaws, but that the goal itself
was misguided. In pursuing life satisfaction,
he had missed other crucial components that
describe a good life. In redefining his theory
then, Seligman chose a different goal: instead of
aiming to increase life satisfaction, he looked to
increase well-being. And where life satisfaction
Positive Psychology | 75
has one single measure, Seligman’s new theory—which he called flourishing—has five.
The five elements of well-being that define
flourishing are:
Positive emotions. Positive emotions, such as
warmth, rhapsody, ecstasy, and pleasure are
what Seligman calls “the pleasant life.” However, while these emotions may make us feel good,
they will not give our lives meaning. Also, positive emotions can be quickly achieved—buying
a sundae, taking a bath, and getting a massage
take minimal amounts of time—and therefore
require little effort.
Engagement. Engagement, which is also
described as the state of flow, occurs when
the challenges we face perfectly match our
strengths, such that we are neither overwhelmed nor bored. In a state of engagement,
we become completely absorbed in the activity,
and both conscious thought and time appear to
stop. There is an intense focus, a merging of action and awareness, and the activity is autotelic,
meaning it is intrinsically rewarding. (We will
explore flow more fully in the next section).
Positive relationships. Positive relationships
capture the universal human desire for connection. Essentially, these involve the presence
of family, friends, and social connections, with
whom we can feel understood, validated, and
valued. It is these relationships that not only give
us a sense of belonging, but act as a resource to
help us get through difficult life events.
Meaning. Meaning is the act of belonging to
and acting in the service of something greater
than oneself. It is through acting in the pursuit
of something larger than ourselves that we can
find a deeper sense of purpose—transcending
our own self-interests. It is also through meaning that we can experience a deeper unity, and a
deeper connection to the world around us.
Achievement. Achieving something uniquely
fulfills the universal human need for mastery.
And important within the definition of flourishing is that mastery can be undertaken for
its own sake. That is to say that the pursuit of
mastery does not need to lead to any positive
emotions in the moment, but it could still
contribute to an individual’s overall sense of
well-being.
Known as PERMA, these five elements go
beyond previous measures of life satisfaction to
define a theory of well-being. Here, no longer
is happiness considered the single measure of
life satisfaction, but rather, a person’s well-being
comprises five separate elements, where each
may be pursued for its own sake, and can be
measured independent of the others, but all contribute to well-being. That is to say, e.g., that we
may pursue achievement and measure our sense
of mastery, simply because we like winning.
Similarly, we may increase our positive emotions
simply by doing what makes us feel good, and
we can measure the effect of things like getting
massages or watching movies on our moods.
What creates overall well-being, however, is the
incorporation of all five elements.
Here are the important points to take away:
1.
Seligman’s original theory defined happiness
as one summative measure, which overlooked things such as meaning and mastery
that do not directly bring positive emotions,
but do contribute to well-being.
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2.
A singular focus on life satisfaction fails
to understand well-being as an overarching construct comprised of five separate
elements.
3.
Focusing only on creating life satisfaction
through happiness ignores the presence of
adversity—and the negative emotions that
result—as catalysts for growth.
4.
One summative measure of happiness
doesn’t account for the fact that sometimes people do things—such as aiming for
achievements—just for their own sake.
are completely focused on the task at hand, and
about the ways in which they feel this enhances
their lives and mood. Through becoming more
aware of the times they feel engaged and the affect this has on their mood, you will be helping
your clients capture one of the most promising
components of a happy, fulfilled life.
Deepen Relationships
PowerPoint: Three Ways to Use
PERMA to Boost Your Clients’
Mood
Relationships are a central part of a positive
mood, and yet many of us focus very little
energy on developing and maintaining deep
meaningful relationships with those around
us, especially when we don’t feel good about
ourselves. You can help your clients make use
of this powerful component of mood by asking them about those who they feel the closest
bonds with (or most connected to), the ways in
which they spend time with these people, and
the ways in which they feel this improves their
lives. By drawing their attention to the important relationships in their lives, the energy that
they devote to them, and the gains they receive
from them, you can help them to see relationships as a pivotal part of a meaningful life.
Practice Engagement
Find Unique Achievements
When we are engaged in something, our attention is completely devoted to the task in
hand and we are free from distractions that so
often derail happiness. Most importantly, we
are free from our own internal criticisms and
self-doubt. You can help your clients find more
engagement in their lives by asking them when
they feel most absorbed in an activity, when
they feel as if time has stopped, or when they
Achieving is an essential part of feeling good.
In many ways, people are wired to achieve,
master, grow, and realize our potential. To help
your clients make use of this critical component of happiness, ask them about the previous achievements they are most proud of, the
achievements they are working on right now,
and what they would like to accomplish in
the future, and the ways in which these things
5.
Flourishing consists of five separate elements: positive emotions, engagement,
positive relationships, meaning, and
achievement.
While we will explore specific ways to enhance
and build upon each of the five elements in the
positive psychology skills section of this course,
what is important to remember for now is that
well-being is comprised of five separate elements, also known as PERMA.
Transformation Specialist
Positive Psychology | 77
would bring them joy and a sense of satisfaction. By drawing their attention to the positive
boost that achievements bring, you will help
them see that realizing their potential is a vital
part of a happy life.
Positive Psychology
Skills for Personal
Trainers
So far we have explored the model of positive
psychology, the importance of thinking optimistically, how strengths can be used to repurpose adversity, PERMA (the five cornerstones
of positive psychology), and what it means to
find flow. The purpose of the discussion thus far
has been to ensure your understanding of the
important components of positive psychology.
In this section, we learn ways to put all of this
knowledge into action to improve the lives of all
the clients you work with. We begin with a look
at the Optimism Test, and learn how to administer and interpret it; then, we look at specific
ways to improve your client’s attributions.
From there, we turn our attention to the VIA
Strength Inventory, and learn how to identify
and activate your clients’ strengths. Lastly, we
look at the five components of positive psychology: positive emotions, engagement, positive
relationships, meaning, and achievement, and
learn ways to harness these powerful drivers to
help your clients create a life full of well-being.
The Optimism Test and
Assessment
As you know, understanding your client’s
explanatory style is imperative to creating a
training program that meets their needs. To
be effective, you will need to know how your
clients internalize successes and failures, both
within the training program and outside of it.
For example, let’s say your client has an explanatory style that causes them to believe that negative events are their fault. They will likely feel
that any setbacks in training are also their fault,
and perhaps even begin to give up on themselves (i.e., to not even try to succeed). However,
if you know this about your client from the very
beginning of the training program, you will be
able to modify the training program to meet
their needs; for example, when they experience
a setback in the training program, decrease the
intensity of the program to allow them to feel
successful again.
As you will recall from the section on learning
to think optimistically, measuring a person’s
optimism is done through the use of the Optimism Test, developed by Martin Seligman.
The test consists of a single sentence describing
a situation, and two responses that explain the
situation. Your client will choose the response
that best describes their situation. In order to
accurately measure your client’s explanatory
style, it is important that you understand how
to administer the Optimism Test:
1.
You must not tell your client what the test
is measuring, but simply instruct them to
answer the questions naturally, based on the
first response that springs to mind.
2.
You must not tell your client that the test
is about explanatory styles, but simply ask
them to choose the response that best explains the situation that is presented.
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3.
You must tell your client that although some
responses might not fit exactly, they should
choose the best response.
4.
You must tell your client that there is no
time limit for the test; however, they should
choose their first response not sit and mull it
over too much.
The assessment test consists of 48 questions,
with two choices for answers: A or B (see the
Optimism form).
To score the test, begin by totaling the numbers
in the right-hand margin for each factors:
Write your totals on the line corresponding to
each factor measured. To complete the scoring
of the test, look at the remaining four factors:
HOB: PVB total + PMB total
Total B: PMB total + PVB total + PSB total
Total G: PMG total + PVB total + PSB total
G ­– B: Total G – Total B
Optimism Test Evaluation
To evaluate the assessment test, we first have
to understand what it is measuring. The test
measures your client’s explanatory style, which
is how they think about the cause of events—
both positive and negative—in their life. For
example, a person who gives up easily, will tend
to explain their misfortunes by saying things
like, “It’s my fault, this always happens.” On the
other hand, a person who doesn’t tend to give
up, might say, “It was just bad timing, it isn’t
going to go on forever, I can’t forget all the good
things that have also happened.”
Your client’s patterned way of explaining
Transformation Specialist
things, is more than just their choice of words.
It is a window into the very thought processes
they learned in youth and that now color how
they conduct their life. As a person’s explanatory style comes directly from that person’s
view of their place in the world, someone who
thinks that they are valuable and competent as
a person would be classified as an optimist, and
would tend to act in optimistic ways. On the
other hand, a person who thinks that they are
worthless would be classified as a pessimist, and
would respond to both positive and negative
events in pessimistic ways. As you know, the
test is designed to reveal the three important
dimensions of your client’s explanatory style:
permanence, pervasiveness, and personalization. Let’s now take a closer look at how each of
these dimensions affects your client’s thought
processes.
Permanence
Clients who give up easily, tend to explain the
bad things that happen to them in a permanent
way, believing that they will always affect their
lives the same way. Clients who do not give up
easily, and who resist feeling helpless, tend to
believe that the causes of their bad events are
temporary. Here are some examples:
Permanent
(pessimistic):
Temporary
(optimistic):
“I always bulk up with
exercise.”
“When I lift heavy
weights I bulk up.”
“I can’t ever play varsity
football.”
“I can’t play varsity football this year.”
“My husband always
nags me.”
“My husband nags me
when I’m late.”
“My shoulder never gets
any better.”
“My shoulder wasn’t
helped by doing overhead lifts.”
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Optimism Test
Date:
Client:
1.
The project you are in charge of is a
great success.
PSG
a.
1
I kept a close watch over everyone’s
work.
b. Everyone devoted a lot of time and
energy to it.
2. You and your spouse [boyfriend/girlfriend] make up after a fight.
a.
a.
PMG
0
b. I’m usually forgiving.
1
a.
I missed a turn.
b. My friend gave me bad directions.
4. Your spouse [boyfriend/girlfriend] surprises you with a gift.
a.
He/she just got a raise at work.
PSB
1
0
PSG
a.
I’m not good at remembering
birthdays.
b. I was preoccupied with other things.
6. You get a flower from a secret admirer.
a.
7.
I am attractive to him/her.
a.
b. I was alert that day.
12. You were extremely healthy all year.
a.
PMB
Few people around me were sick, so
I wasn’t exposed.
b. I made sure I ate well and got
enough rest.
13. You owe the library ten dollars for an
overdue book.
a.
1
PSG
0
1
PMB
0
a.
My broker decided to take on something new.
0
b. My broker is a top notch investor.
15. You win an athletic contest.
b. I am a popular person.
1
b. I train hard.
You run for a community office position
and you win.
PVG
a.
I devote a lot of time and energy to
campaigning.
0
b. I work very hard at everything I do.
1
Sometimes my memory fails me.
PSG
b. I was so involved in writing the report that I forgot to return the book.
a.
a.
1
1
1
I was feeling unbeatable.
16. You fail an important examination.
a.
I wasn’t as smart as the other people
taking the exam.
b. I didn’t prepare for it well.
PVB
0
When I am really involved in what I
am reading, I often forget when it is
due.
14. Your stocks made you a lot of money.
PVG
PMG
A strange noise caught my attention. 0
0
8. You miss an important engagement.
9.
11. You stop a crime by calling the police.
0
b. I took him/her out to a special dinner 1
the night before.
5. You forgot your spouse’s [boyfriend/girlfriend’s] birthday.
I was particularly charming that
night.
b. I am a good host.
0
I forgave him/her.
3. You get lost driving to a friend’s house.
10. You host a successful dinner.
17. You prepared a special meal for a friend
and he/she barely touched the food.
PMG
0
1
PMG
0
1
PVB
1
0
PVB
1
a.
I wasn’t a good cook.
1
b. I sometimes forget to check my appointment book.
0
b. I made the meal in a rush.
0
You run for a community office position
and you lose.
PSB
a.
1
I didn’t campaign hard enough.
b. The person who won knew more
people.
18. You lose a sporting event for which you
have been training for a long time.
a.
I’m not very athletic.
b. I’m not good at that sport.
PVB
1
0
0
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Optimism
19. Your car runs out of gas on a dark street
late at night.
a.
I didn’t check to see how much gas
was in the tank.
b. The gas gauge was broken.
20. You lose your temper with a friend.
a.
PSB
1
28. Your boss gives you too little time in
which to finish a project, but you get it
finished anyway.
a.
0
PMB
I am good at my jo0
b. I am an efficient person.
29. You’ve been feeling run-down lately.
He/She is always nagging me.
1
a.
b. He/She was in a hostile mood.
0
b. I was exceptionally bust this week.
21. You are penalized for not returning your
income-tax forms on time.
a.
PMB
I never get a chance to relax.
30. You ask someone to dance and he/she
says no.
I always put off doing my taxes.
1
a.
b. I was lazy about doing my taxes this
year.
0
b. He/she doesn’t like to dance.
22. You ask a person out on a date and he/
she says no.
a.
I was a wreck that day.
b. I got tongue-tied when I asked him/
her on the date.
23. A game show host picks you out of the
audience to participate in the show.
a.
I was sitting in the right seat.
b. I looked the most enthusiastic.
24. You are frequently asked to dance at a
party.
a.
I am outgoing at parties.
b. I was in perfect form that night.
25. You buy your spouse [boyfriend/girlfriend] a gift and he/she doesn’t like it.
a.
I don’t put enough thought into
things like that.
b. He/she has very picky tastes.
26. You do exceptionally well in a job
interview.
a.
I felt extremely confident during the
interview.
b. I interview well.
27. You tell a joke and everyone laughs.
a.
PVB
I am not a good enough dancer.
31. You save a person from choking to
death.
a.
PVG
1
PMB
1
0
PSB
1
0
PVG
1
I know a technique to stop someone
from choking.
0
b. I know what to do in crisis situations. 1
PSG
32. Your romantic partner wants to cool
things off for a while.
a.
0
1
PMG
1
1
33. A friend says something that hurts your
feelings.
a.
34. Your employer comes to you for advice.
0
0
35. A friend thanks you for helping him/her
get through a bad time.
1
The joke was funny.
0
b. My timing was perfect.
1
I am an expert in the area about
which I was asked.
b. I am good at giving useful advice.
a.
PSG
She always blurts things out without
thinking of others.
b. My friend was in a bad mood and
took it out on me.
a.
PMG
PVB
1
b. I don’t spend enough time with him/ 0
her.
0
PSB
I’m too self-centered.
0
I enjoy helping him/her through
tough times.
b. I care about people.
36. You have a wonderful time at a party.
a.
Everyone was friendly.
b. I was friendly.
PMB
1
0
PVG
0
1
PVG
0
1
PSG
0
1
Please note: possession of this form does not indicate that its distributor is actively certified with the ISSA. To confirm certification status, please call 1.800.892.4772 (1.805.745.8111 international). Information gathered from this form is not shared with ISSA. ISSA is not responsible or liable for the use or incorporation of the information contained in or collected from this form. Always consult your doctor concerning your health,
diet, and physical activity.
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© 2018 International Sports Sciences Association
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Optimism
37. Your doctor tells you that you are in
good physical shape.
a.
I make sure I exercise frequently.
b. I am very health conscious.
38. Your spouse {boyfriend/girlfriend] takes
you away for a romantic weekend.
a.
He/She needed to get away for a few
days.
b. He/She likes to explore new areas.
39. Your doctor tells you that you eat too
much sugar.
a.
I don’t pay much attention to my
diet.
b. You can’t avoid sugar, it’s in
everything.
40. You are asked to head an important
project.
a.
I just successfully completed a similar project.
b. I am a good supervisor.
41. You and your spouse [boyfriend/girlfriend] have been fighting a great deal.
a.
I have been feeling cranky and pressured lately.
b. He/She has been hostile lately.
42. You fall down a great deal while skiing.
a.
Skiing is difficult.
b. The trails were icy.
43. You win a prestigious award.
a.
I solved an important problem.
b. I was the best employee.
44. Your stocks are at an all-time low.
a.
I didn’t know much about the business climate at the time.
b. I made a poor choice of stocks.
PVG
45. You win the lottery.
a.
0
1
PMG
b. I picked the right numbers.
46. You gain weight over the holidays and
you can’t lose it.
a.
0
1
PSB
It was pure chance.
Diets don’t work in the long run.
b. The diet I tried didn’t work.
47. You are in the hospital and few people
come to visit.
0
1
PMB
1
0
PSB
I’m irritable when I am sick.
1
1
b. My friends are negligent about
things like that.
0
0
48. They won’t honor your credit card at a
store.
PMG
0
a.
PSG
a.
b. I sometimes forget to pay my credit
card bill.
1
Scoring
PSB
Factor
1
I sometimes overestimate how much
money I have.
PVB
1
0
Total
PVB (questions 8, 16, 17, 18, 22, 32, 44, 48)
PMB (questions 5, 13, 20, 21, 29, 33, 42, 46)
0
PMB
PSB (questions 3, 9, 19, 25, 30, 39, 41, 47)
1
PMG (questions 2, 10, 14, 15, 24, 26, 38, 40)
0
PVG (questions 6, 7, 28, 31, 34, 35, 37, 43)
PVG
0
1
PVB
1
0
PSG (questions 1, 4, 11, 12, 23, 27, 36, 45)
HOB (PVB + PMB)
Total B (PMB + PVB + PSB)
Total G (PMG + PVB + PSB)
G–B (Total G — Total B)
Please note: possession of this form does not indicate that its distributor is actively certified with the ISSA. To confirm certification status, please call 1.800.892.4772 (1.805.745.8111 international). Information gathered from this form is not shared with ISSA. ISSA is not responsible or liable for the use or incorporation of the information contained in or collected from this form. Always consult your doctor concerning your health,
diet, and physical activity.
82 | Unit 4
If your client explains bad events using words
like “always” and “never,” or as an ongoing trait,
then they are considered as having a permanent, pessimistic style. Conversely, if your client
explains bad events as temporary conditions—
using words like “sometimes” and “presently,”
or using qualifiers like “when I’m late,” “this
year,” “lately,” etc.—then they are considered as
having an optimistic style.
Now look at the questions marked, “PMB”
(stands for permanent bad): 5, 13, 20, 21, 29,
33, 42, and 46. These questions measure how
permanent your client thinks the causes of
bad events are. The answers followed by a 0 are
optimistic, and the ones followed by a 1 are
pessimistic. For example, if your client chose
“I always put off doing my taxes” instead of “I
was lazy about getting my taxes done this year,”
then they chose a more permanent, and pessimistic, cause. Now go back to the scoring key,
and look at the total next to PMB.
PMB Total
Explanation
0 or 1
he/she is very optimistic on this
dimension
2 or 3
is a moderately optimistic score
4
is average
5 or 6
is quite pessimistic
7 or 8
he/she is very, very pessimistic on this
dimension
The reason this dimension is so important is
that failure makes everyone at least momentarily helpless. For some clients, the hurt goes away
almost instantly; these are the clients who score
a 0 or 1; which represents very optimistic in
this dimension. However, for other clients, the
hurt does not go away quickly, it lasts, and these
are the clients who tend to score a 7 or 8 in this
dimension. They can remain helpless for days,
even after only small failures.
Transformation Specialist
The optimistic style of explaining bad events
involves finding a temporary cause for the bad
events. As you know, the optimistic style of explaining good events is just the opposite. Clients
who believe that good events have permanent
causes are more optimistic than clients who believe that good events are caused by temporary
conditions. Here are some examples:
Temporary
(pessimistic):
Permanent
(optimistic):
“I got lucky in that race.”
“I’m always lucky.”
“It was good conditions.”
“I race well.”
“I’m energetic today.”
“I’m an energetic
person.”
Optimistic clients will explain successes to
themselves in terms of permanent causes: traits,
abilities, or by using words such as “always.”
Pessimistic clients believe just the opposite, i.e.,
that successes are explained by temporary causes: moods, conditions, effort, or by using words
such as “sometimes.”
Looking back at the test, you will notice that
some of the questions involve about good events,
like, “You are asked to head an important project.” The questions followed by PMG (Permanent
Good): 2, 10, 14, 15, 24, 26, 38, and 40, measure
your client’s explanatory style for good events.
The answers followed by 1 are the permanent,
optimistic answers, while the answers followed
by 0 are the temporary, pessimistic answers.
PMG Total
Explanation
7 or 8
he/she is very optimistic about the likelihood of good events continuing
6
is a moderately optimistic
4 or 5
is average
3
is moderately pessimistic
0, 1, or 2
he/she is very pessimistic
Positive Psychology | 83
Clients who believe that good events have
permanent causes try even harder after they
succeed, while clients who believe that good
events have temporary causes, may give up
even when they succeed, believing that the
success was a fluke.
Pervasiveness
While permanence is about whether events
have temporary or permanent causes and is descriptive of time, pervasiveness is about whether
events affect only a small part of a person’s life
or color their entire life (i.e., it is about space).
For example, let’s say both “Sally” and “Joe” get
laid off by the same accounting firm, and for
a while both experience some depression and
try to avoid doing anything that reminds them
of accounting. Sally, however, remains a loving
mother, devoted wife, and active in her social
life and exercise program. Joe, on the other
hand, falls apart. He isolates himself from his
family and friends, becomes irritable, and stops
his jogging program. He even refuses to go out
with his wife, claiming that he does not want to
risk seeing anybody from his old workplace.
The difference here is that some people can put
their failures or troubles into a compartment,
where they will not affect the rest of their lives.
Whereas others can let their failures in one
area affect their whole life. They make catastrophes out of even small failures, and when
one thread of their life snaps, the whole fabric
comes unraveled.
This difference is best described by the explanations that people give for their failures: those
who make universal explanations give up on
everything when a failure strikes in one area,
while those who make specific explanations may
become helpless in that one part of their lives, yet
remain strong in the other areas. Here are some
examples of universal and specific explanations:
Universal
(pessimistic):
Specific (optimistic):
“Trainer’s never work for
me.”
“That trainer didn’t work
for me.”
“I hate my body.”
“I hate my thighs.”
“Supplements are
useless.”
“That supplement is
useless.”
Sally and Joe both had the same high score on
the permanence dimension of the test. They
both were pessimists in this respect. When they
were laid off, they both remained depressed for
a long time. But they had the opposite scores
on the pervasiveness dimension. Joe believed
that being laid off would affect everything he
tried; he thought he was no good at anything.
Sally believed that bad events have very specific
causes. When she was laid off, she only thought
she was no good at accounting.
The permanence dimension determines how
long a person gives up for. Permanent explanations for bad events produce long-lasting
helplessness, while temporary explanations
produce resilience.
The pervasiveness dimension determines how
much of a person’s life a failure can affect
them. Universal explanations for bad events
produce helplessness across many situations,
while specific explanations for bad events produce helplessness in only the one bad area of
the person’s life.
For example, the person who answers question
#18 (“You lose at a sporting event for which
International Sports Sciences Association
84 | Unit 4
you have been training a long time.”), with A.
“I’m not very athletic,” has chosen a universal (pessimistic) explanation for their failure.
On the other hand, a client who answers with
response B. “I’m not good at that sport,” has
chosen a specific (optimistic) explanation for
their failure.
Now look back at the test. The questions followed by “PVB” (Pervasiveness Bad): 8, 16, 17,
18, 22, 32, 44, and 48, measure your client’s
pervasiveness for bad events. The responses followed by a 0 are the optimistic responses, while
the responses followed by a 1 are the pessimistic
responses.
PVB Total
Explanation
0 or 1
he/she is very optimistic
2 or 3
is a moderately optimistic score
4
is average
5 or 6
is quite pessimistic
7 or 8
he/she is very, very pessimistic
While the optimist believes that bad events have
specific causes, they believe that good events
have universal causes. In the dimension of
pervasiveness, the optimistic explanatory style
for good events is opposite that for bad events.
Conversely, the pessimist believes that bad events
have universal causes, while good events have
specific causes. Here are some examples:
Specific (pessimistic):
Universal (optimistic):
“I’m good at running.”
“I’m a good athlete.”
“I did well on that project
at work.”
“I’m a good employee.”
“I just looked thin in that
outfit.”
“I am a thin person.”
Now look back at the test, the questions followed by PVG (Pervasiveness Good): 6, 7, 28, 31,
Transformation Specialist
34, 35, 37, and 43, measure your client’s pervasiveness for good events. The responses followed
by a 0 are pessimistic (specific) responses, while
the responses followed by a 1 are optimistic
(universal) responses. For example, the optimistic response to question #6 (“You get a flower
from a secret admirer.”) is B. “I am a popular
person.” On the other hand, the pessimistic
response to question #6 is A. “I am attractive to
him/her.”
PVG Total
Explanation
7 or 8
he/she is very optimistic
6
is a moderately optimistic
4 or 5
is average
3
is moderately pessimistic
0, 1, or 2
he/she is very pessimistic
Personalization
While permanence is about time, and pervasiveness is about space, personalization is about
whether a person blames themselves for the misfortunes or failures in their life. When bad things
happen, a person has a choice: to either blame
themselves (to internalize) or to blame external
circumstances (to externalize). When your client
blames themselves, low self-esteem is the consequence. As a result, they will likely feel worthless,
untalented, and like a failure when bad events
strike. On the other hand, the client who blames
external circumstances will not take such a hit to
their self-esteem when bad events strike, and is
better able to separate the cause of the bad events
from themselves. That is not to say that those
who score high on the external dimension do not
take responsibility for their actions, they do, they
just don’t take the level of excessive responsibility that those with an internal attribution style
Positive Psychology | 85
do. Let’s look at some examples of internal and
external attributions:
Internal (low
self-esteem):
External (high
self-esteem):
“I’m not strong enough.”
“The weight is too heavy
for me.”
“I’m not good at running
marathons.”
“The marathon course
was really tough.”
“I pissed off my
husband.”
“My husband was in a
bad mood.”
Now look back at the questions followed by PSB
(Personalization Bad): 3, 9, 19, 25, 30, 39, 41,
and 47. The responses followed by 1 are pessimistic (internal or personal), and the responses
followed by 0 are optimistic (external).
optimistic style of explaining events is opposite
the pessimistic style of explaining events (i.e.,
it is internal not external). People who believe
that they are the cause of good events are often
more optimistic and positive than people who
believe that the cause of good events in their life
is other people or circumstances. Here are some
examples of external and internal attributions:
External (Pessimistic):
Internal (Optimistic):
“My competitor had a
bad day.”
“I ran a great race.”
“My teammates are very
talented.”
“I played well.”
Now look at the questions labeled PSG (Personalization Good): 1, 4, 11, 12, 12, 23, 27, 36, and
45. The responses followed by a 0 are external
(pessimistic), while the responses followed by 1
are internal (optimistic).
PSB Total
Explanation
0 or 1
indicates very high self-esteem
2 or 3
indicates moderate high self-esteem
4
is average
5 or 6
indicates moderately low self-esteem
PSG Total
Explanation
indicates very low self-esteem
7 or 8
he/she is very optimistic
6
is a moderately optimistic
4 or 5
is average
3
is moderately pessimistic
0, 1, or 2
he/she is very pessimistic
7 or 8
Out of the three dimensions, personalization is
the easiest to understand, and for that reason,
is often overrated. Personalization controls how
you feel about yourself, while permanence and
pervasiveness control what you do (i.e., how
long you are helpless and across how many dimensions). Because personalization is the easiest dimension to understand, it is also very easy
to fake. It is possible to immediately change the
way you talk about your troubles from internal
to external. On the contrary, it is not possible
to immediately change the way you talk about
your troubles from having permanent and universal causes to having temporary and specific
causes, without some practice.
For the dimension of personalization, the
Hope
Now that we have explored the three dimensions of the explanatory style, let’s take a look
at the Hope Score (HOB). We know that people
who find temporary and specific causes for
their misfortunes are more optimistic than
people who find permanent and universal causes for their misfortunes. But there is another
important difference: Optimists are also more
hopeful. Finding temporary and specific causes
for misfortune is the practice of hope. Temporary causes limit helplessness in time, while
International Sports Sciences Association
86 | Unit 4
specific causes limit helplessness to the original
situation. On the other hand, permanent causes
produce long-lasting helplessness, and universal causes produce helplessness that spreads
across many aspects of a person’s life. Let’s
look at some examples of hopeless and hopeful
statements:
Hopeless:
Hopeful:
“I’m an idiot.”
“I was really exhausted.”
“I’m not strong.”
“I have not trained.”
“All men are pigs.”
“My boyfriend was in a
bad mood.”
Because the hope score characterizes how well
we contain our failures (limiting them to time
and space), it is possibly the single most important score from the test. Those who can contain
failures are not overwhelmed by them and can
find adaptive responses to them. On the other
hand, when failures bleed across many areas of
our lives, and seem endless, we are held hostage
by them. In fact, what research on the Optimism Test has demonstrated consistently is
that no single score is as important as the hope
score. To calculate the hope score, add the PMB
total to the PVB total. This is the hope score for
bad events.
HOB Total
Explanation
0, 1, or 2
he/she is extraordinarily hopeful
3, 4, 5, or 6
is a moderately hopeful score
7 or 8
is average
9, 10, or 11
is moderately hopeless
12 thru 16
he/she is severely hopeless
Totals
Now that we have explored all three dimensions
of the explanatory style, as well as the hope
score, we can compute the totals.
Transformation Specialist
•
Step 1: Add the three Bs (PMB, PVB, PSB).
This is the total B (bad events) score.
•
Step 2: Add the three Gs (PMG, PVG, PSG).
This is the total G (good events) score.
•
Step 3: Subtract total B from total G. This is
the overall score.
•
Step 4: Review the charts below to see what
the totals mean.
Total B Score
3 to 6
very optimistic
6 to 9
moderately optimistic
10 to 11
average
12 to 14
moderately pessimistic
above 14
very pessimistic
Total G Score
19 or above
very optimistic about good events
17 to 19
moderately optimistic
14 to 16
average
11 to 13
moderately pessimistic
10 or less
very pessimistic
Total G – Total B
above 8
very optimistic across the board
6 to 8
moderately optimistic
3 to 5
average
1 to 2
moderately pessimistic
0 or less
very pessimistic
Now that we have completed the scoring of the
test, let’s take a look at how the results will your
client. If your client scored poorly (scores in the
pessimistic range), there are several areas they
may have trouble with. First, they will likely
be heavily affected by any failures, but will not
receive much of a boost from successes. Second,
they will probably achieve less than their talents
warrant. Third, as you will recall form the section on thinking optimistically, their physical
Positive Psychology | 87
health and immune function will likely reflect
their pessimistic explanatory style. Lastly, your
client’s life is probably not as pleasurable as it
should be. A pessimistic explanatory style in life
is generally a misery.
But let’s say your client’s pessimism score is in
the average range. While they will not experience difficulty under ordinary circumstances,
in times of crisis, they will struggle. When hard
times hit, they may feel immobilized by them.
Things like being rejected by a loved one, losing
a job, or financial trouble may lead to a loss of
energy in many areas of their life, and it will be
challenging for them to respond adaptively. For
many people, this is a very common reaction, as
the majority of people fall into this range.
The optimistic client, on the other hand, will
view adversity as a growth opportunity, and
will understand negative events can and do
happen, but they do not last forever, and do not
negate other positive areas of life. Further, it is
through facing challenges in life that we come
to know our greatest strengths, and recognize
our deepest potential.
Now that you understand how to measure
optimism, and how the results of the Optimism
Test can reveal the ways in which your client
will respond to failures and success both in and
out of the training program, we look at some
specific ways in which you can improve attributions to boost your client’s optimism.
Attribution Exercises to Boost
Optimism
As you know, when it comes to bad events,
thinking in permanent and pervasive ways not
only makes the negative feelings associated with
the event last longer, but also paralyzes our resources to respond adaptively. For pessimists, the
real problem is thinking in rigid, inflexible ways.
Because pessimists categorize adversity in a
formulaic way, their responses also tend to follow
a pattern—that is to be immobilized by adversity.
On the flip side of things, when positive things
happen, pessimists also use pattern explanations
that fail to identify the unique outcomes that
successes represent for them. Much in the same
way an optimist will quickly brush off a bad
event and carry forward with their sunny nature,
a pessimist will quickly brush off a good event
and continue seeing the glass as half empty. One
of the reasons for this is that pessimists have a
low tolerance for uncertainty. And using formulaic explanations is one way to ensure certainty.
What is difficult for a pessimist to see is that life
does not always follow a pattern and there are
no predictable explanations for things. That is,
sometimes things happen (like getting fired) that
seem to have no explanation. Instead of accepting the uncertainty, however, what pessimists
frequently do is employ the same explanations
(which is to say that things like this always
happen), even when they don’t necessarily fit the
situation. For the pessimist, what matters more
than getting the explanations right (or at least
accepting alternative explanations) is avoiding
uncertainty. That is, perhaps bad things don’t
always happen, and they don’t need to affect your
entire life when they do.
In order to help the pessimist client then, you are
going to have to find ways to help them think
in more flexible and less rigid ways. But perhaps
more importantly, you are going to need to build
their tolerance for uncertainty. It is here that
International Sports Sciences Association
88 | Unit 4
you can play an instrumental role in shifting the
way that your client responds to negative events.
When you can help your client build a tolerance
for uncertainty, not only will you reduce their
rigid thinking and help them think in more
flexible and adaptive ways, but you will also
help them uncover unique outcomes (where bad
things don’t always happen) or find alternative
explanations for them when they do. But most
importantly, you will help your client see that
there are other—more solution focused—responses to adversity available to them.
Let’s begin with an exercise to build your client’s tolerance for uncertainty.
Uncertainty Brainstorm
The tendency to tolerate uncertainty is universal to everyone. Yet some cultures, as a whole,
tolerate uncertainty better than others. This
tendency was first noticed by Geert Hofstede,
author of Cultures and Organizations: Software
of the Mind. Hofstede uncovered that some cultures prepare us to feel more comfortable with
uncertainty than others. According to Hofstede, there are several factors that determine
whether or not a culture has a high uncertainty
avoidance. For example, cultures with a high
uncertainty avoidance tend to have more laws
and regulations than those with a low uncertainty avoidance. Additionally, cultures with
high uncertainty avoidance tend to have more
oppressed members, and members display less
interest or participation in politics than those
with a low uncertainty avoidance. Whereas
cultures with a high uncertainty avoidance tend
toward very strict and specific laws and rules,
those with low uncertainty avoidance have
Transformation Specialist
more political interest from members, as participation, and even protest, is seen as a vehicle for
change (Hofstede, 1993).
In education, cultures that rely heavily on
educators to have the answers display high
uncertainty avoidance compared to those where
children are encouraged to be open-minded.
High uncertainty avoidance in family life leads
to role rigidity and well-defined patriarchal and
maternal figures, while low uncertainty avoidance allows for greater flexibility in family and
gender roles.
On an individual level, people with a high
uncertainty avoidance often like clear and
predictable rules, tend to be formal in interactions, have a strict and rigid schedule, and
are resistant to change. These people prefer
a careful, circumspect approach, do not like
unpredictability, and tend to be more emotional. Conversely, people with low uncertainty
avoidance abide by fewer rules, do not have a set
routine or structure, are more informal in their
approach, and are more open to change. These
people feel much more comfortable with fewer
rules, a more changeable structure, and often
appear more calm and collected.
At this point, we should know that bad events
usually bring uncertainty with them. Familiar
beliefs, values, and priorities often change in
drastic and unexpected ways. To help your client become more comfortable with uncertainty,
you should start by first assessing your client’s
uncertainty avoidance. Begin by asking your
client to respond to the following eight statements, giving themselves a rating from 0 to 10,
with 0 meaning “not very much like me” and 10
meaning “very much like me”:
Positive Psychology | 89
1.
I prefer having the answers.
2.
I prefer a set structure.
3.
I tend to take a planned approach to life.
4.
I prefer formality in interactions.
5.
I tend to avoid change.
6.
I avoid unusual or unknown situations.
7.
I prefer an orthodox approach as opposed to
an unorthodox one.
8.
I prefer set roles.
Then, tabulate your client’s answers. While
your client’s score can be anywhere between 0
and 80, those with a score of 40 or less tend to
be low in uncertainty avoidance, while a score
of 40 or more can be described as high uncertainty avoidance. Ideally, in order to learn how
to adapt, the score should be over 40, perhaps
closer to 60 or 70. Certainly, there is no set
perfect score. However, generally, very low
scores do not permit change. And adapting to
the changing circumstances that bad events
typically bring will require that your client is
willing to try something different—and more
importantly, something unproven. To help your
client do this, now have them do an uncertainty
brainstorm. Begin by instructing your client to
first answer this question:
Describe a recent setback. What was one thing
you lost because of it?
The answer can be anything from a marriage,
a child, a career, wealth, health, or a personal
goal. Whatever the answer is, your client must
write it down. Next, have your client answer the
following question:
What would you have done if you didn’t_?
(Write the answer from the first question here.)
Your client should answer this question, listing
as many possible options that come to their
mind. For example, if their original question
was, “What would you have done if you didn’t
get married?”, the answer could be anything
from travel, go to school, start a business, or
pursue a life passion. On the other hand, if the
question was, “What would you have done if you
didn’t become wealthy?”, the answer might be
volunteer, join the Peace Corps, live more simply,
or live in a different location altogether. The goal
here is for your client to list as many different
options as they can think of. Once they have
written all the options down, have your client
move on to the next part of the exercise.
Starting with the first option, instruct your
client to consider each one as completely as
possible. Your client should take each one separately and visualize what it would be like to e.g.,
start a business, travel, volunteer, live off the
land, and so on. As your client does this, have
them write down their reactions to each option, beginning with their initial thoughts and
adding any thoughts that follow. For example,
your client’s initial reaction to traveling may
be that it would be costly, but as they think it
over, they might start to feel more excited about
it and perhaps even start to look forward to
exploring where they might travel to. Whatever
your client’s reactions are, they should write
them down. Then, instruct the client to go back
and together look over what they wrote down.
Do your client’s answers reflect a resistance to
change? Does your client tend to focus on what
is wrong with each option? Or perhaps on why
International Sports Sciences Association
90 | Unit 4
things won’t work? If so, you should instruct
your client to reconsider each of their options,
and ask the following questions for each one:
•
What could be one benefit of doing this?
•
What could be one thing I learn from doing
this?
•
What is one positive thing that could happen
unexpectedly?
•
Is there something I could see myself enjoying
about this?
The goal of these questions is to begin to shift
your client’s attitude toward uncertainty. When
your client can see that each option could have
a hidden benefit, allow them to learn something
new, or offer hidden enjoyment, they may also
start to view uncertainty differently, as something that leads to new discoveries—the discovery of valuable information about the self, what
makes them happy, and what could lead them
to the life they want. And more importantly,
your client can start to see uncertainty as an
important part of adapting.
In order to help your client adopt more optimistic explanations—and ones that lead to
better outcomes—you are also going to have
to help them recognize unique outcomes (the
times when things do go well), and identify
alternative explanations (that are not rooted in
rigid thinking).
Let’s take a look at how you can do this.
Finding Unique Outcomes
As you know, the pessimist sees things in
predictable and rigid ways, which unfortunately tends toward patterned gloomy outcsome.
Transformation Specialist
And the more a pessimist adopts this way of
thinking, the less likely they are to see the times
when things go well. Much in the same way that
doing a daily gratitude list primes the brain to
find the positive things around us, using pessimistic attributions primes the brain to find
pessimistic explanations—even when things are
going well. To overcome this then, we have to
learn to find the unique outcomes. That is, the
times when the outcomes are positive.
To help your client begin to find unique outcomes, begin by asking your client the following questions:
1.
Describe a time when you thought things
were going to go poorly, and instead they
worked out well?
2.
Describe a time when something bad happened, yet you learned a valuable lesson?
3.
Describe a time when something positive
unexpectedly happened?
4.
Tell me about a time when you were pleasantly surprised?
5.
Tell me about a time when someone exceeded your expectations?
6.
Describe a time when your expectations
about a situation were exceeded?
The goal of these questions is to help your client
see past their rigid thinking and patterned
explanations, and begin to question the permanent ways they typically describe things.
In identifying these unique outcomes, you
will also be helping your client become more
open to an optimistic explanatory style, and to
taking an optimistic approach to events in their
life. Ultimately, you will be helping your client
begin to shift their views of themselves, from
Positive Psychology | 91
someone who is held hostage by adversity, to
someone who can find positive outcomes—even
when things don’t go well.
Shifting our attributions toward optimism depends first on being able to tolerate uncertainty
enough to permeate inflexible thinking with
positive outcomes, and then finding alternative
explanations for both positive and negative
events. We do not just have to be able to see
that bad events do not always have permanent
causes, or describe ourselves as optimistic people, but need also to be able to see that positive
events can be related to stable causes, such as
our character, our traits, habits and talents.
What this means for you client is not just a new
way of describing the events in their life, but a
new way of thinking about them. Here again,
you can play a crucial role in helping your
client see themselves differently—that is that
they do not always need to be paralyzed when
bad things happen. Simply by opening your
client’s eye to alternative explanations, you will
be building their sense of hope—that there can
be another way of responding to events in their
life, and another, more hopeful way of living.
Let’s now take a look at how you can help your
clients find alternative (and more adaptive)
attributions.
Finding Alternative Explanations
Because the pessimist is used to explaining
things in a characteristic way, they often do
not see past these explanations. That is, they
lack the very creative thinking that alternative
explanations depend on. Much of the problem is due to the pessimist’s familiarity with
a defeatist sort of thinking. Because there is
a comfort and predictability (remember that
pessimists do not have a high tolerance for
uncertainty) in their attributions, pessimists,
although they may desire for things to be different, may also be uncomfortable with the uncertainty it will bring. This, of course, complicates
the process of finding alternative explanations.
However, finding alternative attributions, just
like learning to tolerate uncertainty, can be
improved with practice.
To help your client find alternative explanations, present them with the following list of
statements, which describe negative events.
•
You got fired from your job.
•
You injured your knee running.
•
Your car was stolen.
•
Someone very close to you became ill.
•
Your missed your flight.
Next, you are going to ask your client to write
down three to five possible explanations for
each negative event that each involve temporary
causes. Your client may list things like, “Sometimes bad things happen,” “My boss was in a
bad mood,” “I was late leaving the house,” or
“I neglected to strengthen my knee properly to
run.” While the explanations your client chooses to use for negative events can be anything
they like, the most important thing is that they
stay away from listing permanent causes (e.g.,
using words like “always” and “never”) and
instead find explanations related to temporary
(and fixable) conditions.
Now, present your client with the following list
of statements, which describes positive events.
International Sports Sciences Association
92 | Unit 4
•
You got a promotion at work.
•
Your spouse (or significant other) surprised
you with a gift.
•
You won a prize in a drawing.
•
You were able to run farther than your
thought possible.
•
You reached your fitness goals.
Again, you are going to ask your client to write
down three to five explanations for each positive
event that involves permanent causes. Your client
may list things like, “I am a hard worker,” “I put
a lot of effort into the things I do,” or “I am a
lucky person.” Here, again, the words your client
chooses to use are up to them, but what is most
important is that the attributions incorporate
stable traits, which are descriptive of your client’s
character, as opposed to temporary conditions,
or those that exist outside of themselves.
Through building your client’s tolerance for
uncertainty, drawing their attention to unique
outcomes, and encouraging them to find alternative explanations for events in their life, the goal
of these exercises is to help your client learn to
think optimistically. And as you know, optimism
determines not just the words your client chooses to explain the events in their life, but more
importantly, how they respond to those events.
Cultivating and Activating
Strengths to Propel Performance
As you know from the section on using
strengths to repurpose adversity, strengths can
be a very strong defense against things that
threaten to hold us back. When we know what
our characteristic strengths are, we can also
harness them in them in a way that allows us to
feel connected, purposeful, and fulfilled.
Transformation Specialist
For clients, knowing their strengths and how
they can use them effectively is a very important part of changing behavior, as it is often
these very strengths that can utilized to overcome barriers in the process of change.
In order to help your client identify their
signature strengths, you are going to present
them with the Brief Strength Inventory (you
may remember this from earlier). The test
comprises 24 questions that can be answered
on a rating from 0 (not very much like me) to
5 (very much like me).
To administer this test, first instruct your
client to think about the way they have acted
in the past month, and although many of the
questions ask about what most people find
desirable, instruct your client to answer them
in terms of how she actually behaved. (See
Strengths Inventory Form.)
Now that you have an idea of what your
client’s signature strengths are, ask them the
following questions:
•
In what ways does your life reflect your signature strengths?
•
In what ways does it not?
•
Are there ways in which your signature
strengths can be expressed more fully?
•
Is there anything that holds you back from
expressing your signature strengths?
•
What steps would you need to take to better express your signature strengths? Please
describe.
•
Are there steps you can take immediately that
would allow you to express your signature
strengths?
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Strengths Inventory
Client:
Answer the following questions with the following
responses:
0 not applicable
1 never
2 rarely
3 somewhat like me
4 occasionally
5 always
Think of actual situations in which you had the
opportunity to do something that was novel or
innovative. How frequently did you show CREATIVITY or INGENUITY in these situations?
Think of actual situations in which you had the
opportunity to explore something new or to do
something different. How frequently did you show
CURIOSITY or INTEREST in these situations?
Think of actual situations in which you had a
complex and important decision to make. How
frequently did you show CRITICAL THINKING,
OPEN-MINDEDNESS, or GOOD JUDGMENT in
these situations?
Think of actual situations in which you had the
opportunity to learn more about some topic, in or
out of school. How frequently did you show LOVE
OF LEARNING in these situations?
Think of actual situations in which you had the
opportunity to offer advice to another person who
needed it. How frequently did you show PERSPECTIVE or WISDOM in these situations?
Think of actual situations in which you experienced fear or threat. How frequently did you show
BRAVERY or COURAGE in these situations?
Think of actual situations in which you faced a
difficult and time-consuming task. How frequently
did you show PERSEVERANCE, PERSISTENCE, DILIGENCE, or INDUSTRIOUSNESS in these situations?
Think of actual situations in which it was possible
for you to present a false view of who you are or
what had happened. How frequently did you show
HONESTY or AUTHENTICITY in these situations?
Think of your everyday life. How frequently did
you show ZEST or ENTHUSIASM when it was possible to do so?
Think of your everyday life. How frequently did
you express your LOVE or ATTACHMENT to others
(friends, family members) when it was possible to
do so?
Date:
Think of your everyday life. How frequently did
you show KINDNESS or GENEROSITY to others
when it was possible to do so?
Think of actual situations in which the motives
of other people needed to be understood and
responded to. How frequently did you show
SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE or SOCIAL SKILLS in these
situations?
Think of actual situations in which you were a
member of a group that needed your help and
loyalty. How frequently did you show TEAMWORK
in these situations?
Think of actual situations in which you had some
power or influence over two or more other people.
How frequently did you show FAIRNESS in these
situations?
Think of actual situations in which you were a
member of a group that needed direction. How
frequently did you show LEADERSHIP in these
situations?
Think of actual situations in which you had been
hurt by someone else. How frequently did you
show FORGIVENESS or MERCY in these situations?
Think of your everyday life. How frequently did
you show MODESTY or HUMILITY when it was
possible to do so?
Think of actual situations in which you were tempted to do something that you might later regret.
How frequently did you show PRUDENCE, DISCRETION, or CAUTION in these situations?
Think of actual situations in which you experienced wishes, desires, impulses, or emotions that
you wished to control. How frequently did you
show SELF-CONTROL or SELF-REGULATION in
these situations?
Think of your everyday life. How frequently did
you show APPRECIATION OF BEAUTY AND EXCELLENCE or AWE when it was possible to do so?
Think of actual situations in which someone else
helped or benefited you. How frequently did you
show GRATITUDE or THANKFULNESS?
Think of actual situations in which you experienced failure or a setback. How frequently did you
show HOPE or OPTIMISM in these situations?
Think of your everyday life. How frequently did
you show PLAYFULNESS or HUMOR when it was
possible to do so?
Think of your everyday life. How frequently did
you show RELIGIOUSNESS or SPIRITUALITY when it
was possible to do so?
Please note: possession of this form does not indicate that its distributor is actively certified with the ISSA. To confirm certification status, please call 1.800.892.4772 (1.805.745.8111 international). Information gathered from this form is not shared with ISSA. ISSA is not responsible or liable for the use or incorporation of the information contained in or collected from this form. Always consult your doctor concerning your health,
diet, and physical activity.
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1.800.892.4772 (toll-free) • 1.805.745.8111 (international)
© 2018 International Sports Sciences Association
issaonline.edu
Strengths Inventory (continued)
Evaluate the following according to how they relate to
you:
Zest/Enthusiasm
0 not applicable
1 not like me
2 a little like me
3 somewhat like me
4 like me
5 very much like me
Kindness/Generosity
Creativity/Ingenuity
Curiosity/Interest
Critical Thinking/Open-Mindedness/Good
Judgment
Love Of Learning
Perspective/Wisdom
Bravery/Courage
Perseverance/Persistence/Diligence/
Industriousness
Honesty/Authenticity
Love/Attachment
Social Intelligence/Social Skills
Teamwork
Fairness
Leadership
Forgiveness/Mercy
Modesty/Humility
Prudence/Discretion/Caution
Self-Control/Self-Regulation
Appreciation Of Beauty And Excellence
Gratitude/Thankfulness
Hope/Optimism
Playfulnesss/Humor
Religiousness/Spirituality
Please note: possession of this form does not indicate that its distributor is actively certified with the ISSA. To confirm certification status, please call 1.800.892.4772 (1.805.745.8111 international). Information gathered from this form is not shared with ISSA. ISSA is not responsible or liable for the use or incorporation of the information contained in or collected from this form. Always consult your doctor concerning your health,
diet, and physical activity.
Positive Psychology | 95
In answering these questions, it is helpful to
remind your client that there are no right or
wrong answers, and that how they choose to express their strengths is completely up to them.
The goal here is simply to help your client begin
to become more familiar with their strengths
and then to think about ways in which they can
be more fully expressed.
Growing Positivity
As you know, positive emotions are one of the
five components of PERMA, and are a very
important part of creating a life of well-being.
Generating positive emotions through activities such as taking a walk, enjoying a sunset,
or eating a tasty meal are what create a pleasurable life, and one worth living. However,
one criticism of fostering positive emotions
through pleasant experiences, such as those
described, is that the effect is short lived and
does not lead to lasting change. To be sure,
while it feels good to take a hot bath, you not
may remember those feelings the next day.
But there is another way that we can create positive emotions and which seems to be much more
promising. Recent studies in positive psychology
have demonstrated that when performing tasks
designed to raise gratitude levels, people experience a significant boost in their mood, which
lasts well after they stop doing them (Achor,
2010). In terms of where we allocate energy to
create more positive emotion, gratitude seems to
be the better bet. Even further, performing acts
of gratitude orients the brain to notice more positives, and pay less attention to negatives, which
enhances the effect (Achor, 2010).
So let’s take a look at some of the ways you can
raise your client’s gratitude levels—and boost
their positive emotions.
Do a Gratitude List
To do a gratitude list, have your client write
down three new things they are grateful for
every day for twenty-one days. Your client can
list things like their child’s smile, their health,
nice weather, a compliment someone gave
them, their ability to help someone in need, or
even simple things like having a roof over their
head and food on the table. There are no right
or wrong answers. What is important is simply
that your client lists three new things every day,
and avoids repeating the same answers.
Over time, what your client will find is not just
a greater variety of things to be grateful for, but
that finding them becomes easier. Your client
will become what Achor calls “more primed to
the positive,” and her brain will simply get better
at getting grateful. And gratitude, as we know, is
a powerful antidote in the face of setbacks.
Give Thanks
Another way to improve gratitude is to offer
thanks. When we offer thanks to those around
us, like keeping gratitude lists, our brain becomes more primed to being positive as we
search for reasons to thank people.
To do this exercise, instruct your client to
write, verbally deliver, or in some measurable
way, communicate thanks to three people a
day. Your client can choose any three people
they like, such as close family, extended family,
International Sports Sciences Association
96 | Unit 4
coworkers, friends, or even strangers. Again,
the people your client chooses, or what they
thank them for, is not important—it is the act of
thanking that matters. However, like a gratitude
list, they must choose three different people
every day. Also ask your client to keep a list of
who they thank every day, and for what reasons, so as not to duplicate themselves.
•
www.humaxnetworks.com This site offers a
suite of social networking tools for individuals and organizations. There are materials to
run a “reciprocity ring,” where a community
of people—typically fifteen to thirty—come
together, and as each person presents their
request to group members, they make a contribution too, such as knowledge, resources,
and connections, to fulfill each other’s needs.
As your client moves through this exercise,
what they will find is not only that offering
thanks becomes more natural, but that they
enjoy doing it. And finding joy in things is a
powerful way to cope with losses.
•
www.hopemob.org This initiative is called
“the place where generous strangers unite to
bring immediate hope to people with pressing needs all over the world.”
•
www.thekindnessoffensive.com The Kindness
Offensive is a group of people who strive to
be aggressively helpful, organizing some of
the greatest acts of random kindness in history. They’ve provided a toy for every child in
a hospital in London, given away a half a million pancakes, distributed tons of giveaways
at festivals around Britain, and provided free
medical supplies and housing to support
families in need.
•
www.good.is/post/the-good-30-day-challenge-become-a-good-citizen Each day of the
month, this site suggests a different way to
give.
•
www.kickstarter.com Known as the world’s
largest funding platform for creative projects,
Kickstarter hosts a variety of projects—everything from games, books, movies, art, music,
plays, and services and products—that need
funding to launch. You can also watch the
progress of a project you fund, and see your
name listed as one of the project’s supporters.
•
www.kiva.org On Kiva, you can identify
opportunities to make microloans of $25 or
more to entrepreneurs in the developing
world. Like Kickstarter, you can see and track
the progress of the people you help.
Give Back
Helping others not only connects us with our
own capacities and skills, but it also deeply connects us to a sense of purpose, and a sense of
gratitude. When we search for ways to be helpful, we also search our own skills and strengths
and look for unique ways to apply them in ways
that are impactful not just for others, but ourselves as well.
In this exercise, instruct your client to perform
one act of service per week. Your client can
choose the act themselves, but the following list
of resources may provide some ideas, or find
another resource entirely that suits your interests, such as a charity or volunteer organization.
Here is the list of some giving resources:
•
www.freecycle.org The freecycle community
is an online list of people with things to give,
and people with things they need. You can
search the list as a way to connect with others, and to see what they need, and what you
can give away.
Transformation Specialist
Positive Psychology | 97
While it is up to your client to choose what act
of service they perform every week, you should
instruct them to keep a weekly list to ensure
that a different act is performed every week.
Giving is a natural remedy for boosting positive
emotions. Not only will your client find that
giving improves their own sense of well-being,
but giving also creates positive feelings that are
powerful and that have a long-lasting purpose—crucial components of creating the life
they wants to lead.
Identifying and Generating
Engagement and Flow
As you may recall, the state of flow can be
described as an experience where one’s perception of skills aligns with the challenges at hand,
and where there is complete immersion in the
activity, a loss of self-consciousness, a merging of action and awareness, and an autotelic
experience is attained, i.e., the experience has
its own rewards. Because flow is highly linked
to a self-transcendent experience and has deep
historical roots, it also appears to be an integral
part of what contributes to a life of well-being.
As you may also recall, flow has been linked
with numerous positive outcomes. However,
while we know the conditions that lead to flow
include, clear goals, immediate feedback, and a
perception that the abilities match the demands
of the task, identifying what exactly leads to
flow can be a bit more challenging. And like,
finding meaning, it’s a process of trial and error.
However, for your clients, finding flow can
have tremendous benefits. For one, it can
mean a shift in attitude toward an activity that
determines whether or not your client will
continue with the training program or not. But
flow can also play an even more powerful role
in your clients’ lives. While flow brings tremendous enjoyment, it also offers a potent remedy
for negative feelings. It is for this reason that clients who have flow are consistently better able
to tolerate setbacks in and out of the training
program.
Let’s take a look at a few of the ways you can
help your client find flow.
Take a Mental Detour
There are many reasons why we hesitate to try
new things. We may fear failure. We may feel as
if we don’t really want to change our approach
as we have already invested too much time
in learning what we know. And we may have
simply become too attached to familiarity. Familiarity, much like with attributions, can keep
us doing the same thing over and over again—
even when it doesn’t bring the results we want.
Yet finding flow depends on being willing to try
something new without any guarantee of success. In short, we are going to have to be willing
to take a measured risk, or several, until we find
what works. But we are also going to have to be
open to new experiences, because they offer the
chance to discover something that we didn’t
realize we enjoyed.
To help your client do this, have them do what I
call taking a mental detour.
To begin, instruct your client to recall five happy memories from their childhood. These can
be anything from family vacations, to summer
pastimes, hobbies, playing sports, or time spent
International Sports Sciences Association
98 | Unit 4
with friends. Next, ask your client to elaborate
on these memories with as much detail they
can remember. Your client should write who
was there, what they were doing, and where it
was, describing each component of the memory
as completely as possible.
When your client is finished, they should have
written down five experiences that include some
sort of activity, in a specific place, with or without others. For most people, these memories will
usually involve some sort of shared experience
that revolved around a mutually held goal. Common themes are things like organizing a party
with friends, playing on a sports team, building
something with others, or taking a class. However, there are no right or wrong answers. The
goal is simply for your client to recall five activities that they used to enjoy and that they found
themselves immersed in.
Next, instruct your client to try each of these
activities again. For example, if one of your
client’s memories is playing on a softball team
as a kid, instruct your client to find an adult
softball league and go give it a try. Or if your
client recalls enjoyed building forts in the living
room with a sibling or friend, instruct them
to build something again with somebody they
enjoy spending time with. The experience may
not match exactly what your client described in
their memory recollection; however, the general theme should be the same. Similarly, you
should remind your client not to worry if they
feel that their skills are not what they used to
be. The point is not for your client to measure
their success at remembering how to do things
from the past; the goal is to become comfortable with trying old things again or perhaps
Transformation Specialist
even new things, and maybe to find something
they enjoys doing again.
Finding flow can be a bit like taking a detour:
we have to be willing to travel through unfamiliar territory to arrive at a desired destination.
Yet detours also offer the chance for your client
to see things differently, to remember a road
they might have traveled before, and perhaps to
rediscover something they love. Taking a mental detour, just like a physical one, encourages
your client to be open to changing course—and
a chance to find flow.
Become A Superhero
Because flow is uniquely connected to the
complete direction of our awareness to the task
at hand, it is a state where we do not questions
ourselves. It is absent of self-doubt, criticism,
and judgment. For this reason, when in the
state of flow, we almost feel like a superhero. We
feel completely in control of our actions, have
supreme confidence in our abilities, and are
ready (and even excited) by the challenges we
face. Most people, if they dig deep enough, have
a place where they feel this way.
To help your client find this place (and to find
their flow), have them do an exercise that I call
“become a superhero.”
To begin, ask your client the following
questions:
•
When do you feel most strong?
•
When are you least likely to question yourself?
•
What makes you feel unstoppable?
•
What charges you up?
Positive Psychology | 99
•
When do you feel most ready to take on a
challenge?
•
What challenges do you feel uniquely prepared for?
•
What skills set you apart from your peers?
•
What do you feel that you know better than
almost anybody?
Now ask your client to review all of their answers and consider the following questions:
•
If you could be any kind of superhero, performing any kind of duty, what/who would
you be? Describe the experience in detail.
•
What steps can you take toward experiencing
something like this in your current life?
•
Is there anything that holds you back and if
so, how can you overcome it?
•
What would be the benefits of doing something that makes you feel like a superhero?
•
Take a minute to imagine how you would feel
being a superhero? Describe in detail.
How your client answers these questions is
completely up to them, and you should remind
them that there are no right or wrong answers.
The goal of this exercise is simply to begin to
identify what makes your client feel the most
strongly, and what distinct conditions may lead
to them finding a state of flow.
Positive Relationship Exercises
and Skills
Relationships are a critical component of how
we rate our happiness, the general sense of
well-being we feel, and how well easily we can
rebound from adversity. But perhaps more importantly, positive relationships are a powerful
antidote to the feeling of isolation. Recent statistics by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
estimate that as many as 6 out of every 10
people feel isolated more often than not. What
is most surprising about this number is not
that it is more than half of the population, but
that this is despite access to others via mobile
technology has made communication easier
than ever. However, as Sherry Turkle, author of
Alone Together, states, “We used to reach for our
smartphone to express a feeling, now we reach
for our smartphone to have a feeling” (Turkle,
2012). And isolation has been linked to a host
of problems, such as increased rates of addiction, all forms of disease, depression, and even
suicide (NIH, 2015).
Relationships matter. But how we go about
creating positive ones is another concern altogether. Because as soon as we start isolating
ourselves, keeping relationships at a distance
feels normal. We simply get used to not really
connecting. And what we don’t realize is that
when we don’t connect, we also don’t overcome
the things that make connection difficult, i.e.,
shame and fear. For most people, the feeling of
shame—i.e., that we are bad, unworthy, or inadequate in some way—is a powerful deterrent
against connection. But there is another thing
that gets in the way. When we don’t connect,
we don’t develop trust in other, and instead
cultivate suspicions, which then emerge in the
projections we hold about others. Much in the
same way that rigid thinking keeps us finding
pessimistic explanations, avoiding connecting
keeps us finding reasons to avoid it.
To help your clients overcome this, and to
learn how to create deeper, more meaningful
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relationships, we are first going to start with the
relationship your client with you.
Let’s take a look at how you can do this.
Letting Go of Projections
In relationships, there is often a lot left unsaid,
especially emotionally charged material. Yet
what is unsaid is often more important than
what is said. Further, what is unsaid is often what
blocks connection. And we know that shame
has a way of making us avoid disclosure—even
though it is when we need it the most.
To help your client become more comfortable
in speaking openly and to help develop connection in the trainer—client relationship, present
your client with an exercise I call, “letting go of
projections.”
To begin, first explain to your client that the
exercise is intended to help them feel more comfortable, and that any answers—even if your client thinks they are not OK—are acceptable. Then
present your client with the following questions:
•
What is it like for you to come here and meet
with me?
•
Do you have any fears about coming here? If
so, describe them.
•
Do you have any fears about what I will think
of you? If so, describe them.
•
Is there anything you’d like to say, but feel
afraid to?
•
Is there anything you feel you need to say?
•
Can you describe the thoughts that went
through your head on your way here?
Transformation Specialist
As your client answers each question, you
should be careful not to defend, or in any way
judge or criticize the client’s answers. As the
goal of this exercise is for your client to become
more comfortable with connection in general
and with the trainer–client relationship specifically, it is imperative that you respect and be
accepting of your client’s answers. As the name
of the exercise denotes, your client’s answers
are their projections that are often not spoken.
When your client can disclose distressing projections and have them heard and accepted, not
just is connection enhanced, but the projections
themselves are eased. Letting go of projections
also paves the way for more open and honest
dialog between you and your client, which is
crucial for change to occur.
Facing fears inherent in disclosing projections,
or the type of emotionally charged material
that often results from shame, is how we learn
how to connect on a deeper level and can let us
develop the kind of relationships that allow us
to transcend our challenges and create deeper,
more meaningful lives.
Now let’s take a look at how your clients can create more positive relationships in their own lives.
Relationship Litmus Test
For most people, feeling connected to those
around us matters deeply. Yet, as you know,
people have many reasons they avoid connection.
But, you should also know that connection is
both vital and extremely challenging. In many
ways, it is the ultimate paradox: we need others
to feel better, yet we are also incredibly afraid.
Positive Psychology | 101
Part of learning to create positive relationships
is about finding out just who will stand by us
when we need them, and letting go of those
who won’t. In order to help your client understand this, you are going to have them do what I
call a “Relationship Litmus Test.”
perception. Your client should also remember that there is no right or wrong way to feel.
Next, have your client work their way down the
second list, repeating the steps above with each
person until they have identified the people
they feel most connected to and most safe with.
Begin by asking your client to list all the
people they know on one list, and on a second
list, write down every person that they would
feel comfortable disclosing any difficult experiences to. Your client may find that while the
first list is quite long, the second one is pretty
short. Not surprisingly, most people have a
large valence of relationships with only a few
people they feel very connected to.
As your client goes through this exercise, remind them to keep a few things in mind:
Once your client has written the two lists, ask
them to select the person from the second list
that they feel most comfortable with and get
them to ask that person to meet with them.
Instruct your client not to explain why they are
asking to meet, and make sure to schedule the
meeting to last at least one hour. In the meeting, your client should disclose as much as they
are comfortable with about the details of what
they are going through, how they feel, and what
it is like for them to talk about it. You should
instruct your client to pay careful attention to
how they feel as well as their friend’s reaction.
After your client finishes, they should ask themselves a few questions: Did I feel heard? Did I
feel accepted? Did I feel as if my friend made
an attempt to understand me? Did I feel judged
in any way? Did I feel that I could ask for help
if I needed to? You should remind your client
to keep in mind that what is most important is
how they felt in the interaction—that is, their
•
Disclosing emotionally charged information is an exercise in trust, vulnerability, and
connection.
•
Not all relationships will survive adversity, and
that is OK. Some people are more able to sit
with difficult circumstances, charged emotions, and vulnerability than others.
•
Not all people will be able to understand your
reality. You will find some people can relate to
how you feel better than others.
•
You only need a few people. The benefits
that come from feeling heard, understood,
and connected don’t come from disclosing to
everyone. It only takes a select few who can
truly be there to help you through adversity.
How your client goes about the process of developing trust in their relationships is completely up to them, and certainly there is no right or
wrong way. The goal of these exercises is simply
to draw their attention to some of the things
that may hinder trusting relationships and then
to begin to overcome them.
Finding and Activating Meaning
The pursuit of meaning, as you know from the
early work of Maslow, Frankl, and Fromm, and
the later work of Seligman, is an essential part
of well-being. Yet, recent statistics from the
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Center for Disease Control estimate that 4 out
of 10 Americans have not discovered a satisfying life purpose. Much of the reason for this is
that we often confuse happiness with meaning.
And according to Frankl, “It is the very pursuit
of happiness that thwarts happiness” (Frankl,
2006). Meaning is a much larger and more complex concept than happiness and is intrinsically
connected to something larger than ourselves.
That is, in order to find meaning, we need to be
giving of ourselves (or our services) to something
beyond ourselves. Meaning is also strongest
when we feel as though our strengths and skills
uniquely position us for the task at hand. But
part of the problem is, as much as we pursue
meaning, it doesn’t happen extemporaneously.
Rather, it involves deliberate dedication of our
strengths toward something that has deep importance for us. Which is a tall order for sure.
The process of finding meaning, then, may be
one of trial and error. First, we have to determine what matters to us, i.e., what is deeply
important. We also have to know our values,
priorities, and strengths. And then we simply
have to try things until they “feel” right.
In order to help your client find more meaning,
then, we are going to start with two exercises
to identify their values and priorities, and then
one to help direct these priorities toward something larger than themselves.
Assessing Values
Changing your life and constructing one that
better fits you depends on first knowing your
values. When we know what is important to us,
Transformation Specialist
we can go about crafting the life that reflect those
values. But we have to start with what matters.
Clients often seek your help because they would
like to change their lives. Understanding (and
often changing) values is at the root of changing their lives, and here, even adversity can
offer a unique opportunity. When your clients
are faced with the realization that something in
their lives has to change, the desire for change,
and for growth, is catalyzed. The next step is for
you to take an unbiased appraisal of your client’s values, and to determine what values will
now work under the changed circumstances. To
do this, use what I call a “Values assessment.” A
values assessment begins by asking your client
to make a list of all of the values they can think
of, considering every area of their life, such as
family, career, friendships, spirituality (or lack
thereof), personal goals, hobbies, and things
they are passionate about. Your client can list
anything from honesty and integrity to connection and trust. They could also list things such
as acclaim, success, and feeling significant and
appreciated. Once your client has created a list,
ask them the following questions:
•
What values no longer seem important?
•
What values now seem more important?
Once your client has answered these questions,
it’s up to them as to how to proceed. The most
important thing is that your client now has a
clearer sense of what they value.
Realigning Priorities
Like values, priorities are at the heart of
change. How we understand our priorities often
Positive Psychology | 103
regulates how we conduct our lives and the
importance we give to activities in our life. And
change is often inspired by conflict between
what we would like to happen (the ideal) and
what we actually do (the reality). This conflict
reflects a crucial misunderstanding of our
values. Often, we find that we are not living in
accordance with what is really important to us.
In the case of your clients, identifying priorities
can be a very powerful motivator for change
because it highlights a disconnect, which can
then materialize often in undesirable ways. Priorities, aligned with behavior, are the recipe for
change. However, your client must first become
aware of what their current priorities are, and
then re-align them to reflect their current reality. To do this, do what I call a “Priorities Ranking.” Get your client to start by listing the most
important thing in their life, and put a number
one next to it. Then, ask them to write down the
second most important thing and put a number
two next to it. Your client will continue with
this list until they have listed ten items. Then,
ask your client the following questions:
Take the Volunteer Test
Volunteering, because there is no compensation,
is a wonderful way to consider what really matters. When we remove money from the equation,
we can begin to think differently about what
we’d like to do with our time, what our unique
talents and strengths are, and how we can use
them to help others. Volunteering also orients us
toward helping others, and re-connects us with
the joy of giving back (or paying forward). But
more importantly, volunteering, because it involves acting beyond our own interests, is a very
powerful way to find meaning.
For clients, having a sense of meaning can be a
powerful inducer of change. As you will recall from Frankl, meaning can help us endure
tremendous hardship. Because changing lives is
not easy, finding a deeper reason to create a better life can be a tremendous resource for clients.
When they can connect why they are enduring
the challenges inherent in the process of changing their life, their challenges are transformed
to meaningful endeavors.
•
Have any priorities become more important
now?
To help your client begin to find meaning, have
them take the volunteer test.
•
Have any priorities become less important
now?
Begin by asking your client to consider the following question:
Once your client has the answers, ask them to
recreate the list, ranking the priorities as they
now apply. Here again, where your client goes
from here is up to them. What is important is
that they have a clear idea of what their priorities now are.
If money were not a factor, and I could volunteer
my time anywhere I choose, what would I do?
Next, tell your client to write down the first three
things that come to their mind. They may list
things like “help at the animal shelter,” “volunteer at an elementary school,” or “help at a
homeless shelter.” There are no right or wrong
answers. The goal is simply for your client to
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consider what they enjoy doing, regardless of
the extrinsic payment attached to it. It is what
they would like to do just because they feel good
doing it, not for any other reason. The answers
to this question are typically autotelic in nature, meaning that they are rewarding in and of
themselves. For this reason, autotelic activities do
not require external motivating factors, such as
fame, power, or wealth. For example, your client
may find that they enjoy rescuing dogs because
it feels rewarding to them. Similarly, they may
find themselves helping out at their child’s school
because, again, it feels rewarding to them.
What autotelic activities—things that do not
offer external rewards—do for your client is ease
their natural resistance to trying something different. Because the rewards for volunteering are
internal, and the service your client offers is free
of charge, the evaluation of progress is measured
in terms of how your client feels. By asking your
client questions like, “Did you enjoy doing this?”
“Did you feel good when I did it?” external evaluations, like money and status, become secondary.
More importantly, you will be helping your client
uncover what is truly meaningful for them.
Using Small Changes to Create
Large Achievements
For most people, finding a sense of achievement can feel like a vast and often complex
endeavor. Much of the reason for this is due
to the fact that achievement is often linked to
accomplishing something large and admirable.
However, as you can imagine, this construction of achievement also acts as a barrier. The
reality is that what is considered admirable
is entirely subjective, and not something that
Transformation Specialist
lends itself to an external standard. What one
person may consider an achievement, may
have no importance to another. But what this
also means is that in terms our experiencing
a sense of achievement, what matters most is
our own perception of our triumphs. This also
holds tremendous promise, because what this
means is that achievement can come in any
size and any form. And often, the road to large
achievements is paved by smaller, more seemingly insignificant ones.
For clients, using smaller achievements to create
larger ones is a framework with which to not
only feel a greater sense of achievement, but also
to understand the process of change. By starting with more manageable accomplishments,
your client can build a sense of confidence in
their skills along the way, and also ignite their
desire to take on larger tasks. Over time, these
small quantitative gains add up to a much larger, and more profound qualitative change.
Let’s take at a few ways you can help your client
experience a greater sense of achievement.
Chunking
Chunking involves breaking large complex
tasks into smaller more manageable ones. For
example, if you want to run ten miles, yet it
seems overwhelming, you can break the run
into five smaller runs—each of two miles in
length. As you begin your run, you will only
focus on the first two miles, and once you get to
that point, allow yourself to focus on the next
two miles, and so on. By breaking the run into
smaller parts, and confining your focus to only
the part you are doing at the moment, the larger
run seems much less overwhelming.
Positive Psychology | 105
For clients, chunking is a crucial skill because
often the entirety of their goals seems almost
impossible (e.g., consider losing 100 pounds).
However, by teaching your clients to break
things into smaller pieces, you help them find
a way around the fear and anxiety associated
with their larger goals. But more importantly,
you help them begin to experience a sense of
achievement early on in the training program,
which not only enhances motivation, it also
enhances their well-being.
To begin, first ask your client to write down the
following list of goals:
•
One-year goal.
•
Six-month goal.
•
Three-month goal.
•
One-month goal.
•
Two-week goal.
•
One-week goal.
•
Daily goal.
Once your client has a list of goals, ask them to
break each one into smaller separate parts, starting with their daily goal. (And remember to ask
them to write these down). For example, if their
daily goal is to exercise for one hour per day, they
could break this goal into twenty minutes in the
morning (perhaps with abdominal exercises or
walking), a twenty minute walk on their lunch
break, and a twenty minute strength session in
the evening. If their weekly goal is to walk ten
miles, again, they could break this up into two
miles per day for five days, or one mile every
morning and two and a half miles each weekend
day. How your client chunks their goals is completely up to them, as there is no right or wrong
way. What is important is simply that your client
understands the process of making seemingly
unmanageable things more manageable, and
along the way, uncovers a powerful way to feel a
greater sense of achievement in their life.
Recreating the Story
In many ways people are not only held back
by the thought that the goals may be almost
too large to be accomplished, but they can also
often be interrupted by setbacks. When life
events get in the way, one of the first things that
falls to the wayside is forward-focused achievement. Instead of thinking about what makes us
feel accomplished, adversity fixates our focus
on simply surviving. For many people, getting
back on track (toward achieving again) can be
extremely challenging. Opportunities that are
missed are not easily recreated.
Yet for your client, the process of recreating
a life story is an opportunity. The story can
be constructed in such a way that orients
your client toward their goals, harnesses their
strengths, and utilizes their unique skills. It
can also be an opportunity for your client to
recapture past dreams and hopes, try new
approaches, and see things from multiple perspectives: all crucial components of changing
behavior. What your client may also discover
is unique opportunities that they might have
otherwise overlooked.
To do this, have your client do what I call a
“setback storyline.”
Begin by asking your client to write down the
events of any setback that have occurred in their
life, all in just one sentence. For example, they
might say, “Man fell in love, got married, had
two children, and his wife left him,” or “Woman
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lived her whole life wanting to be a gymnast,
only to break her leg in practice.” Encourage
your client to be as concise as possible, incorporating all the relevant details into one summarizing sentence. Once your client has their sentence,
instruct them to add one more. In this next
sentence, your client is going to complete the
story any way they like. For example, if the first
sentence is, “Man fell in love, got married, had
two children, and his wife left him,” the second
sentence could read, “Man went traveling with a
friend, fell in love with hiking, and started an adventure company.” Your client is going to do this
five times until they have five different stories.
When your client is done, they should have five
alternative perspectives on the same setback.
Again, what your client writes, and how the story
is completed, is up to them. There are no right or
wrong answers. If your client gets stuck, they can
also ask you, or a trusted friend, to help come
up with story completions. The goal is to be able
to look at the situation in many different ways,
i.e., from multiple perspectives. What your client
will find through this exercise is not just that a
story can be told in many different ways, but that
any situation, even a very challenging or heartbreaking one, can be considered from multiple
perspectives. When it is, it can also be completed
it many different ways. And when your client can
focus on how they complete the story—as opposed to the frustrating setback itself—they will
be more oriented toward using their strengths
and skills toward solutions that provide a sense
of achievement. Not only does recreating the
story help your client overcome barriers, but it is
also a powerful way to open the door toward a
greater sense of achievement.
Summary
The positive psychology model seeks to move
people beyond simply alleviating distress, and
toward recognizing their best self. Through
learning to think optimistically—to see bad
events as impermanent, impersonal, and not pervasive, and good events as long lasting, personal
and pervasive—and use strengths to repurpose
adversity, clients can develop a psychology that
helps them overcome obstacles, reach their
goals, and recognize their best qualities. Positive
psychology is now recognized as “flourishing,”
which includes the cultivation of positive emotions, engagement, positive relationships, meaning, and achievement. Further, the concept of
post-traumatic growth contends that adversity
Transformation Specialist
catalyzes psychological growth in five domains:
appreciation for life, personal strength, openness,
relationships, and spirituality.
When personal trainers utilize positive psychology skills not only do they help clients think more
optimistically, but ultimately can help clients
develop a strategy to move beyond distress,
overcome obstacles, and become the best version
of themselves. Through first assessing their level
of optimism, then using targeted exercises to
teach them to think more optimistically, trainers
can help clients learn to interpret events in their
lives in ways that propel them forward and make
use of their strengths and even use adversity as a
launching pad for psychological growth.
UNIT 5
Commitment Strategies
108 | Unit 5
Unit Outline
1.
Commitment Strategies
a.
Theoretical Orientation of Commitment
Devices
b. Section One: Limited Resources, Fading
Benefits, and Tempting Options
c.
Section Two: Plan Now, Impulse Later:
Why Our Two Selves Don’t Agree
d. Section Three: When All is Calm, Decisions
Are Easy: Hot States How They Get In the
Way
e.
Section Four: Uncertain Futures, Performance Focus, and Declining Interest
2. Part Two: To Win the Game, You Have to Know
the Rules
a.
The Procrastination Problem
b. A Calorie is Not a Calorie: The Hidden
Harmful Effects of Sugar
c.
Taking Control of Self-Control
d. PowerPoint: Three Exercises to Connect Your Present Actions with Future
Outcomes
e.
Section One: That Sneaky Implicit Bias and
How To Fix It
f.
Section Two: The Ten Percent Rule: Making
Incentives Work for You
g. Section Three: Commitments, Penalties,
and Tying Yourself to the Mast
h. Section Four: What are the Rules Again?
Why We Need Referees
i.
Section Five: Maintenance Strategies
3. Summary
Commitment Strategies
Commitment device: an
arrangement that a person
enters into with themselves
to make certain choices more
expensive than others and
thus unfavorable.
Transformation Specialist
Weight loss—and in many ways the behavior change that facilitates
it—is a game we keep playing the same way, even when we are not
winning. We continue to diet, purchase gym memberships, go on
crash diets, and buy weight loss supplements. In fact, the weight loss
industry has outgrown inflation rates, all the while remaining unaffected by economic downturns. By all accounts, weight loss matters
to us—an awful lot. Yet what we fail to consider is that when it comes
to weight loss, there is a lot more that we don’t know than we do. For
example, while we may know that eating less donuts will help us lose
weight, we fail to consider that thinking about eating less donuts now
is not the same as actually turning down the donut your coworker
offers you next Friday. Just what influences those decisions and why
we may not always make the choices we intend to make—even when
we know they are good for us—is what this section is all about.
Theoretical Orientation of Commitment Devices
A commitment device is an arrangement that a person enters into
Commitment Strategies | 109
with themselves to make certain choices more
expensive than others. The idea behind the theory is that people consistently experience problems with self-control in a number of areas. For
example, recent rates of New Year’s resolutions
indicated that while 52% of people are confident
of success, only 12% report success in keeping
New Year’s resolutions. Another example is
weight loss. In a Gallup poll from 2008, 56% of
Americans said they would like to lose weight,
while only 30% were seriously trying. Even
more tellingly, 59% of those interviewed in 2001
said they were trying to lose weight, implying
that at least 15% were still trying seven years
later. The question that commitment strategies
asks is why do people set goals and then fail to
keep them? While this question has obvious
universal relevance, perhaps the greatest impact
of these failed commitments is in the area of
weight loss. It is here that failing to keep one’s
goals can have serious health consequences.
In looking at how best to address the disparity
between the goals people set and the actions
they take to follow them, commitment devices
offers something very promising: An agreement one makes with oneself to fulfill a plan
for future behavior that would otherwise be
difficult due to an interpersonal conflict, such
as lack of self-control. The idea is that through
making the choices that contradict one’s personal goals more “costly” (cost can be measured financially, known as “hard costs.” or
psychologically and socially, known as “soft”
costs), one will be less likely to make them,
and thus more likely to make choices that are
in accordance with set goals. While there are
numerous reasons we make choices that don’t
coincide with our goals, for the purpose of this
course, we explore the three main theories that
characterize lack of self-control.
Section One: Limited Resources,
Fading Benefits, and Tempting
Options
The number one resolution of 2016 (like in
many years) was to lose weight. Yet losing
weight, for most of us, is like playing the lottery:
the odds are not very good. In fact, it’s estimated that only 8 percent of those who make New
Year’s resolutions actually keep them.
It’s not so much that we can’t lose weight, it’s
that, like keeping a resolution, we can’t keep it
off. For this reason, the United States Dieters
Registry determines the difference between
weight that is lost unsuccessfully—meaning
it is lost and regained—and that which is lost
successfully as a three year deal. If we can keep
at least thirty pounds off for three years, we can
consider ourselves successful. If not, we have
some interest to pay.
Studies show that the majority of dieters will
actually gain back more than they originally lost
(Robinson et al., 2015). Yet for those who work
with dieters this isn’t surprising. The problem,
as Diane Robinson, Ph.D., a neuropsychologist
and Program Director of Integrative Medicine at
Orlando Health, notes, is that “most people focus
almost entirely on the physical aspects of weight
loss, like diet and exercise. But there is an emotional component to food that the vast majority
of people simply overlook and it can quickly
sabotage their efforts” (Robinson, 2015).
What we ignore is that while weight loss is
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regulated by what we eat, those choices are
in fact regulated by something much larger,
and more powerful. Consider the emotional attachment we have to certain foods for
example. From the time we are young, we
are conditioned to have preferences for certain foods, partly led by food marketing to
children, which has dramatically increased
in recent years. In response to this dramatic
increase, in 2008 Congress called for a Federal
Trade Commission review of marketing food
to children and adolescents. In that report,
experts found not only that the total dollars
spent on food marketing to children 0–12 and
adolescents was well over the previous year’s
figure of 1.6 billion, but that more than half of
all television advertising dollars were directed toward children. Ranking second only to
television advertising was money spent on toys
included in kids’ foods (which also includes
restaurant foods), which came in at a whopping $427 million. And even more surprising,
if you added the dollars that restaurants spend
on child-directed marketing to the toys they
include with the child’s meals, that figure
jumps to $520 million—more than twice the
amount of child-directed marketing in any
other category. As Robinson explains, “If we’re
aware of it or not, we are conditioned to use
food not only for nourishment, but for comfort. That’s not a bad thing, necessarily, as long
as we acknowledge it and deal with it appropriately” (Robinson et al., 2015).
Dealing with it appropriately might be the
operative term, because even a cursory look
at weight loss statistics in this country would
have us believe that we are doing anything
but dealing with our emotional connection to
Transformation Specialist
food appropriately. A recent national survey of
more than a thousand people commissioned
by Orlando Health found that only 1 in 10
thought psychological well-being was a factor
in weight loss (Robinson et al., 2015). Also,
31 percent of Americans think that a lack of
exercise is the biggest barrier to weight loss. It
is this clear that if there is anything we overestimate, it is our ability to make the kinds of
choices that lead to weight loss.
However, overlooking what might be the very
large elephant in the room is not entirely surprising given that we have a natural tendency
to mispredict many things about ourselves. As
Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling On Happiness,
convincingly demonstrated, we don’t even seem
to be able to predict the choices that will lead to
happiness (Gilbert, 2007).
But this also may explain why so many of us
struggle. As Robinson explains, “In order to
lose weight and keep it off long term, we need
to do more than just think about what we eat,
we also need to understand why we’re eating”
(Robinson, 2015).
Yet for those who work in weight loss, the role
of emotions in regulating weight is a common
thread. A recent survey, conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center, asked
more than 1,300 licensed psychologists how
they dealt with clients’ weight and weight loss
challenges. The one strategy psychologists consistently cited was understanding and managing the clients’ behaviors and emotions related
to weight management. This was seconded
only by “emotional eating.” Even more telling,
however, was that ninety-two percent of the 306
respondents who provide weight loss treatment
Commitment Strategies | 111
reported helping a client address underlying
emotional issues related to weight gain.
The problem, however, is a bit bigger. We don’t
just underestimate the affect emotions have on
just what and how much we eat, we also fail to
account for the way food affects our senses and
our emotions.
Researchers at The John B. Pierce Laboratory
and the Yale School of Medicine revealed that
the ability to vividly imagine the smell of popcorn, freshly baked cookies, and even non-food
odors is greater in obese adults. Their research
was published in the journal Appetite in August
2015 and was presented at the Annual Meeting
of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB), the foremost society for research into
all aspects of eating and drinking behavior.
According to Kavanagh’s Elaborated Intrusion
Theory of Desire, vivid mental imagery is a key
factor in stimulating and maintaining food
cravings, which can be induced by the thought,
smell and sight of food.
But it might not be just that obese people smell
more vividly than their non-obese counterparts, but also that vividly smelling more makes
it that much harder to avoid the foods they
are smelling. And not surprisingly, marketers
now have a term for this: “smellizing.” Smellizing quite deceptively prompts consumers to
imagine the smell of a product, unconsciously
nudging them to buy and consume more.
Professor of Marketing Maureen Morrin of
Temple University’s Fox School of Business and
colleagues presented study participants with
print advertisements with questions such as:
Fancy a freshly baked cookie?; Feel like a chocolate cake?; and Feel like a freshly baked cookie?
Look for these in a store near you.
Not surprisingly, imagining the smell along
with the visual image of a chocolate cake made
people want chocolate cake. What is surprising,
however, is that smelling the chocolate cake
didn’t just increase participants’ desire for it, it
actually made them eat more: as much as 5.3
grams more (Krishna et al., 2013).
And when it comes to weight loss, if it is emotions running the show, the answer as to why
some of us are more affected than others may
just have to do with what regulates emotions.
In a recent study, researchers from Brigham
Young University asked three groups of teenagers to fast for four hours before viewing
images of healthy and unhealthy foods during
a brain scan. One group comprised overweight
teens. A second group was comprised of formerly overweight teens who had lost weight
and kept it off for at least a year. The third
group comprised teens who had historically
maintained a healthy weight.
As the teens looked at the food pictures, neuroscientists measured activity in the prefrontal
cortex of each teen. A prefrontal cortex that lit
up indicated executive function action, which
is the ability to process and prioritize competing interests. Essentially, a teen showing this
was trying to override their impulse to eat the
unhealthy food.
When high-calorific foods were shown, it was
the group of formerly overweight teenagers that
relied most on the executive function processes
more than the other groups (Jensen & Kerwan,
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2015). For anyone who has ever tried to lose a few
pounds, this shouldn’t be surprising. Once we
get used to eating chocolate donuts, we have to
work that much harder to learn to avoid them.
For dieters, however, this is only one part of a
very confusing puzzle. When we have weight to
lose, not just do we overlook the emotions that
drive weight gain, we also fail to consider that
the very foods we shouldn’t eat smell better, and
when we smell them, the impulse to eat them
becomes that much stronger. Then, we have
to put our executive functions on overdrive
to avoid eating what we know we shouldn’t.
And executive functions are not an unlimited
resource: at some point they wear out.
Use and Lose It: The Problem of
Limited Resources
The limited resource theory of executive functions, and willpower in particular, was noted in
a 2007 article published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
“Self-control seems to rely on a limited energy
or strength, such that engaging in a single act
of self-control impairs subsequent attempts at
self-control; as if some sort of energy has been
used up during the initial act” (Baumeister,
Gailliot, DeWall & Oaten, in press Muravan &
Baumeister, 2000).
These same researchers pointed to a 1998 study,
where after resisting the temptation to eat freshly baked cookies, participants quit sooner on a
subsequent task requiring effortful persistence,
compared with participants who did not have
to resist eating the cookies (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven & Tice, 1998).
Transformation Specialist
But here is where the joke becomes almost
cruel. The one thing that the willpower needed to overcome the impulse to eat tempting
foods relies on most predominantly is also the
one thing that dieters typically crave the most
intensely: sugar.
The researchers continued, “Controlled, effortful
processes that rely on executive function, however, are unlike most other cognitive processes
in that they seem highly susceptible to normal
fluctuations in glucose” (Baumeister, 1998).
And these normal fluctuations in glucose lead
to major fluctuations in self-control, especially
when we are tired. In one study, low glucose led
to poor performance on a driving simulation
task, but only toward the end of the task when
participants were fatigued (Benton, et al., 1994).
In fact, blood glucose seems to be so closely
associated with self-control that several studies
have linked criminal behavior to impairments
in the processing of glucose (Bolton, 1979; Virkkunen & Huttunen, 1982). Low blood glucose
has also been associated with increased aggression and impulsivity (Donahoe & Benton, 1999;
Lustman, Frank & McGill, 1991), and poor concentration and emotional regulation (Benton &
Owens, 1993; Benton et al., 1994).
If you have ever had one too many cocktails
and said something you shouldn’t have, this information shouldn’t surprise you as alcohol also
lowers blood glucose. The problem for dieters,
however, is that to be successful, you have to be
able to override impulses. But perhaps a much
larger problem is that almost all diets work on a
principle of keeping blood sugar low.
But there might also be another reason we
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have trouble overcoming those impulses. Resisting urges in the future always sounds better then resisting them when we really need
to, i.e., in the present.
What Sounds Good Now Might Not Later: What
Hyperbolic Discounting Can Tell Us About the
Way We Make Decisions
When Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational: The Hidden
Forces That Shape Our Decisions, set out to study decision-making,
he might have been asking a question that most of us have probably
asked ourselves before: Why is it easier to make a decision to do
something in the future than to make a decision to do that same
thing in the present? As Ariely, a Duke University professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics, remarked in his 2008 Ted Talk,
“We are wonderful people in the morning” (Ariely, 2008).
What Ariely was referring to is something that behavioral economists know as the “runner’s dilemma.” In the runner’s dilemma,
a runner, let’s say Haley, wants to run the whole time during her
ten mile training session. When planning her run—what we will
call time zero here—Haley sees the benefits of running the entire
ten miles as much greater than the costs. When Haley begins her
run, the benefits still outweigh the costs. Yet as the miles add up,
and Haley becomes more fatigued, the benefits are “discounted”
relative to the costs. At some point, the equation will shift, and
walking (or stopping the run altogether) will sound a lot better
than pounding out the miles to the finish.
The runner’s dilemma is a classic example of what behavioral economists call “hyperbolic discounting.” Hyperbolic discounting tells
us that while in the present the benefits of a decision (such as going
jogging in the morning) outweigh the costs, but over time, the benefits decrease and the costs increase, until the decision is no longer
favorable to us.
If you have ever put your running shoes by the door in the evening,
only to in the morning roll over in bed, hit the snooze button, and
decide that you will start that running program tomorrow instead,
then you have been a victim of hyperbolic discounting. The run
Hyperbolic discounting:
a phenomenon where, in
the present, the benefits of
a decision (such as going
jogging in the morning)
outweigh the costs, yet, over
time, the benefits decrease
and the costs increase, until
the decision is no longer
favorable to us.
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you wanted to take simply sounded much better when it was in the
future, but in the present, not so much.
But it’s not just running (or any form of form of exercise) that causes
benefits to decrease over time. Saving money, for example, sounds
like a very good idea—until we are tempted by something we would
like to purchase. Being more productive also bears a promising
glow—until the early mornings, long hours, and late nights add up
and suddenly, when compared to relaxing in front of the television
with a bag of chips, it doesn’t seem quite so glamorous.
However, the most classic example of hyperbolic discounting—and
possibly the most troubling—is weight loss. When thinking about
losing weight, we all agree that it sounds like a great idea. Yet when
it comes down to putting in the long hours at the gym, going to bed
early, giving up that nightly cocktail, and avoiding tempting foods,
losing weight suddenly becomes a dreaded chore.
Yet it might not just be that losing weight loses its allure over time, it
might also be that the cost of avoiding all of those tempting options
is simply too much to bear.
When More is Not Better: The Problem With
Temptation Costs
Temptation costs:
psychological cost of
avoiding temptations, and
explaining that in order to
make the desirable choice,
the benefit must exceed the
sum of all the other available
choices.
Transformation Specialist
While we have all resisted the urge to eat a donut or drink a glass
of wine when we know we shouldn’t, what we often fail to consider is just what that choice costs us. The costs of avoiding temptations—known as temptation costs—mean that for every donut we
don’t eat, there is a price we pay. both in declining willpower, and
in the feeling that we’ve missed out. And, as you might have already
guessed, the more donuts, cookies, and cakes in front of us at once,
the greater those temptation costs.
The concept of increasing temptation costs relative to the amount
of choices we have is explained by what is known as the “choice set
theory.” While hyperbolic discounting looks at the cost benefit ratio
of making choices over time, (longitudinally) the choice set theory
explores the cost benefit ratio of making choices across a breadth of
options (vertically). Essentially, the choice set theory states that the
Commitment Strategies | 115
choices we make are a function of the benefit
(utility) of those choices relative to the temptation cost of the other options. When faced
with making choices, such as eating vegetables
or ordering a burger and fries, there is always
a benefit that we assign to each choice. For example, eating fish is a healthy choice. However,
of course, there are other choices we can make.
If steak, which for the purpose of this example,
we will call an unhealthy choice, were on the
menu, we might be tempted to order it. In the
choice set theory, making the healthy decision
to choose the fish involves evaluating the benefits associated with eating fish against missing
out on the temptation to eat the steak. And the
more tempting options we have to choose from,
the more that the “healthy” choice loses its
value. When it’s not just steak on the menu, but
also chili cheese fries, pizza, and onion rings,
suddenly it’s so much harder to choose the fish
and salad we had intended to order. When it
comes to making decisions—especially healthy
ones—having more options is not better. In
fact, the more options we have, the greater the
temptations costs of avoiding those options.
In order to make a desirable choice then, the
benefit of the choice must exceed the sum of the
temptation costs of all the other available choices. The problem for most of us, however, is that
we don’t make choices under ideal conditions.
We plan that run in the morning thinking that
we will feel as inspired and energetic as we do
right now. We also likely have the best intentions when we cook ourselves those steamed
vegetables and chicken for dinner—and then of
course we spot the ice cream in the freezer.
Whether it’s underlying emotions that drive us
to eat, our limited amount of willpower, our
tendency to discount the benefits of making
choices that are good for us, or the temptation
costs of avoiding everything else we’d rather be
eating, there is always a big difference between
planning for weight loss—anyone who has ever
made a resolution knows how easy it is to jot it
down—and actually following through on the
actions that actually lead to weight loss—we
also know just how hard it is to keep those resolutions. But the difficulty we have in following
through on our best intentions, as you will see
in the next section, might also be explained by
the fact that when it comes to planning and acting, it seems there is more than one self at work.
Here are the important points to take away:
1.
When it comes to weight loss, we consistently overlook the role of emotions.
2.
Chronic attempts to lose weight often lead
to an increased response to desirable foods—
particularly those that smell desirable—and
an increased reliance on executive functions
to overcome impulses.
3.
Self-control appears to be a limited resource,
such that the more we use it, the less we are
able to exert self-control when needed.
4.
Hyperbolic discounting describes a phenomenon where in the present the benefits of a
decision (such as going jogging in the morning) outweigh the costs, yet over time, the
benefits decrease and the costs increase, until
the decision is no longer favorable to us.
5.
Temptation costs refer to the psychological
cost of avoiding temptations, and explain
that in order to make the desirable choice,
the benefit must exceed the sum of all the
other available choices.
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Section Two: Plan Now, Impulse
Later: Why Our Two Selves
Don’t Agree
If you ask most people what it takes to lose
weight, you are likely to hear words like willpower, self-control, and overcoming impulses.
And yet, our results don’t give much credence
to our theories. For most people, in the world
of weight loss, the fight to control impulses is
being lost.
Setting Ourselves Up for Failure:
Why Impulse Control Doesn’t Work
When we think about controlling impulses, we
are usually thinking about what we shouldn’t
do. We really shouldn’t eat that ice cream after
dinner. We really shouldn’t skip that workout,
drink that beer, or have another piece of Aunt
Martha’s apple pie. And if self-control is a game
of stopping action, as opposed to starting it, the
question is: Why do most popular theories of
self-control advocate taking action to get a grip
on those impulses?
By asking just this question, along with which
form of self-control actually works best—the
effortful pursuit of one’s goals, or the delaying
of behavior until enough information processing has occurred—researchers from Idaho
State University and the University of Southern
Mississippi first exposed volunteer participants
to action words, such as “start” or “active,” or
inaction words, such as “stop” or “pause.” Next,
using a classic test of self-control, participants
were asked if they would rather have some
money now or more money later.
Transformation Specialist
What effect did the action words have on
self-control? The researchers found that the
participants who were motivated to be active were more likely to select the immediate
rewards and had poorer impulse control than
those who had been primed with words suggesting inaction (Hepler et al., 2011). In the
words of Justin Hepler, who led the research
study, “Overall, these experiments demonstrate that attempting to motivate oneself to
be active in the face of temptations may actually lead to impulsive behaviors. On the other
hand, becoming motivated for inaction or
calming oneself down may be the best way to
avoid impulsive decisions” (Hepler, 2011).
It turns out that the pull of temptation is stronger than we realize. And, much like a fighter
who is stronger than us, when we go head to
head with our impulses— such as with motivation strategies—we usually lose. Even worse, we
might make even more impulse decisions. As
second study lead, Dolores Albarracín explains,
“Those who try to be active may make wild,
risky investments, for example, and persist in
behaviors that clearly make them unsuccessful”
(Albarracín, 2011).
Contrary to what we might think, motivating
ourselves to lose that weight, fit into that dress,
and to be more healthy by taking action, might
not be the best thing for our impulses. Controlling impulses, as you will see in the next
section, may have more to do with learning to
stop in the face of impulses, to delay gratification, and to take less action, not more. It’s the
difference between free will and free won’t.
Commitment Strategies | 117
Free Will and Free Won’t: What
The Brain Can Tell Us About The
Power to Stop
that lit up. And when participants followed
through and made the action, the dFMC was
decidedly quiet (Brass & Haggard, 2007).
In the world of addictions, it’s a cardinal truth
that if you want to stop drinking, you have to
avoid the people, places, and things that are
likely to trigger you to drink. The idea is that
once you are surrounded by things that remind
you of the good times, these things act like
triggers, priming you to take a drink. However, the truth itself might be hinting at an even
more pervasive phenomenon: once you get the
idea in your head to do something, it is that
much harder to stop. And the reason might
have something to do with just how our brains
handle self-control, especially after we have to
make the decision not to do something we have
already thought about doing.
While it’s not entirely surprising that what helps
us control our impulses is a small structure of
the brain lodged directly in the prefrontal cortex, which is known as the center of executive
functions, like planning, organizing, and inhibition, what is surprising is that the dFMC also
plays a role in choosing between alternatives—
with a strong preference for equitable options.
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study which part of the brain is
activated during self-control tasks, researchers Marcel Brass, Ph.D., of the Max Planck
Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain
Sciences and Ghent University, and Patrick
Haggard, Ph.D., of University College London,
asked participants to perform a simple task
of pressing a button on a keyboard. However,
participants were also told to choose sometimes not to hit the button, and when they did,
to indicate on a clock the time at which they
decided to hold back. Comparing the fMRI
images between the times the participants
hit the button, and the times they decided to
inhibit action, Brass and Haggard found that
when participants held back it was the dorsal
fronto-median cortex (dFMC), an area on the
midline of the brain directly above the eyes,
In a fascinating study, researchers first divided
participants into two groups: one who received
rTMS stimulation of the dFMC, which is a
kind of stimulation that leads to a disruption of
neuronal firing, and another who received no
stimulation. Then, participants were asked to
play the “Ultimatum Game.” In the Ultimatum
Game, player A is given a sum of money, which
can propose to split with player B. If player B
accepts the split, both players walk away with
some cash. But if player B rejects the offer, both
players walk away with nothing. However, the
experiment was rigged. Participants were put
in the role of responder (Player B), while player
A was directed to intentionally make offers that
were less than 50 percent of the total sum, and
thus would be perceived as unfair. The premise is that the dFMC, which works to override
selfish impulses and advocate for equitable
solutions, keeps us from accepting those lower
offers. And when the activity of the dFMC was
disrupted, suddenly, those low offers didn’t look
so bad. In fact, they were accepted almost twice
as often (Knoch & Fehr, 2007). Like missing
out on tempting options, when we feel like
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things are unfair, we are much more likely to be
impulsive.
But there might be another answer. You see, of
all of the structures in the prefrontal cortex, the
dFMC is one of the slowest to develop, taking
an exceptionally long time to mature. And just
what helps the dFMC mature is a neurochemical called dopamine, which is associated with
reward motivated behavior. Dopamine surges
when we do things like eat chocolate, get a
massage, win money, or play an intense game of
racquetball. But when dopamine levels are low,
we have trouble regulating impulses, especially
those associated with pleasure.
In one study, researchers from the Karolinska Institute separated alcohol-addicted participants into two groups and then gave one
group OSU6162 (a chemical suspected to raise
dopamine levels), and one group a placebo for
one week. Then, both groups were exposed to
situations associated with a craving for alcohol.
Not only did the OSU6162 group report less
craving for alcohol after drinking one glass of
an alcoholic beverage, but they also reported
enjoying the first sip of alcohol less. The most
interesting finding however, was that those with
the poorest impulse control were those with
the most dramatic response to OSU6162. Pia
Steensland, Ph.D., associate professor at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, who led the
study concludes, “We think that OSU6162 can
reduce the alcohol craving in dependent people
by returning the downregulated levels of dopamine in their brain reward system to normal”
(Steensland, 2015).
And because alcohol, most drugs, and chocolate all temporarily raise dopamine levels, this
Transformation Specialist
might give us a clue as to how addictions work,
whereby we are trying to compensate for abnormally low levels of dopamine. The problem is
that, in the case of food, those temporary raises
in dopamine come with some nasty crashes.
Obesity has been demonstrated to act on the
same brain reward system as drugs, with some
studies showing that sugar is just as addictive
as cocaine. And while previous research has focused on the metabolic impact of certain foods,
exploring the difference between eating fats,
proteins, or carbohydrates, looking at obesity
as an addictive problem means not just that the
foods we eat may have a different metabolic impact, but that they have a different reward value.
Just as we don’t associate mopping the kitchen
floor with a reward, we don’t consider eating
broccoli particularly rewarding. The problem
is that the dopamine reward system is a very
powerful motivator of behavior, especially when
it comes to what we eat.
One study conducted by the Department of
Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
at Tufts University School of Medicine (TUSM)
and the Tufts Center for Neuroscience Research
(CNR) measured electrically evoked dopamine
synthesis and release in obesity-prone—those
that consumed more food and were 20 percent
heavier than normal—and obesity-resistant rats.
Amazingly, the heavier rats had dopamine levels
a whopping 50 percent lower than their normal
weight counterparts, and these effects were immediately evident after birth (Geiger et al., 2008).
Studies like this give us a window into just
what happens with obesity: when people suffer
from chronic low levels of dopamine, eating,
which raises dopamine levels, may simply be
Commitment Strategies | 119
a compensatory attempt to raise the baseline
dopamine levels to normal. But the problem
might be even more complicated. Decreased
food intake, even when we are at a normal
weight, leads to decreased dopamine levels.
And when dopamine levels get really low, food
cravings go through the roof. For the person
who already has a low baseline level of dopamine, trying to go on a diet may only make
that chocolate cake all the more appealing—
and seemingly impossible to resist.
But the problem gets even worse. Obese people
may not just have less dopamine, but also less
receptors for dopamine, meaning they get less
bang for their buck. Even when they do eat that
chocolate cake, the reward may not be as great as
for someone with a normal level of dopamine receptors. In short, they may not feel the same level
of satiation. And the reason they have less dopamine receptors may have something to do with
epigenetics. As Brenda Geiger, study report first
author and graduate student in the Department
of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at TUSM, explains “Our molecular analysis
suggests that the central dopamine deficits are
most likely caused by a reduced expression of the
genes encoding two proteins, one that is involved
in dopamine synthesis, and another that is a
transporter responsible for packaging dopamine
into vesicles from which it is later released upon
stimulation” (Geiger, 2008).
Just as drinking alcohol causes a temporary
rise in dopamine but lower baseline levels over
time, eating to obesity may make us feel better
in the moment, but the effect has diminishing
rewards, and indeed long-lasting detrimental
effects. When we are obese, we have to eat more
to get the same pleasurable reward from food,
and obesity itself changes the way our brain
processes dopamine—putting us in a state of
chronic dopamine deficiency.
We can also look at the problem in another
way. It may not be just that obese people start
with lower levels of dopamine, but that by
eating a high-fat diet, they actually artificially
lower them. Examining the “real time” changes in dopamine levels after rats consumed a
high-fat diet for either 2 or 6 weeks, researchers from the University of Illinois found
that compared to rats consuming a standard
low-fat diet, the high-fat-diet rats exhibited
reduced dopamine release and also a reduced
reuptake by dopamine transporters within the
brain (Cone et al., 2010).
Whether we start with lower levels of dopamine,
or we cause our dopamine levels to drop by
eating high-fat food, the conclusion is the same:
low levels of dopamine are a major risk factor
for obesity. Yet if our ability to curb our impulses depends both on whether or not we see our
circumstances as fair, and how much dopamine
we have, we still have an even more troubling
problem. As you will see in the next section, the
way we think we will respond to situations that
trigger our impulses often differs dramatically
from how we actually do.
Me and Me Too: When Our Two
Selves Don’t Agree
If we really want to understand the difference
between how we think we will respond versus
how we actually do respond, there is no better
place to look than something we are all familiar
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with: starting an exercise program. As the story goes, we join the
gym, pack our gym bag, and tell our significant other we will be
home late for dinner, all the while indulging in appealing images of
ourselves thin, tanned, and showing off our newly crafted bodies on
some exotic beach. Yet, at the end of the day, we look at our watch,
realize how tired we are, how much we still have to do, and how we
would really rather start that exercise program on another day.
Long-run self: self that is
concerned with planning
and implementing desirable
choices.
Short-run self: self that
is that is responsible for
carrying out the intended
actions, all the while facing
temptations and discounting
benefits.
To behavioral economists, this story is not unique and it represents
a well-known phenomenon in the field: the self we make plans with
(known as the long-run self) thinks very differently from the self
that actually carries out those carefully laid plans (known as the
short-run self). Called the dual self-theory, the premise is that every
decision-maker consists of two selves: a long-run self that is concerned
with planning and implementing desirable choices, and a short-run
self that is responsible for carrying out the intended actions, all the
while facing other temptations and a discounting of the benefits.
As the theory holds, the two selves are at odds with one another. For
one thing, while the long-run self thinks about the bigger picture and
tends to weigh up the benefits and costs (pros and cons) accurately,
the short-run self tends to be myopic and holds a distorted perception
of the benefits of a desirable choice (Fudenberg & Levine, 2006; Thaler
& Shefrin, 1981; Benhabib & Bisin, 2005). While the long-run self
thinks about the benefits of eating that salad for dinner, for example,
the short-run self is busy worrying about missing out on that mouthwatering burger on the menu. And the short-run self is prone to
regrets. While the long-run self may be able to override the short-run
self’s devices, and pass on the steak or fries one or two times, it comes
at a psychological cost, whereby the more we override these impulses,
the sharper that pain of missing out becomes (Thaler & Shefrin, 1981;
Fudenberg & Levine, 2006). Over time, our willpower runs out, and
we find ourselves sitting in front of that meal we would rather have—
which is probably not the healthy one. In the brain, it seems, thinking
and doing are wired differently.
Why Thinking Won’t Get Us Doing
It is one thing to think about making choices, setting and attaining
Transformation Specialist
Commitment Strategies | 121
goals, and the benefits and costs of each, and
something entirely different to actually do
the actions that will lead to our goals. Future
choices, as we know, are not the same as present
circumstances. But they also don’t utilize the
same part of the brain. The long-run self’s planning, organizing, and inhibiting happens in
the prefrontal cortex and is engaged when the
brain is not dealing with other—more pressing—concerns. Yet amp up the stress a little—
like driving home a carful of screaming kids
after a long day at work—and the limbic system
takes over. Not surprisingly, when responding
to impulses, it’s often the limbic system that is
activated (Nigg, 2000; McClure et al., 2004). In
fact, any impulsive decisions light up the same
neural circuitry that is involved in the fight or
flight response (Winstanley et al., 2004). This is
also why we’ve all been told not go to the grocery store when we are hungry, because when
our brain is under the physiological stress of
hunger, making impulsive choices becomes that
much more likely.
In a fascinating study, researchers from the
University of Cambridge separated participants
into two groups and had one group eat a very
low calorie diet to reduce brain levels of serotonin, while the other group maintained their
normal diet. Then, both groups were asked to
play the “Ultimatum Game” to investigate how
individuals with low serotonin react to what
is perceived as unfair behavior. In the Ultimatum Game, as we know from above, player A
is given a sum of money, and can then propose
to split with player B. If player B accepts, both
players walk away with some cash. But if player
B rejects the offer, both players walk away with
nothing. On average, people reject about half
of all offers that are less than 20–30% of the
total stake, and here, the normal diet/normal
serotonin group did exactly that. However, for
the low serotonin group, the rejection rates for
the same amount jumped to more than 80%
after serotonin had been reduced. And because
depression and hypersensitivity to lost rewards
were controlled for, serotonin was isolated as a
critical component of the social decision-making. These results are not surprising given that
limbic system activation also lowers serotonin.
In the words of Ph.D. student Molly Crockett,
a Gates Scholar at the University of Cambridge
Behavioral and Clinical Neuroscience Institute,
and lead researcher, “Our results suggest that
serotonin plays a critical role in social decision-making by normally keeping aggressive
social responses in check” (Crockett, 2008).
Just how we keep those social responses—and
the impulses that drive them—in check might
also have something to do with just how we
think about those choices. We already know
that the long-run self weighs up the benefits
against the costs of making a decision in the
future, and that when the short-run self is
engaged in the executing of the choice, these
benefits become smaller in light of the costs associated with the activity. Perhaps the question
we should be asking then is: “Does the longrun self overvalue the benefits of the activity
when planning it, or is it that the short-run self
undervalues the benefits when actually doing
it?” Maybe when we are thinking about running, we are exaggerating how great we will
feel, how much we will like the new clothes and
running shoes we will wear, and how trim we
will become. On the other hand, maybe when
we are covered in sweat trudging through what
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seems like a never-ending run, our muscles are
fatigued, and all we can think about is what
else we’d rather be doing, we discount all those
great benefits that come with running.
The answer is that we think a lot less accurately
about the benefits of our choices when we are
actually following through on those choices. It
is the short-run self that tends to inaccurately
portray the benefits of a desired choice, distorting it in relation to the costs of the activity
(Fudenberg & Levine, 2006; Thaler & Shefrin,
1981; Benhabib & Bisin, 2005). But the benefits
are not all that the short-run self distorts. Every
healthy choice we make, also involves a lot of
missed choices we could have made. What that
adds up to for the short-run self is a lot of temptation costs. And when it comes to temptation
costs, the short-run self overvalues them, and
makes the cost of missing them much larger
than they actually are (Fudenberg & Levine,
2006; Thaler & Shefrin, 1981; Benhabib & Bisin,
2005). This is also why we think differently
while planning to order that salad for dinner,
than when we are actually sitting in the restaurant and we see the juicy steak on the menu, i.e.,
when it’s right in front of us, missing out seems
that much worse.
Probably because they are so different, and
appear to operate from opposite motivations,
the two selves have fundamental differences in
three critical areas: physiology, emotion, and
cognition. Let’s take a look at these in turn.
Physiological Differences
Let’s first look at the physiological differences between the way we make choices in the
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moment (the short-run self) vs. when we plan
for them (the long-run self). To begin, we must
first understand that the long-run self is the
self that thinks about making choices, setting
and attaining goals, and the benefits and costs
of each of these, while on the other hand, the
short-run self is the doing self that actually
carries through these desired choices. That is
to say, while it is the long-run self that plans
the choices, it is the short-run self that executes
them. I emphasize this difference because for
the purposes of this discussion, it is important to know that the two selves do not operate under the same set of circumstances. The
long-run self looks at future choices, but the
short-run self deals with present circumstances. The distinction also implies that different
parts of the brain are involved in the actions of
the long-run self vs. the short-run self. What
we know from research on the brain is that
the part of the brain concerned with planning,
organizing, and inhibiting responses is the
prefrontal cortex. Further research tells us that
the prefrontal cortex is engaged when the brain
is not dealing with other—more pressing—concerns. The concerns that do appear to take over
the actions of the prefrontal cortex are those
that involve the perception of threat, or something that jeopardizes our survival. In these
situations, it is the limbic system that primarily
regulates the actions of the brain. Because we
already know that the short-run self deals with
present circumstances, what this tells us is that
if these present circumstances involve a perception of threat, then the prefrontal cortex—and
therefore the concerns of the long-run self—
will be rendered ineffective. But even further,
because we said that one of the functions of
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the prefrontal cortex is to inhibit impulses, this
should also tell us that the part of the brain
that responds to impulses, i.e., relating to the
short-run self, is a different part of the brain.
Research has shown that when responding to
impulses, it is the limbic system that is activated
(Nigg, 2000; McClure et al., 2004). Research
in neuroscience has also indicated that when
making impulsive decisions, the same neural
circuitry that is involved in the fight or flight
response is activated (Winstanley et al., 2004).
What this means is that when we think about
the health benefits of e.g., ordering fish, we are
using the prefrontal cortex, and thus, are well
equipped to inhibit the impulse to eat steak
instead. However, when we sit at the restaurant
with the menu in our hands and are faced with
the decision to order fish or to order steak, the
prefrontal cortex is often overridden by the
actions of the amygdala, which responds to the
impulse of wanting steak. This is also what we
know as the adage to not go to the grocery store
when you are hungry, because when the brain
is under the physiological stress of hunger, it is
prone to make impulsive choices. If we want to
change this response, we have to employ strategies designed to make the choice of eating steak
(or any other desirable choice) immediately
more expensive (remember we can use hard or
soft consequences) than the fish option. But before we look at how we can design commitment
devices to make better choices, let’s continue
with our discussion about the differences between the two selves.
Emotional Differences
While the physiological differences explain part
of the differences in actions of the two selves,
we must also consider the emotions that each
self responds to. If we go back to the explanation that Freud provided us, we know that the
long-run self is regulated by conscious motives.
What Freud meant by conscious motives is that
they are known to us. We are aware that we
would like to make healthy choices, lose weight,
save money, and be nicer to our spouses. The
motives of the short-run self, on the other
hand, are regulated by unconscious motives.
Unconscious motives, Freud explained, are not
known to us. We might not be aware that we
associate making healthy menu choices with
the same emotional deprivation we felt with our
mothers, or that we link saving money to losing
freedom, the same way we did with our fathers,
or that we associate nighttime eating with the
emotional nurturance that we never received
and still long for. All of these things can be very
powerful influencers of our behavior when we
are faced with making choices in the moment.
The difficulty with unconscious motives—and
Freud and many others have highlighted this
point—is that they are not known to us. So
while we may look to the future choices we
would like to make and say that we would like
to make healthy ones, and in fact we do intend
to, in the moment, we tend to make different
choices because we are operating under a set
of desires that we are not aware of consciously.
While the long-run self may be aware of the
emotional desires linked to making choices in
the future, much in the same way we can say
that we know that we will feel better if we get
up and go running in the morning, what the
long-run self is not aware of is the emotions
that will act upon the short-run self in the
moment. In the morning when we wake up to
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go running, for example, we may feel that running is a forced choice, and we don’t like forced
choices because we have probably had to give in
to too many of them in our life already. This, of
course, is an unconscious motivation that is not
known to the long-run self who is planning the
healthy choices we are trying to make. But the
real problem is that unconscious motivations
are not known to the short-run self either—unless they may have undergone psychoanalysis,
which is unlikely—and therefore this makes
desirable decisions even more complicated.
While it is not the purpose of this course to
dissect unconscious motives, we can gain by
understanding how they influence behavior so
that we can better design strategies to overcome
them and improve the choices we and our clients make. The idea is that although we would
really like to eat a bowl—or several bowls—of
ice cream at night, we can look to ways to make
this choice more expensive (again in hard or
soft costs) than the choice that we would really
like to make.
Cognitive Differences
Lastly, let’s look at the differences in the thought
processes of the short-run and long-run selves.
What we already know from the discussion
above is that the long-run self weighs up the
benefits against the costs of making a decision
in the future. However, when the short-run self
is engaged in the executing of the choice, these
benefits become smaller in light of the costs
associated with the activity. What this tells us
is that either the long-run self overvalues the
benefits of the activity relative to the costs—
the example we can use is that when we think
about running, it is made to be more beneficial,
Transformation Specialist
glamorous, or health inducing than it actually
is—or that the short-run self undervalues the
benefits when engaged in the activity—when
actually running, it doesn’t seem very glamorous, or even beneficial at all—relative to the
costs, i.e., the muscles are fatigued, the joints
hurt, there are several, better things you’d rather be doing, etc. The side of the fence that most
researchers fall on is that the long-run self is
actually much more accurate in the perception
of the benefits of a desired choice and it is the
short-run self that tends to inaccurately portray
the benefits of a desired choice, distorting it in
relation to the costs of the activity (Fudenberg
& Levine, 2006; Thaler & Shefrin, 1981; Benhabib & Bison, 2005). What this tells us is that
when executing a healthy choice, the benefits
pale in comparison to when we are thinking
about executing a healthy choice. But the other
way we can look at the equation as we know
from the discussion above is through the longrun self’s perception of future temptation costs
vs. the short-run self’s perception of these same
temptations costs. Again, what we know already
is that when we think about choosing the fish
on the menu is that either we undervalue the
cost of the missed temptation of all of the other
items we would rather order—such as steak,
fries, or pizza—or it is the short-run self that
overvalues these temptation costs, making them
seem much greater than they actually are. Here,
we see the short-run self focusing primarily on
the temptations and what will be missed if they
are passed up for a healthier alternative. Here
again, the research points to the second conclusion: that it is the short-run self that overvalues
the temptations and makes the cost of missing them much larger than they actually are
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(Fudenberg & Levine, 2006; Thaler & Shefrin,
1981; Benhabib & Bison, 2005). Whether we are
looking at the difference in the way we perceive
the benefits of an activity when thinking about
it vs. when doing it or the difference in the way
we perceive temptation costs when thinking
about them vs. when making the choices that
involve them, what we should know is that
there are clear differences in the way we think
when we are planning choices and the way we
think when we are actually making the choices
in the moment. If we want the long-run self
that plans the actions to have influence over the
short-run self that executes them, we are going
to have to use some commitment strategies
to make the less desirable choices much more
expensive that the desirable ones.
Here are the important points to take away:
7.
The long-run self weighs up the benefits
against the costs of making desirable choices, but the short-run self undervalues the
benefits when engaged in an activity.
8.
The long-run self weighs up the benefits
against the temptation costs of a desired
choice, but the short-run self overvalues the
temptation costs of making the desirable
choice.
Thinking and doing are not the same, and the
power to stop—whether it’s because we are
focusing on taking action instead of delaying
it, we think we got an unfair deal, our dopamine levels are low, or we fall prey to the clever
tactics of the short-run self—seems to evade us
all. And yet, as you will see in the next section,
when it comes to making decisions, we are also
unknowingly influenced by the state we are in.
1.
The dual self-theory considers that every decision-maker consists of two selves: a longrun self and a short-run self, and these two
selves are at odds with one another.
PowerPoint: Three Strategies to
Help Your Clients Make Better
Decisions
2.
The long-run self serves to plan future desirable choices, while the short-run self serves
to execute them.
Remove Tempting Options
3.
The long-run self uses the prefrontal cortex,
while the short-run self uses the amygdala.
4.
The long-run self can exert control over
impulses, while the short-run self often falls
prey to impulses.
5.
The long-run self is aware of the emotions
linked to making future desirable choices,
but is unaware of the unconscious motives
which often override these choices.
6.
The short-run self is aware of the conscious
reasons for making choices, yet often responds to unconscious desires.
By limiting the amount of other tempting options, you can help your clients combat the natural tendency to exaggerate the temptation cost
of missing out on these tempting choices. When
you teach your clients to make undesirable
choices less available, you also make choosing
the desired option much easier, as there is less
cognitive energy spent overriding impulses.
Use Benefit Reminders During Activity
Hyperbolic discounting means that the benefits
of an activity—especially one that takes effort—
decrease over time, starting from the time we
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plan the activity. While hyperbolic discounting
increases the chance that we will give up on
an activity early (or perhaps not even start at
all), you can help your clients overcome this
tendency by using benefit reminders (such as
text messages, benefit lists, and social support)
during the activity to boost motivation and to
help encourage healthy choices.
Avoid Distractions
Decisions are easy to make when we are not distracted and can allocate our cognitive resources
toward avoiding impulses and choosing better
options. However, when we are distracted (such
as when watching TV, surfing the internet, or
multitasking) we can easily succumb to poor
decisions simply because we are not focused on
making better ones. You can help your clients
to avoid this situation by teaching them to
identify and avoid distractions that hinder their
decision-making process.
Section Three: When All is Calm,
Decisions Are Easy: Hot States
and How They Get In the Way
We should know at this point that when making decisions, especially those that are good for
us, our thoughts don’t always work in our favor.
We discount the benefits over time, we exaggerate the temptation costs of all the other—seemingly better—choices we could make, and we
think in the short term, overlooking the longterm benefits of making healthy choices. But
perhaps a more concerning problem, as you will
see in this section, is that we don’t always make
decisions when we are in the best mood.
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Impulses, Assumptions, and
Errors: Why Hot States Spell
Disaster
Anecdotally, we have all been told not to go to
the grocery store when we are hungry, drive
when we are raging angry, or make major life
changes when dealing with a heart break, yet
for psychologists the idea of distinct emotional
states regulating our decisions is nothing new. In
fact, what are known as “hot” and “cold” emotional states have long been used to explain the
way in which we make moral decisions (Greene
et al., 2001), employ emotion or logic to influence our thinking, operate out of conscious or
unconscious processes, and even the parts of
the brain we use when making decisions. Hot
states describe those states where are decisions
are emotion based. Being charged with emotion activates the fear and anger centers of the
brain (known as the limbic system), much like
when we are threatened (McClure et al., 2004).
If you’ve ever had a fight with your spouse and
said things you wouldn’t want repeated, dropped
your groceries and sprinted to save your child
from an oncoming car, or engaged in a heated
argument with someone over a topic you are passionate about all the while ignoring evidence that
doesn’t support your argument, you’ve been in a
hot state. Here, judgment is automatic, decisions
are quick, reflexive, and impulse driven—and
not regulated by logic. In hot states, we are also
prone to act upon previous assumptions and biases (Kahneman, 2003), which doesn’t often lead
to well-thought-out decisions.
Hot states do have a time and place; for instance, acting with lightening reflexes is exactly
what helps us save someone from a burning
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building, avoid a car crash, and catch a child
before they plummets headfirst down the stairs.
The problem is, changing behavior is a game of
overcoming habitual patterns, ingrained behavior, and a whole lot of impulses. And when
it comes to teaching ourselves to stop doing x
and start doing y, we need the cool logic of cold
states. Because what cold states do is allow us
to use logic, planning, rational analysis, and
conscious judgment to process information
more fully, to incorporate memory from previous experiences, and to use executive functions
to make decisions based on logic (Stanovich &
West, 2000; Kahneman, 2003). It’s the difference between reaching for that donut because
it’s there and stopping yourself because you
remember that the last time you ate the donut
you felt bad about it later.
But that is only part of the story. Hot and cold
states appear to be significantly linked to our
working memory capacity (WMC). People with
higher WMCs are more likely to make decisions when in cold states, probably due to the
fact that cold states tend to utilize memory and
employ greater cognitive engagement than hot
states. On the other hand, those who are low in
WMC make more decisions when in hot states,
make more judgment errors (MacDonald, Just,
Carpenter, 1992) and are more prone to stereotype use (Schmader and Johns, 2003). For those
low in WMC, making judgments in hot states
is cognitively more efficient, as it uses less of a
limited resource (i.e., the WMC). The problem
is that hot states consistently lead to more errors
in judgment because they rely on preformed assumptions (stereotypes) as opposed to weighing
up these assumptions against objective information. The story might go something like this:
we convince ourselves to go on a diet because
we know that maintaining a healthy weight is
important to our overall health and we believe
it will make us feel better. By focusing on what
we eat, we have been able to follow our diet
strictly, and after a few days, we begin to see
some results. But after a week of dieting, we
are feeling the weight (no pun intended) of our
restrictions, and then at the same time at work
we are given a harsh reprimand by our boss.
Feeling angry, hurt, and very nervous about our
job, we also begin to feel very resentful about
our diet. The more we think about it, the more
we realize we hate having to control what we eat
and depriving ourselves of our favorite foods,
and in a moment of hotheadedness, we throw
the proverbial finger up at our diet and head to
our favorite restaurant. What we don’t do—and
which would require a high WMC——is to remember that the last time we blew our diet, we
didn’t feel better; in fact we actually felt worse.
WMC is also linked to cognitive capacity,
which acts like a limited resource when making
decisions, especially when we are emotionally
charged. Making decisions, as you know, means
overriding temptations, but it also means overriding the emotions that can cause us to hit the
drive through, yell at our kids, or criticize our
spouse. The role of the WMC is to remind us
that the last time we did these things, we regretted it. When WMC works properly, we are able
to use intentional processing to override emotions to make a logic-based decision, as opposed
to an emotion-based one (Moore et al., 2008).
But when our WMC is low, our emotions outweigh the cognitive capacity we have to control
them, and we make errors—often those we wish
we didn’t. However, as you will see in the next
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section, it’s not only that hot states cause us to
fall prey to our assumptions, but also that they
cause us to fall into the sticky trap of our biases.
Biases, Bad Attitudes, and the
Proverbial Treadmill
While we know hot states cause us to rely on
assumptions, make impulse decisions, and forget
the consequences, again, that’s only part of the
story. Hot states also make us more prone to
“affective bias.” Affective bias means that when
making decisions, we are swayed in the direction of our emotions, giving more consideration
to information that supports the way we feel. If
you have ever found yourself in the middle of a
heated argument, passionately defending your
cause, all the while ignoring any evidence to the
contrary, you have been influenced by affective
bias. When we feel passionate about things, we
simply tend to pay more attention to information
that confirms our beliefs, all the while filtering
out opposing arguments. Researchers studying
the effect of affective states and cognition on our
decision-making processes call the sort of cognitive processing related to affective bias “motivated reasoning,” and suggest that it plays a strong
role in how we attend to information that does
not confirm our bias. In this model, motivated
reasoning is a joint process of affective bias and
cognitive processing to arrive at conclusions that
confirm our bias (Redlawsk, 2008). Interestingly,
when looking at the way motivated reasoning
affects our decisions about political candidates,
one study found that “motivated reasoners may
actually increase their support of a positively
evaluated candidate upon learning new negatively evaluated information” (Redlawsk, 2008).
Much in the same way that hearing that we are
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parenting our children in the wrong way often
causes us to feel more justified in the way we parent, motivated reasoning causes us to fortify our
position more strongly in the face of opposition.
And everyone is susceptible to affective biases.
One study found that when using implicit and
explicit psychological tests, only seven percent of
people didn’t show any racial bias. Further, nonbiased individuals differed from biased individuals in a psychologically fundamental way: they
were less likely to form negative affective associations in general (Livingston & Drwecki, 2007).
Reducing those biases is a bit like trying to save
money: we need more on the positive side to
balance out the negative. Whether or not we
are at the mercy of our biases depends on our
ability to resist negative affective conditioning. Overcoming those biases, then, isn’t just
about resisting negative conditioning, it’s about
reconditioning.
And for people who are trying to lose weight,
that reconditioning might need to start with
their attitude toward exercise. In one study of
1,552 individuals, 989 of who were classified as
overweight, researchers at the George Washington University Medical Center carried out a
survey designed to test an individual’s attitude
toward exercise, their perceived pressure to exercise, and the ease of difficulty with which they
found exercise was possible (perceived control).
Not surprisingly, overweight individuals felt
more embarrassed and intimidated about exercising, about exercising around young people
or fit people, and about health club salespeople
than individuals of normal weight did. But
what was surprising was that the heavier the
person was, the stronger the effect was (Miller
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et al., 2009). In short, when we are overweight,
whether or not we go to the gym has nothing to
do with what we know about the benefits about
exercise, instead, it has everything to do with
how we feel about exercise.
So how do we change how we feel about exercise? Behavior theories hold that it comes
down to a simple equation: there must be more
positives than negatives. In order for us to start
liking going the gym, we have to like the people
there, feel comfortable around them, and maybe
even want to hang out with them.
The problem is, at least for most people struggling with weight gain, warm fuzzies about exercise and health are the last thing they receive.
In what is now widely recognized as an anti-fat
bias, heavy people are often subject to negative
assumptions about their self-discipline, sense
of personal responsibility, cleanliness, and even
intelligence. And while these assumptions often
appear at the personal level—for example, when
told an individual was obese because of “overeating” and “lack of exercise,” a higher implicit
bias was found among study participants than
those not provided with the context of why the
individual was fat (Teachman et al., 2003)—
they also have widespread ramifications. Not
just are the overweight and obese highly underrepresented in the media, make 2.5% less than
their thinner counterparts in the same professions (Ford, et al., 2002), such as promotions
and raises, but they also even receive lower
quality healthcare—even from professionals
specializing in the treatment of obesity (Teachman & Brownell, 2001).
Just what is the effect of all this fat-shaming?
One study at University College of London
found that among 2944 adults studied over a
period of four years, those who experienced
fat-shaming gained more weight than those
who did not. On average, weight discrimination
led to a 0.95 Kg gain, while not experiencing
weight discrimination resulted in a 0.71 Kg
weight loss (Jackson et al., 2016). According to
study lead, Dr. Sarah Jackson, “Stress responses
to discrimination can increase appetite, particularly for energy dense food. Weight discrimination has also been shown to make people feel
less confident about taking part in physical activity, so they tend to avoid it” (Jackson, 2016).
A second study showed that 10-year-old girls
who were called fat were more likely to be fat by
age nineteen, even if they were not overweight
to begin with. The study, which followed 2300
girls from age ten to nineteen showed that being
called fat by a family member resulted in being
1.62 times more likely to be overweight by nineteen, and being called fat by a close non-family
member made girls 1.42 times more likely to
gain weight by nineteen (Hunger & Tomiyama,
2014). Also illuminated was the connection
between weight discrimination and stress that
led to overeating.
Assistant professor of psychology at UCLA and
study author Janet Tomiyama explains, “Simply
being labeled as too fat has a measurable effect
almost a decade later. We nearly fell off our
chairs when we discovered this. Even after we
statistically removed the effects of their actual weight, their income, their race, and when
they reached puberty, the effect remained. That
means it’s not just that heavier girls are called
too fat and are still heavy years later; being
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labeled as too fat is creating an additional likelihood of being obese” (Tomiyama, 2014).
Study co-author Jeffrey Hunger, continues, “Being labeled as too fat may lead people to worry
about personally experiencing the stigma and
discrimination faced by overweight individuals,
and recent research suggests that experiencing
or anticipating weight stigma increases stress
and can lead to overeating” (Hunger, 2014).
When tracking a nationally representative
population of Americans between 2006 and
2010, researchers at the Florida State University College of Medicine found similar results.
Americans who were overweight in 2006—but
not obese—and stigmatized for it were two
and half times more likely to end up obese
four years later than those who hadn’t been
fat-shamed. Even more compelling was that
those who were obese at the beginning of the
study were three times more likely to still be
obese in 2010 if they had faced weight discrimination (Sutin & Terracciano, 2013).
The problem is that when we feel bad— e.g., because we were overlooked for a promotion, given shoddy healthcare, or called fat (regardless of
whether or not we are)—going for a jog is often
the last thing we do. What’s a lot more likely is
that we will find a cozy spot on the couch and
open up that box of bonbons.
Feeling Fat and Acting Fat
What fat-shaming adds up to is a lot of negative affective biases—biases that then cause
us to feel fat, and not surprisingly, act fat. In a
recent study, researchers from the Norwegian
University of Science and Technology first
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surveyed 1,196 normal weight teenagers of
both sexes using the Young-HUNT1 in a study
conducted from 1995–1997. Participants were
later followed up in the Young-HUNT3 study,
from 2006 to 2008, when they had grown to be
between 24 and 30 years of age.
The question they were asking was: Does feeling
fat lead to actual weight gain? The answer was
convincing. Seventy-eight percent of the girls
who had felt fat as a teen became overweight in
adulthood, as indicated by their waist circumference. In contrast, only fifty-five percent of the
girls who did not consider themselves fat during
adolescence were found in the follow-up study to
be overweight in their later years. In fact, rating
oneself as fat amounted to a body mass index
(BMI) that was on average 0.88 higher and a
waist circumference that was 3.46 cm larger than
those who did not rate themselves as fat. Perhaps
what was most fascinating is that the connection
between perceived weight and actual weight
years later still existed, even when exercise was
controlled for (Koenraad et al., 2012).
“Perceiving themselves as fat even though they
are not may actually cause normal weight children to become overweight as adults,” explains
Cuypers Koenraad, a researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology
(Koenraad et al., 2012).
And while similar studies have also shown
an increase in weight over time in those who
perceived themselves as too fat, the explanation that is best supported is—you guessed
it—stress. The perception related to having (or
not having) an ideal body type, along with the
perception of oneself as overweight, leads to a
massive amount of psychological stress.
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Where all of this leads—and what this has to
do with weight—is cortisol, and a lot of it. Not
only is cortisol a hallmark of stress—indicative of being in a hot state—it is perhaps one
of the strongest predictors of weight gain. As
Tomiyama explains, “Making people feel bad
about their weight could increase their levels of
the hormone cortisol, which generally leads to
weight gain” (Tomiyama, 2014).
Pissed Off and Weighed Down:
Why Cortisol Matters
We know too much stress is bad for us. We know
we are supposed to manage stress and keep cortisol—the primary stress hormone—low. But what
we may not know is that cortisol has a deceptive
way of collecting around the waist.
One study looked at pre-menopausal, non-overweight women, and overweight women who
stored fat either centrally (at the waist) or
peripherally (at the hips) and examined their
stress responses over three consecutive days.
After the first exposure to stress, the women
with greater abdominal fat felt more threatened
by the study’s stressful tasks, performed more
poorly on them, and secreted more cortisol.
They also reported more life stress. By the third
exposure to stress, the lean women with abdominal fat still consistently secreted more cortisol in response to stressful lab tasks, compared
to women with peripheral fat (Epel et al., 2011).
“We also found that women with greater abdominal fat had more negative moods and
higher levels of life stress. Greater exposure
to life stress or psychological vulnerability
to stress may explain their enhanced cortisol
reactivity. In turn, their cortisol exposure may
have led them to accumulate greater abdominal
fat,” explains Elissa S. Epel, Ph.D., lead investigator on the study (Epel, 2011).
Similar research out of UC San Francisco
followed a group of 61 disease-free women,
of which 33 were chronically stressed women
caring for a spouse or parent with dementia,
and 28 were women with low stress over the
course of a year. The study looked at the women’s consumption of high-sugar, high-fat foods,
along with key biological markers, such as
participants’ waistlines, fat distribution, insulin
resistance, stress hormones, and oxidative damage to lipids and cell RNA.
The conclusion? More frequent high-fat,
high-sugar consumption significantly predicted
a larger waistline, more truncal fat, higher oxidative damage, and more insulin resistance—
but only among the group of women exposed to
chronic stress (Aschbacher et al., 2014)
Perhaps what was most fascinating, however,
was that the chronically stressed women didn’t
report eating more high-sugar, high-fat foods
than the low stressed women and yet they still
had higher levels of a stress-related biomarker:
peripheral Neuropeptide Y (NPY).
What research like this should tell us is that a
calorie is not just a calorie, fat cells grow faster
in response to our favorite delicacies when we
are chronically stressed, and cortisol just might
be the new junk food.
The question we should be asking then, is: If
high cortisol levels lead to weight gain, then
does lowering cortisol levels lead to weight loss?
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Asking just this question, researchers from the
University of California at San Francisco randomly assigned chronically stressed overweight
and obese women to nine weekly sessions (lasting two and a half hours each) of mindfulness
training and practice, where they learned stress
reduction and awareness techniques. Additionally, the women in the mindfulness group were
asked to meditate for thirty minutes a day. The
control group received no mindfulness training. Although no diets were prescribed, both
groups did attend one session about the basics
of healthy eating and exercise.
Then, the researchers measured the participants’ psychological stress, fat, deep abdominal
fat, weight, and cortisol levels before and after
the four-month study. The link they found was
clear: when women’s cortisol levels went down,
so did their abdominal fat levels. Further, those
with the greatest reductions in cortisol had the
greatest reductions in abdominal fat (Daubenmeir, et al., 2011).
Here are the important points to take away:
1.
Hot states are those that are emotionally
charged, use the limbic part of the brain,
and cause us to make emotionally-based
decisions.
2.
Cold states use the prefrontal cortex, and
enable us to make logic-based decisions.
3.
In hot states, emotions override cognitive
reasoning.
4.
Those with a low working memory capacity
(WMC) appear more prone to hot states,
and are less able to inhibit their emotional
responses.
5.
Those with a high WMC are better able to
regulate emotions, even when exposed to
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the same emotional response as those with a
low WMC.
6.
When in hot states, we are prone to “affective bias,” which causes us to use “motivated
reasoning” to ignore evidence that doesn’t
confirm our beliefs and to pay more attention to evidence that supports our bias.
7.
Perception of the self as fat lead to an
increased risk of obesity, most likely due to
higher levels of cortisol.
8.
Cortisol appears to be uniquely linked to fat
storage, such that high levels of cortisol lead
to high levels of fat—even when sugar and
carbohydrate intake are consistent.
The takeaway is that the way we feel—whether
measured in our propensity to make impulse
decisions, our tendency toward affective bias, our
attitude toward exercise, our perceptions of ourselves as fat, or our cortisol levels—matters when
trying to change our behavior and lose weight.
Whether reacting on tired and damaging patterns—like eating candy when we are stressed—
or chronically elevating our cortisol, the conclusion is the same: hot states and the stress they
cause are disastrous for weight loss. Yet, as you
will see in the next section, when it comes to
making the kinds of decisions that lead to weight
loss, it’s not just the states we are in that matter.
We are also highly influenced by the certainty of
that weight loss goal we are trying to reach.
Powerpoint: Three Steps to
Reduce Your Hot States
Identify Triggers
Many people find themselves in hot states simply because they are unaware of the situations,
people, and places that may trigger them. You
Commitment Strategies | 133
can learn to reduce hot states by first making
a list of the things that trigger you, and then
learning to find ways to avoid these things.
Build an Awareness Continuum
Hot states often come on very rapidly, and often
we may not recognize either what triggered
them, or the signs that we are beginning to escalate. You can learn to recognize the signs that
you are becoming upset by building an awareness continuum. To do this, begin by making a
list numbered 1–10, where 10 is extremely upset
and 1 is calm. Then write down all of the signs
that correspond to each number. For example,
you can say that at level 7, you feel like your jaw
is very tight, or that at level 6, your breathing
speeds up. By teaching yourself to identify the
signs of a hot state coming on, you can learn to
take action to avoid a hot state before it happens
or before it escalates.
Teach Time Outs
Time outs are a very effective form of emotional
management. By learning to step away from a
situation that is escalating by removing ourselves from it, we can often avoid the negative
fallout that would otherwise ensue. When you
make a practice of using time outs as a way to
avoid or minimize an emotionally charged situation, you give yourself a very powerful defense
against hot states.
Section Four: Uncertain Futures,
Performance Focus, and
Declining Interest
When you consider all of the thought errors, risk
discounting, exaggeration of temptation costs,
and emotional states combined that affect our
attempts to lose weight, admittedly, the picture
starts looking a little bleak. And yet perhaps this
is the unspoken truth about weight loss: it’s about
as certain as finding an open lane on a busy Los
Angeles freeway during rush hour.
Uncertain Futures and Pesky
Doubt
It’s estimated that over the course of the day, an
average person makes in the neighborhood of
five thousand decisions. And when it comes to
what to eat, amazingly, we make as many as 200
decisions per day (Miller, 2010). The story might
go something like this: We wake up, decide to
skip breakfast and pack a salad for lunch. Then,
a coworker brings in a box of donuts and we
think about having one, because, after all, we
skipped breakfast. But we decide not to, and pat
ourselves on the back for our brave display of
self-control. Then, thirty minutes later, we walk
into the kitchen for a cup of coffee and see that
just one donut remains and we reconsider our
decision, because, after all, no one should throw
away a perfectly good donut.
As you can see, it’s not hard to imagine how
many times we think about what, when, and
how much to eat—especially given our constant
exposure to available food and food-related
marketing. But that’s only part of the story. We
are not simply making decisions with one set of
priorities—or even one self. Every decision we
make consists of two selves: a long-run self that
balances benefits with costs, overrides impulsive choices, and plans and organizes behavior
toward desirable choices, and a short-run self
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that undervalues benefits, overestimates the
cost of avoiding temptation, and is prone to act
upon impulse. And the implicit assumption
is that in making our decisions, our goals are
certain. That is, they are things we can bet on.
However, we can probably guess by now that
this isn’t the case. All long-run goals by their
very nature are uncertain. And the reason they
are uncertain is because they are prone to the
actions of the short-run self.
It would be reassuring to think that because
we’d like to lose weight, and plan to take steps
to do so, fitting into that nice pair of jeans is,
well, almost guaranteed. In fact, promises like
this sell millions of diet products every year.
Yet, when it comes to losing weight, nothing
could be farther from the truth. A study as
early as 1959 indicated that after two years of
treatment, only 2% of 100 obese individuals
maintained a weight loss of 9.1 kg (20 lb.) or
more (Stunkard & McLaren-Hume, 1959). More
recently, a New England Journal of Medicine
editorial titled Losing Weight: An Ill-Fated New
Year’s Resolution confirmed the same pessimistic message: most people do not believe they
can successfully lose weight (Kassirer & Angell,
1998). I emphasize the word successful because
the evidence is different when rates of weight
loss that is not maintained—weight loss that
doesn’t last for a period of three years or more
is called “unsuccessful”—are analyzed. The
harsh reality is that more people can lose and
then regain weight, than can lose and maintain
weight loss. According to Gary Foster Ph.D.,
clinical director of the Weight and Eating
Disorders Program at the University of Pennsylvania, nearly 65 percent of dieters return
to their pre-dieting weight within three years
Transformation Specialist
(Foster, 2015). The implication is sobering: the
majority of people believe that they can lose
weight quickly, but keeping that weight off, on
the other hand, is another matter.
The takeaway is that when it comes to successful weight loss, for most people, the future is
far from certain. And this is important information because what research in behavioral
economics tells us is that, when looking at longterm and short-term consequences, uncertainty
matters. When the future of long-term goals
are uncertain, we engage in what is called “risk
discounting,” which means that when we weigh
up the risks of the short-term consequences,
we discount the impact they will have on our
long-term goals. Yet what is perhaps even more
disconcerting is what recent studies in strategic
decision-making reveal: the more we depend on
an uncertain long-term goal (especially when
it faces the short-term consequences of overriding impulses), the more we will exaggerate
the uncertainty of it (Laughton & Jacoby, 1993).
In weight loss, it goes something like this: If
we think we are not likely to reach our goal
weight of 145 pounds, suddenly we don’t think
that brownie after dinner will really add much
to our waistline. But there is another twist.
Let’s say that although we really don’t think
we are going to lose the weight, we have a lot
riding on it—something like, say, planning for
a wedding—we will then tell ourselves that it
is even more unlikely that we will succeed, and
then fitting in to that wedding dress will suddenly look a whole lot less likely. The more our
long-term goals appear uncertain, the more we
discount the impacts of our sneaky impulses
on these goals. And in a sort of cruel joke we
play on ourselves, the more we depend heavily
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on reaching those distant goals, the more we
exaggerate the uncertainty of them.
But there is yet another part of the equation.
Certainty in reaching our goals is highly linked
to self-esteem, which may not be entirely
derived from our own values. In a worldwide
survey of more than 5,000 teenagers and young
adults, launched in 2008 and covering 19
countries in Eastern and Western Europe, the
Middle East, South America, Africa, and Asia,
young respondents based their self-esteem not
on their own personal values, but rather, on
the values held by the culture they are exposed
to. Of the four factors that comprise self-esteem—i.e., controlling one’s life, doing one’s
duty, benefiting others, and achieving social status—controlling one’s life emerged as the most
influential. And the feeling of control was even
more indicative of self-esteem when comparing
Western cultures—that value individual freedom and leading an exciting life—to cultures
that value conformity, tradition, and security
(Becker et al., 2014).
The Unreachable Thin Ideal
Western cultures today tend to value taking
one’s life by the reins, which in general, is not a
bad trait. However, they also ascribe to fitting
into a physical mold, which, for many people,
may simply not be possible. According to an
editorial pictorial in the January, 2012, issue of
PLUS Model magazine, most runway models
meet the body mass index criteria for anorexia, which is a BMI less than 17.5 or a weight
less than 85 percent of ideal body weight. The
preference for a thinner ideal isn’t only reflected in the shrinking size of our models—today
the average model weighs 23 percent less than
the average woman, compared to 8 percent
less twenty years ago—but also in the clothes
women today are expected to wear. Although
more than half of the women in the United
States now wear a size 14 or larger, several of the
largest retailers, such as Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, H&M, J. Crew, American Apparel,
Abercrombie & Fitch, do not carry sizes above
12 or 14, or only carry them online.
And what is considered plus-size has also
shrunk. Just ten years ago, plus-size began at
size 12 (and continued to size 18), now plus begins at size 6, and stops just past where it used
to start—at size 14. Consider model Beverly
Johnson who told ABC News that she was between a size 4 and 6 at the height of her career
two decades ago. Now, she would fall squarely
into the plus-size category—information that
didn’t surprise her.
And to all of this, the fashion industry turns a
blind eye. A recent article in Elite Daily described the experiences of Georgina Wilkin, a
model who spent five months in a hospital for
anorexia, just weeks after posing as a pregnant
model. Georgina recounts her experience:
“I’d kept getting bookings although it must
have been obvious to everyone in the business
that I was anorexic. My lips and fingers were
blue because I was so thin that my heart was
struggling to pump blood around my body.
The make-up artists would have to disguise it
with concealer. It wasn’t just me—I know of at
least six other models I still see photos of on a
leading fashion website who are also anorexic. They have the same telltale blue lips and
hands” (Wilkin, 2013).
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Just how she ended up in a hospital fighting
anorexia, Georgina explains, was due to the unrelenting pressure by agents and stylists to lose
weight: “Too often I’d been told by agents and
stylists, ‘You could do much better if you were a
bit smaller’ or ‘You’ve got so much potential, but
it would be a good idea for you to join a gym.’
This sort of language seeps deep into a young
girl’s psyche” (Wilkin, 2013).
While the Georgina Wilkins of the world
may seem like rare exceptions, the underlying
and penetrating message—you are not thin
enough—doesn’t just affect fashion models.
When you consider the ever thinner models in
context of our ever increasing waistlines—the
obesity epidemic is not news to anyone—what
you get is a huge gap. A gap that for most women is simply unreasonable to cross.
This gap—between what we are expected to
look like, and what we actually look like—
comes with some serious psychological ramifications. In one study, women who had been
shown images of ultrathin models, experienced
immediate psychological and behavioral features associated with eating disorders, such
as increased anger, a depressed mood, body
dissatisfaction, and low self-esteem (Ahern et
al., 2011). And when these ultrathin images seep
in and become internalized, as longitudinal
studies have demonstrated, they don’t just lead
to weight-focused anxiety, an elevated drive
for thinness, and unnecessary dieting even in
women of healthy weight, they also make us
feel bad about ourselves. One study found that
simply viewing thin-ideal body images in the
media produced a state of mild depression in
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women who had no previous history of depression (Stice & Shaw, 1994).
In a 2003 article that appeared in Psychology of
Women Quarterly titled, “‘If Only I were Thin
Like Her, Maybe I Could be Happy Like Her’: The
Self-Implications of Associating a Thin Female
Ideal with Life Success,” author Peggy Chin Evans, wrote, “Women often feel dissatisfied with
their appearance after comparing themselves to
other females who epitomize the thin-ideal standard of beauty” (Chin Evans, 2003).
The problem might not only be that we epitomize the thin-ideal standard of beauty, but that
we also equate it with an undue amount of happiness. When comparing images of thin women
to average weight women, the ideally thin body is
consistently linked to positive life outcomes, such
as happiness, confidence, and romantic success
(Evans, 2003). For those who have over-internalized the thin-ideal stereotype, achieving a
thin-ideal body may seem like the only way to be
popular, loveable, successful, and happy.
And while to some, this exposure to the thin
ideal may make thinness seem more attainable
and can act as a motivational factor in self-improvement, the problem for most of us is that
the thin ideal we are exposed to is impossible
to achieve by any healthy means. For one thing,
not only is the standard media portrayal of
the ideal woman 15 percent below the average
female body weight, but additional photo-manipulation, which e.g., elongates the legs and
narrows hips of already skinny models, makes
that ideal not just difficult to attain, but biogenetically impossible.
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Comparing, Contrasting, and
Coming Up Short
fall short. It’s simply hard to imagine being as
thin as Kate Moss.
It is not just that we are exposed to unrealistic—arguably impossible—standards, or that
these standards are presented as emblematic
of happiness, but it is also the way we compare
ourselves to them. Because models, movie stars,
and celebrities all portray enviable qualities
above and beyond their great looks and bodies— such as a great wardrobe, plenty of money, a high-status job, great relationships, posh
houses—when we compare ourselves to them,
we engage in upward types of comparisons, not
the downward kind.
Lead study author, Dirk Smeesters explains,
“Underweight women’s self-esteem always increases, regardless of the model they look at. On
the other hand, overweight women’s self-esteem
always decreases, regardless of the model they
look at” (Smeesters, 2010).
Upward and downward social comparisons
matter because when we measure ourselves
against those less attractive than we think we
are (downward social comparisons) we feel
dramatically different than when we compare
ourselves to our more attractive counterparts
(upward social comparisons).
In one study exploring the ways individuals with different body mass indexes (BMIs)
felt when they were exposed to thin or heavy
models in the media, researchers found that
when normal body mass index females were
exposed to images of moderately thin or extremely heavy models, their self-esteem was
not affected, yet when they were exposed to
extremely thin models, their self-esteem took
a nosedive (Smeesters, et al., 2010). And the
reason for this is that while moderately thin
models represent an equitable comparison and
extremely heavy models represent a downward
social comparison, comparing ourselves to
extremely thin models causes us to suddenly
And looking at thin models doesn’t just make
us feel bad about ourselves, it also affects what
we do about it—and not in a good way. When
overweight participants were exposed to thin
models, they ate more cookies and had lower
intentions to exercise than when exposed to
thin models (Smeesters et al., 2010).
For most of us, this makes no sense. Because
what we typically do when trying to lose
weight is use thin pictures—i.e., that we imagine we could look like—to motivate ourselves.
The problem is, through doing this we are
actually increasing the chance that we will
sabotage our own efforts.
Smeesters cautions: “We recommend that overweight consumers attempt to avoid looking at
ads with any models, thin or heavy (perhaps by
avoiding women’s magazines)” (Smeesters, 2010).
Just why we should avoid all those pictures of
thin models is not only because we will compare
ourselves to them and likely feel worse, it will
make our weight loss goal seem uncertain and
be subject to the very impulsive actions that leave
us with a loosening of our belts, but also because,
as you will see in the next section, the continued
effort upon which weight loss depends demands
that there is something larger than even performing well that compels us to action.
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Perform Now, Fizzle Later
It’s common rhetoric among educators, coaches,
and fitness professionals that to get anywhere
we have to have goals. If we want a to run a 10K
race in six months, we should focus on running a mile continuously in the next month,
and then the following month run two miles
consistently, and so on. If we want to lose 50
pounds and adopt a healthy lifestyle, we should
first focus on exercising every day, eating more
fruits and vegetables, and losing a few pounds
a week. Using short-term measurable goals,
we are told, will help us reach our larger—and
seemingly overwhelming—goals. And all of this
sounds pretty good. Performance goals, like
running a mile or walking every day, do tend to
predict future behavior with some consistency,
e.g., those who achieve A grades in introductory
classes are more likely to achieve A grades in
intermediate classes, and those who can meet
their short-term running goals are more likely
to reach their long-term running goal.
The problem is performance goals don’t predict interest. In a 2000 study looking at the
effects of short- and long-term achievement
goals on predicting interest and performance
over time, researchers found that “performance goals had no effect on students interest
(in psychology)” (Harackiewicz et al., 2000).
Yet when looking at mastery goals, i.e., those
that favor learning a skill over achieving a
preset performance goal, the results were the
opposite. Here, researchers concluded, “Only
mastery goals had significant positive effects
on enjoyment, interest in psychology, and continued interest” (Harackiewicz et al., 2000).
Transformation Specialist
There is nothing wrong with performance
goals, and certainly, we do just fine with them
if all we are concerned with is performance. But
changing behavior depends on developing an
interest in the behavior we are trying to change
to. Research in social psychology has consistently demonstrated that the interest we have in
something (as conveyed through our attitude
toward it) is a predominant influencer of our
behavior (Myers, 1999; Smith & Mackie, 2007).
When we feel negative or just neutral toward
something, the chances are we are not going to
keep doing it—even if we are performing well.
For Dan Pink, the author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, this
is nothing new. Drawing on four decades of
research from behavioral economists, social
psychologists, and successful businesses, Pink
found that motivation boiled down to three
critical components: mastery, autonomy, and
purpose. In speaking of mastery, Pink quotes
Edward Deci, psychology professor, director of
University of Rochester’s Human Motivation
program, and well-respected expert on motivation, “Human beings have an inherent tendency
to seek out novelty and challenges, to extend
and exercise their capacities, to explore and to
learn” (Pink, 2009).
Just how we explore, learn, and extend ourselves
is through mastery. When we consistently seek
out the types of challenges that draw upon and
refine our strengths, not only do we boost motivation, we also tap into a deeply human need,
which, not surprisingly, ignites our interest.
The takeaway is that just because we can do
something well (and meet our performance
goals), doesn’t mean we will continue to do it. If
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we really want to change behavior—and ignite
the kind of motivation that changing behavior
requires—we are going to need interest, and for
that we are going to need mastery goals.
Changing behavior, we know by now, depends
on better connecting the aims of the long-run
self with those of the short-run self. But we
also know that what we aim at matters. When
our goals carry the same certainty as just say,
not getting caught in traffic, we are in trouble.
And if we depend on our goals, like depending
on arriving at our destination in time so we
don’t lose our job, we are in even bigger trouble.
Because the more we doubt ourselves and the
more unrealistic our goals seem—like trying to
achieve that photo-manipulated thin ideal—the
more likely we are to sabotage our own efforts
and find ourselves in exactly the same place we
started. And yet trying to attain a performance
ideal as a way to motivate ourselves to lose
weight, also doesn’t work—we will simply end
up losing interest. Whether we are rationalizing those impulses and reaching for the box of
donuts or finding our interest waning, the conclusion is the same: changing behavior depends
not just on having reachable goals, but also on
having goals that are worth reaching for.
Here are the important points to take away:
1.
There is an inherent disconnect between
long-term consequences and short-term
consequences.
2.
The more uncertain the long-term goals
appear, the more we discount the impact of
short-term choices.
3.
The more we depend on achieving a longterm goal, the more we exaggerate the
uncertainty of it.
4.
Viewing images of ultrathin models leads to
immediate psychological and behavioral features associated with eating disorders, such
as increased anger, depressed mood, body
dissatisfaction, and low self-esteem.
5.
Performance goals predict performance, not
interest or continued behavior.
6.
Mastery goals predict interest and are highly
linked to continued involvement.
Our continued participation in an activity
depends on our interest in the activity, as well
as our perception of the certainty that we will
achieve our long-term goal. What this points to,
and the subject of part two below, is that if we
want to make better decisions (the type of decisions that lead to behavior change and weight
loss), we are going to need to a little (or maybe a
lot) or leverage.
Powerpoint: Three Ways to Make
Long-Term Goals More Certain
Use the 7 Out Of 10 Rule
One way we can make our long-term goals very
certain is to make sure they are within our
grasp. That is, if 10 is the number we assign to
the most difficult goal we can imagine, then
the goals we choose to go after (at least in the
beginning) should be no harder than a 7. By
ranking goals this way, you keep them attainable by first considering your ability to reach
them—which makes them much more certain.
Identify Strengths
Goals become much more certain when we
know that we have the strengths to reach
them. To help identify your strengths that can
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help you reach your goal, ask yourself: What
strengths have I used in the past to reach my
goals? What is my greatest asset that can help
me reach this goal? What strength could I develop to help me with this goal? Questions such
as this draw your attention to your resources
and represent a powerful way to boost your
confidence in reaching a goal.
Challenge Doubts
Doubts have a unique way of your deterring confidence and making reaching your goals seem all
the less certain. You can become more certain of
reaching your goals by challenging your doubts.
To do this, make a list of your doubts and then
counter each one with three reasons why the
doubt might not be true. For example, if your
doubt is that you have too little willpower, come
up with three pieces of evidence that dispute that
belief (such as the times you did exhibit willpower). By identifying and challenging doubts this
way, not only do you make yourself much more
aware of them, but more importantly, the ways
you can overcome them.
Part Two: To Win the
Game, You Have to Know
the Rules
We know the default: we are prone to discount
the benefits of good choices, exaggerate the
temptation costs of missing out on the alternatives, and underestimate the risks of acting
on impulses. But how do we change the default? Packed with tips, exercises, and prompts,
this section offers powerful ways to make
Transformation Specialist
connecting what you do now with the outcome
it will have later an everyday practice.
The Procrastination Problem
It might be obvious that when we make impulsive choices, we’re not thinking too much about
the long term. Instead, we rationalize that the
latte and pastry we stop for on the way to work
won’t really affect us that much, the run we
were supposed to do isn’t really worth getting
out of bed early for, and the burger and fries we
order at dinner is really worth it. What might
not be so obvious is just how all of these decisions leave us standing on one side of a seemingly immense divide—between where we want
to be and where we are.
Yet when it comes to closing this gap (between
what we do now and what we get later) one of
the biggest problems is something we are all
familiar with: procrastination. Our tendency
to put off until tomorrow what we probably
should do today, doesn’t just cause us to lose
sleep and pull our hair out, it makes what we
have to do harder. In a recent study of 212
students, researchers first assessed students for
procrastination, and then on the nine clinical
subscales of executive functioning: impulsivity,
self-monitoring, planning and organization,
activity shifting, task initiation, task monitoring, emotional control, working memory, and
general orderliness. While they expected to
find a link between procrastination and a few
of the subscales (namely, the first four in the list
above), what they actually found was associations with all nine. (Rabin et al., 2011).
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A separate study rated college students on
an established scale of procrastination, then
tracked their academic performance, stress, and
general health throughout a semester. While in
early measures, it appeared that procrastination
had an adaptive advantage, in that procrastinators reported lower levels of stress, as the study
continued the situation reversed, and the costs
of procrastination then far outweighed the temporary benefits. Procrastinators earned lower
grades than other students and reported higher
cumulative amounts of stress and illness (Tice
& Baumeister, 1997).
And procrastination doesn’t just dampen our
moods and take a toll on executive functions—
it makes us more likely to procrastinate again in
the future. Over time, the act of procrastinating
weakens executive function and makes overriding more tempting short-term options increasingly difficult. For example, let’s say that you
have an important project to complete for work,
but upon arriving home, instead of working
on it, you watch a sitcom. You figure that you
can do the project tomorrow instead. But when
tomorrow comes, you are more likely to watch
the sitcom again, and then with each successive day that you put the project off, starting
it becomes that much more difficult. You may
justify delaying by convincing yourself that it
is adaptive: that is, the work I do later will be of
better quality. Also, some procrastinators truly
believe they work best under pressure.
Yet we can also procrastinate because we exaggerate those temptation costs (remember from
section one), and to us the chocolate cake really
does taste better, especially if we eat it now.
And as any procrastinator knows, when you are
already having a bad day (remember those hot
states), choosing between going to the gym (the
unpleasant choice) and watching sitcoms while
eating nachos (the pleasant choice) is about
as simple as choosing between having a root
canal or going on vacation. On the other hand,
procrastination can also be linked with a fear
of failure. For a procrastinator, it is better to be
seen as lacking effort than lacking ability.
But arguably the biggest problem with procrastination is its sticky nature. Recent research has
found that procrastinators carry feelings of guilt,
shame, or anxiety linked to their decision to
delay. In one study, researchers gave 45 students
a pager and tracked them for five days leading
up to a school deadline. Eight times a day, when
beeped, the test participants had to report their
level of procrastination as well as their emotional state. As the preparatory tasks became more
difficult and stressful, the students put them off
more and more for more pleasant activities, yet
they also reported high levels of guilt—a sign
that beneath the veneer of relief there was a lingering dread about the work set aside (Pychyl et
al., 2000). Lead study author Timothy A. Pychyl
concluded, “Emotional regulation, to me, is the
real story around procrastination, because to the
extent that I can deal with my emotions, I can
stay on task” (Pychyl, 2000).
For many of us it’s a familiar story: the more we
put something off, the harder it becomes to do,
and the worse we feel about it. In a downward
spiral, the act of procrastinating weakens our
executive function defenses for future-oriented decisions. And as we know from section
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one, self-control is a limited resource, and one
that steadily declines as we move from one
self-control task to another (Muraven, Tice, &
Baumeister, 1998). In what is known as the “ego
depletion theory,” the more we expend effort
making rational, intelligent decisions, the more
we deplete the wellspring needed for future
self-control (Vohs et al., 2006). While spending
our workdays overriding our urge to check our
Facebook profile at every moment, at the end of
the day, we are more likely to go home and skip
the gym—our willpower is just worn out. And
if you also recall from section one, if we already
trying to curb calories, the picture gets even
more bleak as keeping blood sugar low cuts
willpower off at its knees.
And yet it’s hard to imagine a diet that doesn’t
regulate blood sugar. High-blood-sugar levels
have not only been linked to almost every disease going, from diabetes to cancer, but are now
recognized as the most predominant piece in
the obesity puzzle.
A Calorie is Not a Calorie: The
Hidden Harmful Effects of Sugar
We’ve all heard it countless times: weight loss
is a simple equation of calories in vs. calories
out. The less we eat and the more energy we
expend, the more weight we will lose. And yet
the results of a recent study at Touro University California had researchers reconsidering
the weight loss equation. Recruiting Latinos
and African–American youth because of their
higher risk for diabetes and high blood pressure—both outcomes of metabolic syndrome—
researchers followed 43 children between the
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ages of 9 and 18 who were obese and who had at
least one other chronic metabolic disorder, such
as hypertension, high triglyceride levels, or a
biochemical marker of fatty liver. First, baseline
levels of fasting blood glucose, blood pressure,
and glucose tolerance were assessed, and then
participants were fed a diet that restricted sugar
but substituted starch to maintain the same
fat, protein, carbohydrate, and calorie levels as
their previously reported home diets. While
sugar was restricted, other carbohydrates were
substituted so that the same number of total
calories and the calories from carbohydrates
were maintained, but total dietary sugar was
reduced from 28 percent to 10 percent, and
fructose from 12 percent to 4 percent of total
calories, respectively. And in order to eliminate
any effects related to weight loss, participants
were given a scale and told to weigh themselves
every day. When weight loss did occur (classified as a decrease of an average of 1 percent over
the 10-day period but without a change in body
fat), more low-sugar food was added to the diet
until weight stability was attained.
After just 9 days on the sugar-restricted diet,
virtually every aspect of the participants’
metabolic health improved, without a change
in weight. On average, diastolic blood pressure was decreased by 5 mm, triglycerides by
33 points, LDL-cholesterol (known as “bad”
cholesterol) by 10 points, and liver function
tests improved. Fasting blood glucose went
down by 5 points, and insulin levels were cut
by one-third (Lustig et al., 2015). In the words
of the study’s lead author, Robert Lustig, MD,
MSL, pediatric endocrinologist at UCSF Benioff
Children’s Hospital San Francisco, “This study
definitively shows that sugar is metabolically
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harmful not because of its calories or its effects
on weight; rather sugar is metabolically harmful because it’s sugar” (Lustig, 2015).
Jean-Marc Schwarz, Ph.D., from the College
of Osteopathic Medicine at Touro University
California reported, “I have never seen results
as striking or significant in our human studies;
after only nine days of fructose restriction, the
results are dramatic and consistent from subject
to subject” (Schwartz, 2015).
The takeaway? A calorie is not just a calorie.
More than any other calorie, sugar wreaks havoc
on our metabolic system, causing insulin levels
to go through the roof, blood pressure to rise, fat
to collect around the liver, and bad cholesterol to
surge. Yet without changing total caloric intake,
exercise, weight, or even the consumption of processed food, when we lower sugar levels, every
measure of metabolic health gets better.
Taking Control of Self-Control
So if in order to be successful at weight loss
(and arguably at improving our health) we have
to control sugar, yet having self-control depends
on having enough blood glucose in our system
to support our willpower, the question is: Just
how do we gain self-control when we are dieting (and keeping blood sugar levels low)?
One study was carried out with arguably one
of the most self-control-deprived groups of
people, namely kids with ADHD, and researchers were able to demonstrate that the answer
may lie in strengthening our executive functions. In a two-year randomized controlled
trial, the researchers studied 759 children in
29 Massachusetts schools, comparing results
based on the Tools of the Mind program—a
research-based educational program that
uses child-directed activities and structured
make-believe play to increase self-regulation (a
core component of executive functioning)—to
other kindergarten children not participating in
the program.
When compared with their peers in the control
classrooms, the kindergartner kids in the Tools
of the Mind classrooms were better at paying
attention in the face of distractions, controlling
their impulses, had better working memories,
and processed information more efficiently.
Even more compelling, the gains were the highest in children who had been given a provisional diagnosis of ADHD (Blair & Raver, 2014).
A second study found similar results. Using a
self-regulation intervention that consisted of
20–30 minute sessions every week, researchers followed 276 children from ages three to
five enrolled in a federally funded Head Start
program for at-risk youths for eight weeks.
The children were randomly assigned to either
a control group or the intervention program,
which used movement and music-based games
that increased in complexity over time and that
encouraged the children to practice self-regulation skills. The game required children to listen
and remember instructions, to pay attention to
the adult leading the game, and to resist their
natural inclinations to stop or go, and was
designed to be naturally progressive, with each
successive game task becoming harder.
Researchers then compared the children’s
self-regulation and academic achievement before and after the intervention, and found that
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the children who had received the intervention
scored significantly higher on two direct measures of self-regulation. And again, it was found
that the intervention was most effective with
the children considered to be at the highest risk
of struggling in school— due to their self-control problems (Schmidt et al., 2014).
But perhaps the question we should be asking
is: Does strengthening executive functioning
work for adults? Here again, to answer this
question, the best place to look is a group of
adults commonly considered as having low
self-control, i.e., those with addiction problems.
While many studies have explored techniques
such as assigning a quit date, using cognitive
behavioral therapy, and warning smokers of the
risks of continued smoking, one recent study
using neuroimaging to compare the brains of
non-smokers to those of smokers. In the region of the brain associated with self-control
(and executive functioning) i.e., the prefrontal
cortex, the smokers showed dramatically less
activity, suggesting than when it comes to the
addictive behavior of smoking, self-control is
decidedly absent. Questioning if self-control
training could improve smokers success at
quitting, researchers from Texas Tech University and the University of Oregon recruited
60 undergraduate students (27 smokers and
33 non-smokers) to participate in an integrative mind–body program designed to improve
self-control. The students were then split into
two groups: one receiving self-control training
and the other receiving relaxation training.
After receiving 5 hours comprising ten 30
minute sessions over the course of two weeks,
researchers then compared the students’ brain
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scans, self-reporting questionnaires, and an
objective measure of carbon monoxide on
their smoking amounts and habits before and
after the intervention. The researchers found
that the students who had received self-control
training reduced their smoking by a whopping
60 percent (as measured by the carbon dioxide
percentage in their lungs). Even more fascinating was that when the researchers compared the
students self-reported intention to stop smoking
to their actual reduction in usage, they found
no correlation (Tang et al., 2015).
What this study, and other studies that have
replicated the results, seem to tell us is that
when we want to change a behavior, what
matters most is not our intention to change, but
the amount of self-control we have to actually
execute the change.
And no place could this be more relevant than
when trying to lose weight. In the first study
ever to examine whether practicing acts of
self-control during weight loss is linked to an
increase in self-control and better weight loss
outcomes, experts from the Miriam research
team found that individuals with more willpower—or self-control—lost more weight, were
more physically active, consumed fewer calories
from fat, and had better attendance at weight
loss group meetings. And when participants
experienced an increase in self-control during
a six-month behavioral weight loss treatment
program, the effect was even more pronounced
(Leahey et al., 2013).
Testing self-control through the use of an exercise where participants had to override aversive
stimuli, such as cramping, pain, and discomfort, study lead author Tricia Leahey explained
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that developing self-control, or willpower, is like
building a muscle, “The more you ‘exercise’ it
by eating a low-fat diet, working out even when
you don’t feel like it, and going to group meetings when you’d rather stay home, the more
you’ll increase and strengthen your self-control
‘muscle’ and quite possibly, lose more weight
and improve your health” (Leahey, 2013).
One way to exercise the self-control muscle,
like the self-control test demonstrated, is by
inhibiting impulses, especially those that
threaten to derail our weight loss goals. But we
may also have to inhibit who we hang around
with too. Self-control, it turns out, just might
be contagious.
Examining five separate studies conducted over
two years, researchers Michelle VanDellan from
the University of Georgia and Rick Hoyle at
Duke University found that watching or even
thinking about someone with good self-control
makes us more likely to exert self-control.
VanDellan and Hoyle asked participants to
either watch someone exerting self-control (by
eating a carrot and not a cookie), or to think
about, list, or write about a person who has either
good or bad self-control, and then tested participants self-control using various measures, such
as a handgrip task commonly used to measure
self-control, the ability to choose healthier foods
(and override the unhealthy alternatives), and the
speed at which they could identify words associated with self-control on a screen.
And in every single measure, they found that
participants’ self-control was influenced by
their association with self-control. When
participants watched another person eating a
cookie, they were significantly more likely to eat
a cookie themselves. And when they saw another person making a healthy choice, they were
nine times more likely to make that healthy
choice themselves. The effect was so powerful,
in fact, that seeing the name of someone with
good or bad self-control flashing on a screen
for just 10 milliseconds changed their behavior
(VanDellan & Hoyle, 2015).
The takeaway from these studies is that
self-control doesn’t just have to practiced, it
has to be protected. That little trip to Starbucks
that we mindlessly take with our friend who
is well known for her proclivity for venti size
Frappuccinos (which weigh in at a whopping
six hundred calories and fifty grams of sugar!)
might go by unnoticed, but the next time we
find ourselves at Starbucks, it might just be us
with the venti Frappuccino in our hands—and
maybe one of those tasty lemon bars as well!
The truth is that both procrastination and
self-control have a sticky nature. The more we
procrastinate, the more we deplete the very
executive functions that help overcome that
impulse of putting things off, and the harder
it becomes to not procrastinate. On the other
hand, the more we exercise our self-control
muscle— e.g., by practicing, witnessing, and
surrounding ourselves with acts of self-control,
such as overriding our impulses—the better we
will get at our own self-control.
Here are the important points to take away:
1.
The act of procrastinating weakens our executive function defenses for future-oriented
decisions.
2.
Without changing our total caloric intake,
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exercise, weight, or even consumption of processed food, when we lower sugar levels, every measure of metabolic health gets better.
3.
Self-control is like a muscle and can be
strengthened by consistent performance
of acts of self-control, through exposing
ourselves to other people’s acts of self-control, and even through thinking and writing
about self-control.
The problem for most people, however, is that
overriding impulses is a lot harder to do than it
sounds. As we should know by now, our decisions—especially those that serve to benefit us in
the long term—are plagued by a host of thought
errors that don’t just make us more likely to
choose the cookies over the carrot, but that even
discount the impact it will have on our waistline,
and exaggerate the pleasure of eating it. But we
should also know that our self-control—like any
other muscle—can be strengthened. Let’s look at
a few ways we can do this.
Use strategies that increase attention to the
benefit of an activity throughout the duration
of the activity. Running always looks better
to us before we do it than it does when we are
actually doing it. In order to be successful then
at running, we need to find ways to remind
ourselves of the benefits of running while we are
running. For example, we can use text reminders about the specific health benefits designed
to be delivered during our run. We can also
do this with statistics, reminding ourselves of
other desirable outcomes linked to running,
such as increased intelligence, emotional regulation, creativity, and optimism. Or we could
use in-run reminders delivered to us by our
supporters. Being cheered along the course of
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a marathon or having a close friend or family
member send us some virtual cheers might just
help us run a few more miles.
Reduce exposure to tempting options. It’s in
our very nature to exaggerate the temptation
costs of avoiding alluring options. If for no other reason than this, we should make every effort
to avoid exposure to them. Having someone
else order for us at a restaurant while we avoid
looking at the menu or avoiding the grocery
store and instead using a preset online shopping
order can go a long way toward making sure
that those tasty muffins don’t end up or on our
plate or in our shopping cart.
Ensure that the long-term goals are as certain
as possible. As we know, the more uncertain
our long-term goals are, the more likely we will
be to discount the risk of giving in to our impulses. And this effect is exaggerated when we
depend highly on that long-term goal. For this
reason, whatever long-term goals we choose, we
should be certain we can get achieve them.
Incorporate mastery. We know that in order
to continue doing something, we have to have
an interest in it. And interest is highly linked
to mastery. To incorporate mastery then, we
should focus on learning goals, such as being
able to shoot a free throw shot in proper form,
learning the correct biomechanics of running,
or learning how to ride a horse.
Avoid performance goals. Performance goals,
as we know, are linked to higher performance,
but not to continued involvement. If we want
to change behavior and cultivate continuous
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involvement, we should make every effort to
avoid performance goals.
Minimize hot states. We know that when in a
hot state we are more prone to making an error
in judgment and impulsive decisions. Minimizing hot states, or at the very least separating them
from the self-control decisions we need to make,
might not just help us steer clear of some nasty
fights with our spouse, but might also ensure
that our waistlines don’t pay the price for them.
Develop strategies to combat procrastination. Because chronic procrastination weakens
executive function and lowers mood, we should
make every effort to minimize it. We can do
this through having preset commitments. For
instance, giving $1000 to our neighbor to keep
unless we follow through on our required tasks
(thereby avoiding procrastination) will quite
likely spur our motivation that bit more—and
keep that $1,000 dollars in our pocket! On the
other hand, we can also limit our exposure to
more pleasurable (and deceptively distracting)
options. Disconnecting, moving, or giving away
the television, not surprisingly, might just help
us get our work done, instead of watching the
latest sitcoms.
Find ways to replenish self-control. Self-control, as we know, is a limited resource, and the
more we use it without replenishing it, the less
of it we will have. In order to replenish self-control then, we have to allow ourselves areas of
our lives where we can make free choices. For
example, if we have spent all day restricting our
impulse to go on Facebook, yet we’d like to be
able to convince ourselves to go to the gym after
work, by first giving ourselves one-half hour to
do whatever we’d like, such as calling a friend,
going on a walk, or taking a nap, we’d then be
much more likely to make it to the gym.
Minimize contact with self-control drains.
Self-control is influenced by several factors, but
one of the most insidious ways self-control can
be derailed is through hanging out with the
wrong people. When we see those around us
giving in to impulses, suddenly we find a host
of reasons why we should also. Not only do we
not want to miss out on what we see someone
else getting (it’s never fun to watch someone
enjoy a delicious brownie right in front of you),
but those justifications become that much
easier (it’s always much easier to find reasons
to do something that someone else is already
doing). So one of the best things we can do for
our self-control is to protect it from things (and
people) that drain it. When you notice who
around you doesn’t exhibit the level of self-control you desire and then you minimize your
contact with them, you will find that suddenly
the power to control your impulses becomes
that much easier.
PowerPoint: Three Exercises to
Connect Your Present Actions
with Future Outcomes
Do a Behavior Ranking List
People have a variety of behaviors they may
perform throughout the day, some automatically, and some more planned, and yet, seldom do
we think about the ways in which these behaviors affect our desired goals. One way to become
more aware of the effect your behaviors have on
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your long-term goals is to do a behavior ranking list. To do this, list all of the behaviors you
have during the day (to the best of your ability), and then rank each behavior from 1–10 in
terms of relative impact on your long-term goal,
with 1 being the lowest impact and 10 being
the highest. For example, you might list eating
breakfast with an impact number of 5, going to
work with an impact number of 7, and watching
television after work with an impact number of
2. By drawing your awareness to each behavior,
and the impact it has on your long-term goals,
you give yourself an effective way to connect
your present actions with future outcomes.
booster. First, identify one small change that
would involve exerting some self-control on
a daily basis. For example, you may choose
to walk every day for ten minutes, or to only
drink two cups of coffee per day. Whatever
you choose is up to you, but the action should
be fairly small so as to ensure you can achieve
it. Next, make a commitment to uphold this
choice for one week, each day rating the effort
it took (from 1–10) to uphold the choice. At the
end of the week, you should have a full week’s
of ratings, and most likely will be able to see
that the more self-control is practiced, the easier
it becomes.
Make a List of Outcomes
Section One: That Sneaky
Implicit Bias and How To Fix It
Like doing a behavior ranking list, making a
list of outcomes draws our awareness to the
impact our behaviors can have on future outcomes. By first listing all of the things you do
during the day, and then connecting a longterm outcome with each one, you can become
much more aware of your daily choices. For
example, you might list watching television as a
daily behavior, for which the long-term outcome is inactivity, and perhaps low mood (due
to isolation). Conversely, you might list walking
every morning, which has a long-term outcome
of increased longevity. Thinking about your
behavior in this way is a very powerful way
to increase your awareness and connection to
future outcomes.
Do a Self-Control Booster
Self-control is like a muscle, and it’s a muscle
that gets stronger with exercise and use. To
help build your self-control, do a self-control
Transformation Specialist
When William J. Bratton became head of the
New York City Transit Police in 1990, one question he might have asking himself is one that
we all have probably asked ourselves on many
occasions: How do I change behavior? The problem in New York City, they said, was it was “too
big, too diverse, too unruly, and too broken to
fix.” Bratton, however, had a different idea.
Bratton had been inspired by a man named
Phillip Zimbardo, a Stanford psychologist, who
began his early work studying just how much
people were affected by their environments. Curious as to how the culture of a community could
relate to crime levels, Zimbardo arranged for an
automobile with no license plates and an open
hood to be parked idle in a Bronx neighborhood.
Then, he arranged for a second car in exactly
the same condition to be set up in Palo Alto,
California. Within minutes of leaving the car in
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the Bronx, it had been vandalized. And within
twenty-four hours, everything of value had been
taken off the car. In the days that followed, the
windows were smashed in, the upholstery was
torn, and children started using the car as a playground. The car abandoned in Palo Alto, on the
other hand, sat untouched for more than a week.
It wasn’t until Zimbardo himself smashed in the
vehicle with a sledgehammer that others joined
in. However in Palo Alto, the “vandals” were
not the thugs, gang members, and criminals
seen in the Bronx: in Palo Alto, the vandals were
well dressed, clean-cut, suit-wearing, seemingly
respectable individuals.
The phenomenon that Zimbardo uncovered is
now known as the “broken windows” theory.
The theory explains that in a neighborhood
like the Bronx, where there is a more prevalent
history of abandoned property and theft, and
where the community itself adopts an apathetic
attitude toward crime, events like vandalism
happen much more quickly. Zimbardo went on
to say that in any civilized community where
apathy takes over—and where the sense of civility and concern for others is absent—similar
events can occur.
To prevent vandalism, and to change behavior,
the argument goes, we have to address problems when they are small. We must fix broken
windows immediately, before we have a neighborhood full of them. We must clean up the
litter on the sidewalk before it lines the entire
street. Catching problems before they escalate in this way creates a culture of respectable
behavior, and leads to a much more appealing
neighborhood and one that is much less likely
to send respectable people heading for the hills.
Zimbardo further argued that the landscape
of an environment “communicates” to people.
A broken window transmits to criminals the
message that the community displays a lack of
informal social control, and therefore is unable
or unwilling to defend itself against criminal
invasion. At its core, a broken window is a symbol that a community doesn’t care about how
it is portrayed. And, not surprisingly, broken
windows lead to citizens who don’t care either.
Demonstrating just how powerful this effect
is, Zimbardo went on to conduct what is now
widely recognized as one of the most prolific
studies on human behavior: the famous 1971
Stanford Prison Experiment.
What we can learn from Zimbardo’s work is
that the environment that surrounds us highly
influences our behavior—often in ways that are
both unforeseen and beyond our control. Broken windows change the way people see their
community, and over time, a sense of regard for
community, others, and civility erodes. Criminal behavior escalates as more people turn a
blind eye, and eventually vandalism simply
becomes the norm. And like broken windows,
the small actions we take—often that occur
without our conscious awareness—change the
way we see ourselves. When we begin to accept
that we eat ice cream after dinner, don’t go to
the gym as regularly as we’d like, and don’t exert self-control in the face of that delicious plate
of cookies—all behaviors that derail us from
reaching our goals—we also don’t see ourselves
as the type of people who stroll on the beach
sporting sleek, tanned bodies.
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Broken windows, abandoned cars, and dirty
streets do to a community what our biases do
to us: they act under our cognitive radar. The
reason we don’t act to overcome them, however, might have something to do with how
difficult the decision is.
Complex Decisions, Clinging to the
Status Quo, and Doing Nothing
We already know that the more uncertain our
goals are, the more we are likely to discount
the risks of giving in to the impulses that may
derail them. But when the decision to take
action toward our goals is a difficult one, we
might not make it at all.
A recent study used functional MRI (fMRI)
to examine the brains of study participants
while they acted as tennis referees, deciding
whether or not the ball was “in” or “out.” In
the experiment, participants were asked to
look at a cross between two tramlines while
holding down a “default” key. With each trial,
the computer signaled what was the current
default option: in or out. As the ball landed in
the court, participants had to continue to hold
down the default key to accept the current
default option, or release the key to change the
decision and to reject the default.
Whether or not the default was “in” or “out”,
participants showed a consistent bias toward
the default, which, not surprisingly, led to a
host of errors. And as the task became more
difficult, the participants choose the default
option with even greater frequency. Further, the
more difficult the task, the greater the activity
in the prefrontal cortex, which is associated
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with inhibiting impulses (Fleming, 2010). As
the study report first author Stephen Fleming of
the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging
at UCL explained, “When faced with a complex
decision, people tend to accept the status quo,
hence the old saying ‘When in doubt, do nothing’” (Fleming, 2010).
For Dan Ariely, who we met in section one, this
makes perfect sense. In studying the tendency
for people to become organ donors (arguably a
complex decision), Ariely found that in countries where becoming an organ donor was the
default option, people were as much as six times
more likely to donate. In fact, choosing not to
donate dropped to less than ten percent, from a
previous seventy-five percent in countries where
the default was changed from not being a donor
to being a donor (Ariely, 2009).
What studies like this tell us is that the more
complex our decisions are, the more we would
rather not make them. Whether the decision is to
stop smoking, lose weight, get a divorce, or start
exercising (all arguably complex decisions) our
tendency is to stick to the status quo, and to opt
for the default of doing nothing. For anyone who
has ever tried to lose weight, this probably sounds
like a familiar story: the more you look into the
best way to lose weight, the more alternatives you
can find (at this writing, a web search for ‘how to
lose weight’ resulted in 679 results) until you reach
information overload, and then you simply put off
that resolution for another year.
But the problem is, when it comes to weight
loss, the decision to lose weight doesn’t just
happen once, it happens every time we see the
plateful of piping hot cookies, someone offers
us M&Ms, and when we are deciding what to
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eat for dinner. And these daily decisions are
not immune from our biases either—especially
about just how big those portions should be.
The Right Size is the One We Offer:
What Our Biases Can Tell Us About
How Much We Are Going to Eat
Whether we are cutting carbs, eliminating sugar, or lowering fat, when we try to lose weight,
for most of us, the focus is on calories, and the
content of those calories. But what we often fail
to consider is that when making those choices
about just what and how much to eat, we are
also affected by our thinking about just how big
that portion should be.
In one study, researchers from the University of
Pennsylvania Psychology department designed
a series of experiments to observe how people
choose to act in the presence of unlimited free
food in public or private settings. Unsuspecting participants were presented with differing
portions of M&Ms candies, Tootsie Rolls, and
Philadelphia-style soft pretzels. For example,
in one part of the study, people were offered a
whole pretzel, and in another part of the study,
only a half a pretzel. On another day, a large
mixing bowl of M&Ms was placed at the front
desk of the concierge of an apartment building
with a sign that read “Eat Your Fill,” and “Please
use the spoon to serve yourself.”
Even though participants were unaware that
they were being observed, in every situation
participants took just one serving. In the pretzel
experiment, for example, people would take and
eat an entire pretzel, yet when only half a pretzel was offered, they would happily eat just half.
When the M&Ms were offered, participants
took only one spoon—regardless of the size of
spoon. If presented with a small spoon, people
would take a single scoop, even though the sign
encouraged them to take more. When given a
much larger spoon, the subjects would still take
just a single scoop, even though that one scoop
contained much more candy. In all cases, what
determined how much people ate was not how
large they thought that portion should be (or
the apparent caloric content) but rather, simply
how much was offered (Geier & Rozin, 2005).
In a similar study, researchers offered two
groups of participants a bowl of soup; however,
for one group, the bowl was connected to a tube
under the table that caused the bowl to continue
to refill, regardless of how much people ate. The
other group was given the same type of soup,
only in a bowl that didn’t refill. Amazingly, the
group with the refillable bowl ate a whopping
seventy-three percent more soup than the group
whose bowl didn’t refill. This effect was also independent of the participants’ BMI. What was
even more shocking, however, was that they
failed to notice. In fact, the participants eating
more soup did not believe they had consumed
more, nor did they perceive themselves as being
more sated than those eating from normal
bowls (Wansink et al, 2005).
And while it may be no surprise to most of us
that the portion sizes in America have grown
astronomically (what was considered a large bag
of fries a mere ten years ago is now considered
medium), we may not notice just how affected
we are by these escalating sizes. Are we truly
blind to how much we consume? For Andrew B.
Geier, who led the University of Pennsylvania
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studies, the answer is that we have a “culturally
enforced consumption norm” that promotes the
idea that the amount we are served is the proper
amount to eat (Geier, 2005).
Geier goes on to say that we all have “unit biases” that affect every type of consumption—from
how much food we eat, to how many times we
should ride a rollercoaster. Just how we overcome these biases, as you will see in the next
section, might have something to do with how
our brains are wired.
It’s Us vs. Our Biases
What broken windows, complex decisions, and
refillable soup bowls can tell us is that, when it
comes to changing behavior, the pull of our biases is stronger than we imagine. And whether
engaging in criminal behavior, avoiding making a decision, or mindlessly consuming what
is served to us, we are primed to maintain the
status quo. Like a gravitational pull, our homeostatic desires often keep us doing the same
thing—even when the results are not desirable.
However, that of course depends on how you
define desirable. Many things—like eating
chocolate cake, driving fast, and impulse buying—are enjoyable in the short term. And they
come with rewards, which means they raise dopamine levels, and as you will remember, they
thus become all the more addictive, especially
for those already low in dopamine.
So as you can see we are hardwired to act to
gain rewards. The problem is, sometimes we
must restrain ourselves to gain a reward. In trying to uncover just what helps us recognize the
conflict between a rational course of action and
Transformation Specialist
that irresistible impulse, researchers recruited
participants to play a custom-designed computer game while wearing EEG scalp monitors.
In the game, there were four scenarios: the
instinctual scenarios of clicking for a monetary
reward and not clicking to avoid a penalty, and
the trickier scenarios of clicking to avoid a penalty and not clicking to gain a reward. Participants had to then learn how to respond when
presented with one of four distinct symbols,
each corresponding to a different scenario.
Not surprisingly, participants easily learned
which symbol to click for a reward and which
not to click to avoid a penalty, but when trying
to learn to restrain themselves to gain a reward,
it was a different story. Very few people managed to learn to restrain themselves to gain a
reward, and the ones who did had dramatically
different brain activity. What predicted participants’ ability to repress their Pavlovian biases
was the presence of theta brain waves when the
symbol that corresponded to restraint flashed
across the screen—and this effect held up not
only when comparing individual subjects, but
also when comparing the subjects to themselves
at different times (e.g., some subjects’ abilities
wavered from task to task and the theta waves
varied right along with this) (Frank et al., 2013).
What are theta brain waves you might probably
ask? Theta brain waves are those brain waves
most frequently associated with meditation,
relaxation, spiritual connection, and creativity. Many have also suggested that theta brain
waves occur when we come into contact with
our subconscious mind. And if we consider that
biases often act under our conscious radar, and
without detection, this makes perfect sense.
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Overcoming them then, requires slowing our
brains down and becoming conscious about
what we are doing. And as it turns out, acting
against our habituated behaviors, might come
with another benefit for our brain.
Looking to understand just what happens when
our decision-making processes malfunction, a
team of researchers led by the Department of
Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge compared about 150 individuals with various disorders, including methamphetamine dependence,
obesity with binge eating, and obsessive compulsive disorder, to healthy volunteers of the
same age and gender. Participants were asked to
make choices that either reflected their habituated compulsive behaviors or choices aimed at
receiving a reward. Then, the researchers compared the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
brain scans of the healthy individuals with MRI
scans from a subset of obese individuals with or
without binge eating disorder (which is defined
as a subtype of obesity in which the person
binge eats large amounts of food rapidly).
The results they found shouldn’t surprise us. All
of the disorders were connected by a shift away
from goal-directed behaviors toward automatic
habitual choices. But what was most surprising
was that the MRI scans of the obese subjects
with binge eating disorder had lower gray matter volumes in the orbitofrontal cortex and striatum of the brain—two areas associated with
keeping track of goals and rewards—compared
to those who do not binge eat. Even in healthy
volunteers, the lower gray matter volumes were
associated with a shift toward more habitual
choices (Voon et al., 2014).
study, explains, “Seemingly diverse choices—
drug taking, eating quickly despite weight gain,
and compulsive cleaning or checking—have
an underlying common thread: rather than a
person making a choice based on what they
think will happen, their choice is automatic or
habitual” (Voon, 2014).
The takeaway from this is that overcoming
our ingrained behaviors—especially those that
come with temporary rewards—is a function
not only of slowing down and becoming more
conscious of our choices (thereby activating
theta brain waves), but also making those
choices on a consistent basis (thereby building
our prefrontal cortex).
Here are the important points to take away:
1.
The more complex our decisions, the more
we cling to the status quo and opt for the
default of doing nothing.
2.
We have a bias toward what we are served,
such that we tend to eat the portions that are
served, regardless of their size.
3.
Overcoming automatic habituated behavior—also known as biases—requires slowing
our brains down and becoming conscious
about what we are doing.
Just as NYC police chief Bratton used a “zero-tolerance” policy to target the behavior of
criminals while they were still “green”, changing our behavior starts at the ground level, i.e.,
by changing small behaviors and creating a
landscape of small effective changes. And like
Bratton’s zero-tolerance policy, we too, must
attach consequences to our actions.
Let’s look at a few ways we can do this:
Dr. Valerie Voon, principal investigator of the
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Use preset commitments. Preset commitment
are those we make before we attempt to make
a decision. For example, if we want to not eat
ice cream after dinner, we can make a commitment—attaching whatever consequential
outcome we like—before we arrive home. Preset
commitments help us organize and devote
cognitive control to help us avoid impulses and
unconscious motivations because, instead of
thinking about how much we’d like to eat ice
cream, skip the gym, or indulge in a steak dinner, we think about our commitment, and how
bad we will feel if we don’t keep our word. And
thinking about how to keep our commitments
(and why we should) before we make them, not
surprisingly dramatically improves our chances
of actually keeping them.
Use behavior contracts. Behavior contracts,
like preset commitments, are things we can design to improve future behaviors. These can be
made with ourselves—where we carry out the
consequences—or with another person chosen
to implement the consequences. And like any
other contract, behavior contracts specify the
actions to be taken, a time limit, and the consequences of failure to complete the specified
requirements. Like preset commitments, behavior contracts improve our conscious control,
especially when they are made with someone
else. Much like the act of signing a contract
makes us much more likely to follow through
on the terms of the contract, writing down
our intended behavior and the consequences
of not keeping our word, makes us a whole lot
less likely to find ourselves rationalizing our
way around that chocolate cake that we’ve been
craving. And this effect is even stronger when
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it’s not simply ourselves we are rationalizing
our behavior to.
Attach consequences to actions. Attaching
consequences to actions makes the cognitive
processing of those actions before, and in the
moment, much more central. From the moment we set consequences, we begin thinking
about them, and about ways to avoid them. For
example, let’s say that we want to run the entire
ten mile training run we have scheduled and
not walk any portion of it, so we give our friend
$1000 to keep in hand for us in case we walk
any part of the run. From the time we give our
friend the $1000, we will naturally begin thinking about ways to run the whole distance to
avoid losing our $1000. Stiff consequences like
this powerfully allocate our cognitive resources toward decisions that benefit us in the long
run—and in the process serve to override the
sneaky impulses that might derail us.
Use self-monitoring and self-appraisal.
Self-monitoring and self-appraisal are very
effective ways to raise our conscious awareness
of our actions. As we know from the discussion on unconscious actions, we don’t have to
understand them in order to override them. By
creating an assessment device, such as a short
questionnaire assessing our progress or predesigned questions used to detect slips in our
progress, we can become much more aware of
what we are doing as well as the outcome of our
actions. Not only does this reduces our tendency to fall prey to unconscious impulses, but it
will make us a lot more likely to catch ourselves
headed for the slippery slope of rationalizing
those impulses.
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Use short-term achievement goals. As we
already know, mastery goals increase interest in
a desired behavior. Unconscious drives, on the
other hand, often derail progress. But by using
short-term—as often as daily if needed—achievement goals, we can direct our cognitive attention
toward our desired behaviors. Achievement goals
also tend to be progressive in nature, meaning
that once we achieve one goal, we will be more
motivated to achieve the next one. Much in the
same way that losing a few pounds makes us
much more motivated to continue eating healthy
and exercising, achieving a goal, such as eliminating sodas (or reducing them), will make us
a whole lot more motivated to order that salad
at dinner that we intended to order and thus to
follow through with our intention.
PowerPoint: Three Ways to Make
Your Choices More Conscious
Begin With Why
Because our biases are typically below the level of
our awareness, they act upon us automatically. In
order to make your choices more conscious then,
the first step is to draw your attention to the
reasons you are doing the things you do. To do
this, make a list of all of the habits and behaviors
you show during a day. Next, list a predominant
reason for each behavior. For example, you may
say that you go to Starbucks every day because it
gives you something to look forward to, or that
you get up early because you feels more productive. By teaching yourself to become more aware
of the underlying reasons behind your behaviors
(and perhaps begin to question why you do the
things you do), you will help yourself begin to
become more conscious of your choices, and the
ways they affect you.
Ask What Is Desired
Biases, like unconscious behaviors, always serve
a need, although the need (or desire) usually lies
under the surface of conscious awareness. You
can become more aware of the needs that may
be creating your biases by identifying what you
may actually desire through your actions. To do
this, first make a list of the things you desire,
listing all those actions that are most important
to you to those that have less importance. Next,
write down all of the behaviors that correspond
to each desired outcome. For example, you may
list losing weight as a primary goal, with the
corresponding behaviors of walking every day
and eating vegetables every night. Similarly,
you may list getting a promotion at work as a
primary goal, with the corresponding behaviors
of getting in to the office early every day and
working on the weekends. Connecting your
desires to your behavior in this way not only
helps you identify any disconnect between your
desires and behavior, but also allows you to become much more conscious of your behavior.
Use Pros and Cons Lists
Making impulsive decisions often involves very
little conscious effort (as you know, those with
a low WMC will often act impulsively, precisely for this reason); however, the quality of the
decision usually suffers. You can help avoid
impulsive tendencies and make better informed
decisions, by using a list of the pros and cons
to guide your decisions. Just like they sound,
pros and cons lists involve writing down all the
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benefits and drawbacks associated with an intended decision and
then weighing them up carefully before making the decision. Using
pros and cons lists is not only a way to slow down the decision-making process, but also to becoming much more mindful of it.
Section Two: The Ten Percent Rule: Making
Incentives Work for You
Crossing the street to avoid a dangerous looking man, hiring a
better looking employee, voting for a political candidate that is
similar to you, and eating the serving size we are offered are all
examples of the way our biases can strongly, and often inconspicuously, influence our behavior. Yet biases aren’t the only thing that
act upon us.
Why the Loss Hurts More Than the Gain: What
Loss Aversion Can Tell Us About Incentives
It’s hard to imagine a world—or even a person—without incentives.
Incentives, in their most literal form, represent our desires. If we
have a desire to be financially wealthy, for example, anything that
promises a monetary payout is going to motivate us. Or we may
have a personal desire to be significant, and then will go through life
looking for ways to garner the admiration of those around us. Or,
we may have moral desires, such as the desire to always treat others
fairly, act with kindness, and uphold certain values, and when we
do these things, we receive the attention and praise of others, as well
as a good feeling about ourselves. Incentives come in many forms
and act like small nudges, pushing us in the direction of our desires.
And while we typically consider incentives in their most positive
form—think of offering someone a pay raise for carrying out exceptional work, or perhaps the more familiar steak dinner you might
treat yourself to after you’ve lost a few pounds—they are actually
much more powerful when we are afraid to lose them.
Loss Aversion: fear of losing
what you already have.
Transformation Specialist
Not wanting to lose what we already have—what economists call loss
aversion—it turns out, is a much more powerful motivator than being
offered something we don’t have. The theory of loss aversion explains
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that, on a psychological level, losses are twice as
powerful as gains (Kahneman & Tversky, 1992).
For anyone who has ever gone shopping, bought
something new, or sunk their teeth into a juicy
burger after a hard day, this makes no sense,
because what most of us do after losses is use rewards to mitigate them. The problem is the high
we get from our indulgences is short lived and
doesn’t really take away the sting of our losses.
Yet to economists this makes perfect sense. The
idea is that once we already own something, we
incorporate it into our perception of the status
quo, and its value increases. And this value—
what is known as the endowment effect—significantly affects the way we feel about the
things we consider ours (Kahneman, Knetch &
Thaler, 1990). For anyone who has ever taken a
major economic fall this should sound familiar:
If you hadn’t experienced living in a mansion
with around-the-clock maid and a garage full
of classic cars, you wouldn’t know what you
are missing, but once these things become part
of who you are—and what you are endowed
with—then living without them becomes more
painful than if you had never experienced owning them in the first place.
And not only is the loss of what we already have
more powerful than the gain of what we could
have, loss aversion, it turns out, strongly influences our behavior.
In trying to see just how strong this effect is
Derek Neal, a professor of economics at the
University of Chicago, and Gadi Barlevy, an
economist with the Federal Reserve Bank
of Chicago, devised the “pay for percentile”
method of measuring teacher performance by
comparing individual students with similar
backgrounds and achievements to see what
impact a teacher had on their learning.
Selecting a local community comprised of nine
kindergarten to eighth-grade schools with a
total enrollment of 3,200 students and achievement rates below state average, researchers
first introduced teachers to the experiment
at the beginning of the school year, and then
offered them an opportunity to participate.
A large number of the teachers (a total of 150
out of the 160 available) agreed to join in the
study, and were then randomly assigned to one
of four groups: a control group, a group given
a bonus at the beginning of the school year, a
group that could receive the bonus at the end
of the school year, and a group made up of
teachers who worked in teams.
Among the groups receiving a bonus, one was
given a $4,000 bonus at the beginning of the
school year and told it would be reduced by an
amount reflecting their students’ performance,
whereby the more the students’ standardized
scores increased, the more of the bonus the
teacher could keep. The other group was told
they would receive a $4,000 bonus if their students improved their scores during the year.
So just how much did the students’ scores
improve? Well proponents of merit pay will
be shaking their heads on hearing the results,
because when the bonus for improved student
standardized test scores was offered at the end
of the school year, the student performance
gains were, well, absolutely nothing. But what
happened when that same bonus was given to
teachers up front, but told it could be lost if the
student scores didn’t improve? Now, shockingly,
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those same students’ (keep in mind that all of
the students in this study came from the same
underperforming community) scores rose by 10
percent (Friar et al., 2012). The only difference
was the way the bonus was structured, i.e., as
something that could be gained vs. something
that was already given but could be taken away.
“The results,” according to Steven Levitt, the
Homer J. Livingston Professor in Economics at
the University of Chicago, “are consistent with
over 30 years of psychological and economic
research on the power of loss aversion to motivate behavior” (Levitt, 2012). What these results
should tell us is that when motivation is framed
as a gain (or reward), it pales in comparison to
the motivation that comes from the desire to
avoid painful losses.
So if loss aversion is such a powerful motivator,
perhaps the question we should be asking is:
Does it work for weight loss?
An interesting study asked just this question.
Recruiting 57 participants, researchers from
the University of Pennsylvania School of
Medicine randomly assigned them to one of
three groups: a lottery-based group, in which
the participants played a lottery and received
the earnings if they achieved or lost more than
the target weight; a deposit contract condition, in which the participants invested their
own money, which they lost if they failed to
achieve their weight goals; and a group on a
weight-monitoring program involving monthly weigh-ins and no incentive plan. All the
participants were then given the same weight
loss target: 16 pounds in 16 weeks.
It was found that after 16 weeks, the group that
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had lost the most amount of weight was the
group, not surprisingly, with the most to lose
(monetarily speaking). That is to say, the participants who were asked to invest their own
money, also seemed to invest a whole lot more
effort in their weight loss and walked away an
average of 14 pounds lighter. The control group,
on the other hand, only lost an average of 3.9
pounds (Volpp et al., 2008).
In discussing the results, the study authors
suggested that obesity could be viewed through
a different lens, namely one that takes into
account the many ways we fuel our own self-destructive behavior. To combat our tendencies to
overvalue instant gratification, and undervalue
delayed gratification, they say, we need “new
strategies” to combat obesity. And these new
strategies might just mean tweaking the way we
use incentives; whereby, instead of focusing on
that shopping spree, trip to the movies, or fudge
Sunday that we reward ourselves with after losing a few pounds, perhaps we should be put our
own money on the line, and allow the power of
loss aversion to motivate us.
If losses and gains are not considered equally
weighted motivators—where the fear of loss
is more powerful than the joy of gain—then
perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised if what we
focus on when trying to change our behavior,
such as thinking about walking in the morning
or saying no to that delicious glazed donut, also
doesn’t carry the same motivational value.
Don’t Start, Stop: Why Inhibiting
Impulses Matters
Remember from earlier in this section that
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we discussed how focusing on taking action is
counterproductive to motivating healthy behavior, and that using action words actually make
us more likely to select immediate rewards, all
the while weakening our impulse control? Well,
it turns out that the incentives we attach to
those actions—whether we are focusing on taking action or inhibiting action—also matters.
In 35 experimental sessions performed at the
London School of Economics, (LSE), researchers tested 353 people in a variety of situations
to determine just which incentives have a
lasting effect on promoting healthy behavior.
In one experiment, for example, participants
were invited to watch a series of videos while
eating as many jelly beans as they liked. Halfway through the videos, however, researchers
introduced two forms of paid incentives: one
that encouraged participants to eat the sweets
and one that encouraged them not to eat the
sweets. In keeping with the comparison, a third
group watched the videos without any incentive
at all. The researchers then repeated the experiment two days later, only this time none of the
participants received incentives.
The question they were asking is which paid incentive—that to eat the jelly beans or not to eat
them—would have a lasting effect? The answer
was something that, at this point, we can probably guess. Although both groups were offered
the same monetary incentive—the equivalent of
just over $4—the group that was encouraged to
not take action ate significantly less jelly beans
in the trial two days later where no monetary
incentive was offered (Dolan et al., 2015).
And the reason has to do with how we interpret
the incentives. Encouraging someone to take
action—such as to eat the jelly beans—is generally perceived as a positive message. On the other
hand, encouraging someone to stop taking action (or to avoid doing something)—like to avoid
eating the jelly beans—is perceived as a negative
message. And when comparing the two, it’s the
negative messages that tend to have a lasting value, that is, they sink in more and last longer.
In the words of Matteo M Galizzi, an ESRC
Future Research Leader Fellow and assistant
professor of Behavioural Science at LSE, and one
of the authors of the study: “Our findings are
consistent with the idea that people find negative messages easier to retain than positive ones.
Even though we only paid participants not to eat
the jelly beans for five minutes, we seem to have
primed them with the notion that not eating
sweets is something good and this effect was still
in play several days later” (Galizzi, 2015).
The problem, however, is that when it comes
to weight loss, incentivizing ourselves toward
taking action is exactly what most of us do. In
fact, most gym programs encourage “getting a
fresh start,” “springing into action,” and “getting
a jump on summer”: all phrases that may allure
us in the short term, but are not likely to lead to
lasting results. But that is only part of the problem. Most people also make commitments to
weight loss: we tell ourselves we will lose twenty
pounds before that summer vacation, we plan to
start walking every morning, we join a gym, and
we tell our friend that we will meet them there.
But as it turns out, the type of commitment we
make makes all the difference in the world.
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Soft Commitments, Fuzzy Goals, and Poor
Outcomes
So if the fear of losses is a more powerful motivator than the excitement of gains and if motivating ourselves toward action is less effective than encouraging ourselves to stop doing something, then, at
this point, you wouldn’t be alone if you were wondering just which
strategy works best when we want to lose weight. Well, that’s not
so easy to say. Weight loss experts, health practitioners, life coaches, and even motivational gurus are still trying to crack the weight
loss code. And what they most frequently tell us is that in order to
lose weight, we have to become accountable. We should make our
goals clear, measurable, timely, and public—with an emphasis on
the public part. Because when we put ourselves on the line, exposing
our intentions in the public eye, the shame of failing can further fan
the flame of weight loss and help overcome any resistance we have.
Some experts even suggest taking public accountability a step further and joining a weight loss group where we choose a sponsor, i.e.,
someone who will personally hold us accountable.
Soft commitments:
commitments that rely
on social, moral, and
psychological influence.
Transformation Specialist
And while the social incentive of not wanting to look bad in front
of our friends and family—or of letting ourselves down—is generally a pretty good motivator, it is also what economists call a “soft
commitment.” Soft commitments are those that do not have direct
penalties, but instead use social, psychological, and financial incentives to shape behavior. If you have ever bribed your kids to do their
homework with a trip to McDonalds, you have used a soft commitment. Similarly, if you have ever told a friend you are going to run
a marathon, or made a promise to your spouse that this time you
won’t be late, or told your boss that you would finish that report on
time, you have made a soft commitment. In market consumption,
we see soft commitments every day: think discounts for purchasing
an item early, sales with time deadlines, buy one get one free coupons, club discounts, and that friendly brochure about the benefits
of retirement savings the bank teller hands you when open your
account. And if you have ever made an agreement with a friend to
meet at the gym twice a week, you have used a soft commitment
on yourself. The thing about soft commitments is that, in general,
they do nudge our behavior in the direction we would like it to go.
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Wanting to avoid keeping your friend from sweating for hours on
the treadmill while waiting for you at the gym will probably make
you more likely to show up. Or, the embarrassment of having to
tell our friends that even though we did say we were going to run a
marathon, we, just, well, failed, might just get our butts out the door
those early mornings when we really would rather be sleeping.
Yet soft commitments are not the only commitments we can make.
We could, for example, give our friend—the one waiting at the
gym—$1000 to keep if we don’t show up. Or, we could tell our
spouse that if we are late we will take up the glamorous job of mowing the lawn for the rest of the year. These sorts of arrangements are
what economists call “hard commitments.” Unlike soft commitments that rely of psychological, social, and perhaps moral influence
to motivate us, hard commitments simply impose penalties when
we don’t do what we said we would do. Hard commitments are the
reason we don’t speed, steal from the store, or cheat on our taxes—because we’d rather not pay the fine. And hard commitments
do shape behavior. Smokers smoke less when hit with a hefty tax on
cigarettes. People do drive slower in school zones when the price of
a speeding ticket is doubled. And if you have to blow into a breathalyzer to start your car—a very common DUI penalty—you are a lot
less likely to drive drunk.
Hard commitments:
commitments that impose
penalties for failure to
complete a specific behavior,
such as exercising every day.
So the question is: Which commitment works better? Asking just this
question, RAND corporation tested both hard and soft commitments
on participants’ savings behavior, and came to this conclusion:
“Hard commitment accounts may not appeal to impatient individuals, those who do not anticipate their own self-control problems,
or to the poor for whom restrictions on scarce funds can be particularly painful. We test a new ‘soft’ commitment account that asks
borrowers to think about their savings goals, how it would feel to
achieve them, and make a pledge to work toward these goals (potentially increasing one’s intrinsic motivation), yet has no external
restrictions on savings behavior. In a six-month randomized savings
experiment, we find that such soft commitments can significantly
increase amounts saved on day one relative to either a hard commitment account (with external restrictions on withdrawals) or a
traditional savings account. Additionally, the soft commitments
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significantly increased final savings balances
relative to no form of commitment and were
particularly effective for impatient individuals.
However, despite the inherent illiquidity, the
hard commitment account proved most effective in building savings balances among our
participants at the end of six months” (Burke et
al., 2014).
Hard commitments may not appeal to those
who don’t anticipate their own self-control
problems. If there is anything we should
know about weight loss, it is that it is precisely a problem that catches our self-control off
guard. We simply don’t anticipate that the
juicy burger will be that much harder to resist
when it is right in front of us, or that going for
a run will not feel as good when we are doing
it as when we are thinking about it beforehand, or that the minute we start to doubt our
ability to reach our weight loss goal, we’ll convince ourselves that a bowl of ice cream after
dinner won’t really matter much. And because
we don’t anticipate the way our self-control
will be affected, we probably also don’t anticipate just how much self-control we need—or
the type of commitment that motivates it.
An article titled “Put Your Money Where Your
Butt Is” found similar conclusions. Smokers were
offered the incentive to open a savings account
with the express purpose of giving themselves
an incentive to quit smoking. Six months after
opening the account, smokers were required to
take a urine test for tobacco. If the test showed
positive for tobacco—indicating that they had
been unable to quit—smokers lost the balance
in their savings account. While the contract was
taken up by only 11 percent of the participants to
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which it was offered, those who did participate
had significantly better smoking cessation rates
than the control group, and the results held up
in a twelve-month follow-up (six months after
participants were allowed to withdraw their
money) (Gine et al.). In a 2010 annual review of
commitment devices, which included examination of hard and soft commitments, researchers
concluded, “We suggest that a hard commitment
would decrease enrollment, but increase retention” (Bryan, Karlan, & Nelson, 2010).
The takeaway is that what looks easy in weight
loss is not. The easy option is to not to put your
money—or anything else—on the line. And yet
what studies like the one above underscore is
that when it comes to weight loss, we need all
the leverage on ourselves that we can get.
Here are the important points to take away:
1.
Loss aversion, or the fear of losing what you
already have, is a stronger motivator than
rewards, and has shown a strong promise for
weight loss.
2.
Focusing on not taking action, such as inhibiting impulses that negatively affect us, has a
stronger effect of our behavior than focusing
on taking action.
3.
Hard commitments are those that impose
penalties for failing to complete a specific
behavior, such as exercising every day, are
much more effective at changing behavior
than soft commitments, which rely on social,
moral, and psychological influence.
So just how do we get this leverage? Let’s look at
a few ways:
Start with Clear (and Unchangeable Goals).
If the goal keeps changing—e.g., walking
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every day, then five days a week, then twice a
week—not only is it impossible to measure, it’s
impossible to manage. Like trying to impose
a penalty for a speeding limit that is different
every day, when we change our goal—because
it’s well, hard—it’s the same thing as pretending
we didn’t see the speed limit sign and hoping
we can get out of a ticket. If we really want to
change our behavior, we need clear goals—and
the penalties we impose for not achieving them.
Choose a Set Time Frame. Like a changing
goal, a flimsy time frame doesn’t encourage
any sort of accountability: in fact, in many
ways, it discourages it. Why? Because when we
know that we can procrastinate on those goals,
suddenly procrastination looks all the more
attractive. And, as we already know, the more
we procrastinate, the more likely we are to keep
procrastinating. Yet, when we have to get something done by a set time or risk being hit with a
nasty penalty, finding the motivation for it isn’t
so hard. And when we use set time frames to
achieve our goals—such as walking ten miles
before the end of the month, going to the gym
three times every week, or eating no more than
1500 calories a day for six days of the week—
suddenly we harness the same motivation that
keeps us getting those taxes paid on time, picking our kid up before the daycare closes, and
making it to the airport before the plane leaves.
Use Hard Commitments. Hard commitments
may not be as appealing as simply telling your
friend that you will meet them at the gym. But
hard commitments, as we know, are a whole
lot more effective in the long run. And actually,
there are several ways we can use hard commitments every day. We can give our spouse
or significant other $20 to keep if we don’t get
up and exercise in the morning. We can also
place $100 in a safe and give our friend the key
with the instruction to only return it to us if we
make it to the gym every scheduled time for the
entire month. When we use hard commitments
such as these, suddenly, motivation takes on a
different—and much more powerful—form.
Impose Direct Penalties. While the idea of imposing penalties on ourselves for weight loss may
seem strange, we only have to look at the host of
penalties that already regulate our behavior to be
convinced. Unlike trying to convince ourselves
to pass on the steaming plate of cookies, we
seldom negotiate with paying our taxes, speeding, and stealing from the grocery store. And the
reason we don’t is because there are stiff penalties for doing so and these are a very powerful
motivator. So how do we use direct penalties to
motivate weight loss? The trick is to impose the
stiffest penalty we can afford. Why? Because
weight loss requires all the self-control and motivation we can muster. And stiff penalties shift
our cognitive resources from why we should do
the things we know are good for us to how we
are going to get them done, because, like a hefty
speeding ticket, we don’t want to pay the fine.
PowerPoint: Three Ways to Use
Commitments to Motivate Change
Use Something Physically Aversive
Physically aversive states (such as feeling nauseas, cold, hot, too full, or hungry) have a very
robust effect on behavior. By connecting a physically aversive state to an undesirable choice, we
make the desirable one much more likely. Here
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are some examples: drinking a lot of water after
dinner to avoid eating more, using Antabuse to
avoid drinking alcohol, avoiding using the air
conditioner to encourage using the gym (where
there is air conditioning). When you use physically aversive states—particularly when it comes
to changing eating behavior—you harness a
powerful tool to change behavior.
Attach a Financial Cost
Like physically aversive states, financial
costs are a very strong motivator of behavior
change. When the undesirable option comes
with a weighty financial cost, we are much less
likely to choose it. Here are some examples:
giving your friend $1000 to keep if you don’t
go to the gym every day for one week, having
to pay an expensive speeding ticket for driving
too fast, giving your significant other $100 to
keep, and them returning $10 to you every day
you don’t eat ice cream. Financial costs, not
surprisingly, are one of the most powerful, and
yet underused motivators we have: when you
put your money on the line, you will be surprised what happens.
Use Social Motivation
When we make our goals known to those
around us, there is an inherent pressure to
uphold social expectations. Naturally, we don’t
want to have to admit that we didn’t reach our
goals. Here are some examples: telling your
friends that you are going to run a marathon,
informing your family of your decision to lose
weight, making your long-term fitness goals
known to those around you. By using social
motivation in this way, you create a built-in
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persuasive force toward making desirable
choices.
Section Three: Commitments,
Penalties, and Tying Yourself to
the Mast
When most people hear the story of Ulysses
tying himself to the mast so that he wouldn’t be
tempted to come down when he heard the song
of the sirens, or of the legendary Chinese general Han Xin positioning his troops with their
backs to the river so that they would have to
face the oncoming enemy, it doesn’t just catch
their attention, it smacks of something oddly
familiar. The fact is, most of us have probably
done something similar. We have bought a
serving size bag of candy precisely so that we
would only eat one serving. We have bought a
non-refundable gym membership just so that
we would feel incentivized to use it. And we
have probably cleared the house of all the junk
food and bought all the healthy groceries we
could stomach so that we would have nothing
but healthy food to eat.
What Ulysses and Han Xin knew—and what
many of us instinctively guess—is that when
we really need to get something done, the best
way to ensure success is to bind ourselves to the
outcome. This is also what journalist Stephen
J. Dubner and economist Steven Levitt, both
considered experts on the subject, call commitment devices. As they define it, a commitment
device is “a means with which to lock yourself into a course of action that you might not
otherwise choose but that produces a desired
result” (Dubner & Levitt, 2007). What commitment devices give us is a way to set the terms,
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change our own incentives, and ultimately
make ourselves a whole lot more likely to stick
to our word. Instead of promising that this time
we will leave the plate of brownies on the table,
or that we will get up and go running in the
morning, commitment devices give us a little
different leverage. Let’s assume for the moment
that your job depended on you exercising in
the morning, and that if you failed to report
to work every morning proudly displaying
your Polar Heart Rate Monitor’s accounting of
that morning’s calories burned you would lose
your job immediately—no questions asked.
The chances are you would get up and exercise.
In fact, you might not even think twice about
it. Or, let’s say that you had placed $1000 in a
savings account that was linked to your alarm
clock, and every time you hit the snooze button,
you lost $100. I, for one, would be willing to bet
that you wouldn’t hit that snooze button.
In many ways, if you want to find the most extreme examples of commitment strategies and
the penalties that bind them, there is no better
place to look than weight loss. While the idea of
stapling your stomach, bypassing it surgically,
or having an adjustable lap band installed may
seem extreme, it is almost as commonplace
today as a root canal. The reason, of course, is
because we live in a world of temptations—just
as Ulysses knew he would hear the siren song,
Han Xin knew his soldiers would be tempted to
flee, and, at this point, we should know that the
run we say we will take sounds a lot better now
than it will in the morning, or the burger on
the menu will look much more tempting than
we think it will, making the salad we intended
to order that much less desirable, and that ice
cream sundae we will eat, we figure won’t really
hurt us in the long run.
But let’s for the moment also assume that most
of us don’t want to have our stomach stapled,
banded, bypassed, or anything else for that
matter. And yet, some of us have had that
dreaded trip to the doctor where he tells us that
we really need to lose weight. Or maybe he even
hinted at—or outright said—those dreaded
words “heart attack.” The question is: If we are
aware of the penalties, why haven’t we changed
our behavior? The answer, as you will see in the
next section, might have something do to with
how immediate those consequences are.
Everything is Great in the Future
If there is anything we have learned from
studies of addicts, it is that when it comes to
rewards, the one word we should all remember
is immediacy. What we can have now—whether
it be cigarettes, alcohol, chocolate, or money—we want now. And often, we will pay much
more for it (in both monetary value, and the
long-term negative outcomes). But does immediacy matter when applied to penalties? That is,
just like immediate rewards seem to have more
power over us, are immediate penalties also
much stronger than delayed ones?
Perhaps the best way to answer this question
is to look at an offense for which we already
have stiff penalties: drunk driving. However,
although there are always stiff penalties, not
all states agree on just when those penalties
should occur. For example, some states use what
is called immediate license suspension, where
an offender’s license is immediately suspended
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after being caught, while other states use what
is called post-conviction license suspension,
where an offender is allowed to drive until the
time of trial, and the license is only removed
when a conviction is achieved. When examining monthly fatal car crashes from January 1976
through December 2002 across all 46 states
with administrative license suspension (ALS)
laws, researchers found that fatalities decreased
by as much as 150 lives per year in the states
with immediate conviction laws. And this effect
held even when considering for differences
across time and among states, such as, the number of drivers, traffic levels, changing vehicle
mix, auto safety standards, safety belt laws, and
speed limit changes (Wagenaar, 2007). Even
more convincing was that the study only measured the effect on drivers over the age of 21.
For anyone who has ever tried to potty train a
new puppy, this shouldn’t be surprising. If you
punish your cute little bundle of fur hours after finding that wet spot on your carpet, while
he cowers in the corner, he will have no idea
what you are talking about. And if you punish
him days later—when you now have a stain
on your carpet—you might as well be, well,
talking to the wall.
And while your puppy may continue to wet the
carpet because he has no idea that the middle of
the room is not where you want him to go, and
a DUI offender may continue to drive drunk
thinking that there is little chance he will be
caught, we may continue to overeat because it
doesn’t immediately add to our waistline (even
though we often feel like it does). Instead, at
3500 calories to add a pound of fat, most of
us would be lucky (or unlucky) to add even a
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quarter pound a day. So, in many ways, we are
right in figuring that the slice (or slices) of pizza
we want to eat won’t really affect us much—that
is, unless we make a habit out of it. But unfortunately, most of us do.
Let’s just for a moment consider that the penalties associated with speeding tickets worked
the way the penalties associated with overeating
do—that is, they were billed in the year after
they were accrued. For example, if you had five
speeding tickets in 2016, you wouldn’t have to
pay any of those until the same date a year later,
in 2017. Now, do you think you might look at
those tickets a bit differently, perhaps speed a
little more and think a little less about shelling
out a couple hundred dollars every time you
don’t want to be late? My guess is you would.
But let’s say that every time you speed, you
immediately get a flat tire. This time you might
think twice about speeding (especially if it’s
raining). And the reason you would is because
penalties are a lot more potent when they happen immediately.
In the same way that the run we are going to
take always looks better when it is scheduled
for next week, the further out the penalties of
our actions are—such as, the more we can put
off paying that speeding ticket—the more we
discount the impact they will have on us. When
it comes to both benefits and risks, it seems that
the future is deceptively glamorous.
Rationalization Machines,
Slippery Slopes, and Maintaining
Our Image
Maintaining augmented perceptions about the
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future might not be so bad if that were the only
thing we did. But when it comes to the image
we hold of ourselves, especially when we are
trying to make desirable changes, we employ
a decidedly deceptive move: we invoke our
rationalizations. Remember the two selves from
section two? Well the future self—the one who
makes goals, reaches them and gleefully rejoices—is, for all of us, the one we want to see in
the mirror. As Dan Ariely explains in his 2013
video “The Honest Truth About Dishonesty”
(recorded for the James Rand Foundation), “We
want to see ourselves as good, honest, moral
people” (Ariely, 2013). What we don’t want to
see is the devious face of the short-term self—
you know the one who might skip the workout
at the gym, sneak a bowl of ice cream after dinner, and tell a little white lie about just which
reports are done at work.
The truth is, we are both. But in order to be
both and still look ourselves in the mirror, we
have to use a good deal of rationalization. The
workout we missed wasn’t so bad because, after
all, we walked a lot at the office today. The bowl
of ice cream was small, and oh yeah, it was low
fat. And the lie? It wasn’t really a lie. After all,
the report we did get done was due too. Rationalizations like this, according to Dan Ariely,
are exactly how we get ourselves stuck. Because,
as Ariely explains, our bubble of rationalization grows, and eventually a host of excuses,
justifications, altered explanations, maybe even
some false promises fit in there. Where we find
ourselves is not just with a healthy and well-exercised rationalization machine, but with a
growing gap between our future self—where
we’d like to be—and our short-term self—the
one who is busy derailing our progress. In
a sort of downward cycle, the larger the gap
between where (or who) we are and where (or
who) we want to be, the more sophisticated our
rationalizations must be.
But our own disparities aren’t the only thing
that influence our ability to rationalize, skirt
the truth, and end up in the land of lost promises, forgotten goals, and failed resolutions.
Remember that self-control is contagious and
when we hang out with people who don’t exhibit much self-control, suddenly our own self-control becomes a bit suspect? Well self-control
isn’t the only thing that is affected by the people
around us. Self-deception, it turns out, is also
highly contagious.
In an elegant experiment, Dan Ariely recruited
Carnegie Mellon students to complete as many
math problems as they could in an allotted
amount of time while being told that they
would be paid $1 for every correct problem
they solved. In the first part of the experiment,
Ariely arranged to have an actor wearing a
Carnegie Mellon sweatshirt cheat by raising
his hand less than one minute into the test and
state that he had completed all of the problems.
The researcher then told the student to collect
his money and go home. The second part of the
experiment was exactly the same as the first,
only this time the actor was wearing a University of Pittsburg (a known Carnegie Mellon
competitor) sweatshirt.
So what happened? When participants witnessed
their competitor cheating, it had no effect on
them. However, when they witnessed a fellow
student from their same school cheating, suddenly cheating increased (Ariely, 2013). What
this should tell us is that when we see someone
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who is like us cheating, not only does our ability
to rationalize our own cheating increase, but
now we have what Ariely calls, “social proof”
that cheating is acceptable (Ariely, 2013). Our
friends, after all, are good people, and surely
they would not cheat, so it must not really be
cheating—or so we tell ourselves. In an elaborate
scheme, it seems, we don’t just go to great lengths
to maintain our own image, but that image is
highly influenced by what it is exposed to.
Several studies have demonstrated the effect
of what now, itself, has almost a trade name.
Behavioral priming is a technique that exposes
people to stimuli designed to activate meaning (schema, stereotypes, attitudes, etc.) and
influence their performance on a subsequent
task (Tulving, Schacter, & Stark, 1982). For
example, one study primed consumers with
words representing either “prestige” US retail
brands (Tiffany, Neiman Marcus, and Nordstrom) or “thrift” brands (Wal-Mart, Kmart,
and Dollar Store). In an ostensibly unrelated
task, participants primed with prestige names
then gave higher preference ratings to prestige
as opposed to thrift product options (Chartrand, Huber, Shiv, & Tanner, 2008). In another study, priming a potential donor to think
about their moral identity made them more
charitable than they would have otherwise
been (Winterich et al., 2008).
In reality we are primed all of the time. In fact,
it’s hard to think of any media advertisement
that doesn’t promise something—a new car
that will make us feel more prestigious, a new
phone that will make us feel smarter, a burger that will bring a smile to our face (or the
all-important Happy Meal). And what effect
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does all this priming have on us? For the most
part, it’s not the effect we are after. After all,
being told to suck it up, stick to our goals, and
sit on our hands doesn’t sell many ice creams
sundaes, Happy Meals, or gym memberships
for that matter.
But why we may not stick to those goals—even
when they are what we want—might not just
be because we are rationalizing our way out of
them, using our friends’ estimable examples as
evidence, or that we are primed to act against
them, but because, for most of us, that future
self is like a distant cousin—we don’t think too
much about them, can’t remember the last time
we called, and probably don’t even have their
address anymore.
It’s Me, Calling from the Future
Daniel Goldstein, a noted cognitive psychologist, honorary research fellow at the London
Business School, and recognized expert on
judgment and decision-making, describes the
relationship between the future self and the
present self as an “unequal battle” (Goldstein,
2011). And just why that battle is unequal, as
Goldstein explains, is because when making
decisions, it’s simply hard to imagine what
our future self might think—or even how they
might be affected. While smoking right now
might curb some feelings of hunger, soothe our
nerves, and leave us with a little more than a
slight cough, twenty years from now—the part
we might have a hard time picturing—our lungs
(the ones that are getting blacker by the minute)
might be replaced with a hole in our neck and a
flashy new breathing machine. Similarly, when
we enjoy a tasty meal, cocktail after dinner, or
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roll over in bed to hit the snooze button one
more time knowing that we, once again, won’t
quite make it to the gym, the picture we have in
our heads is probably not of us loosening our
belts, pulling out the loosest fitting clothing we
have, and being warned by our doctors that our
blood pressure is well, too high.
Trying to picture just how our future self will
be affected by our actions today, for many of
us, is sort of like trying to picture just how that
$50 we sent to our favorite charity will be spent.
And when we can’t (or choose not to) picture
just how our actions today will affect us tomorrow, we act with, well, the present in mind. And
this affect, as you will remember from section
three, is especially pronounced when that present self is in a hot state.
But if a charity that sends us a progress report
on the shoes, clothing, books, and school lunches our money bought for our favorite foreign
child can cause us to donate more money, the
question we might be asking is: Will being
shown a picture of just what our future self
might look like, or feel like, make us change
how we act today?
Inspired by this question, Daniel Goldstein
came up with a brilliant design. In what he
calls “behavioral time machines,” Goldstein
used a computer program to simulate the
effect of peoples’ actions today several years
down the road. While people could see what
they would look like if they continued to, for
example, overeat, exercise or not exercise,
smoke, or drink, the area that Goldstein was
most interested in—and something we can all
relate to—was our spending habits. Using his
behavioral time machines, Goldstein showed
participants over 100 different outcomes
linked to their spending habits—everything
from living on the beach and driving a BMW
roadster, to living in a small, unassuming
house in the suburbs, and, in the worst case
scenario, living under a bridge while holding
out a cardboard sign and hoping somebody
throws you a quarter. Goldstein then went
even further and used a simulation program to
show the facial expression of both the present
self and the future self on the same computer
screen. When participants moved a slider on
the screen toward saving more, the future self
was shown to smile, while a noticeable grimace came across the face of the present self.
On the other hand, when the slider was moved
toward spending more and saving less, the
present self did the smiling, while the future
self looked pained.
The results of witnessing the worst case scenario and the pain it may cause? Not surprisingly, when participants were shown the future
outcome of their actions, they saved as much
as three times more money (Goldstein, 2011).
By simulating outcome after outcome, people
began to understand just how what they do
today—with their wealth—affects how they will
live tomorrow.
Self-control, Goldstein tells us, is like a muscle,
and that muscle gets stronger when we combine
the forces of the present self with the future self.
Just like we are more likely to model our behavior after those who are like us—either justifying
our cheating, or finding it unacceptable—when
our future self is much less a distant cousin, and
much more like us—and hopefully the us that
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we want to be—we are a whole lot more likely to
think with their concerns and feelings in mind.
Here are the important points to take away:
1.
Penalties imposed immediately are much
stronger than those imposed with a time
delay.
2.
The larger the gap between our ideal self
and real self, the more we employ rationalization to justify our behavior—and the more
we are exposed to others who also do this,
the stronger the effect becomes.
3.
Being exposed to the future consequences of
our actions—in particular, the effect they will
have on the future selves—improves self-control and the ability to act with our best future
interests in mind.
So if we know that closing the gap between what
we do today and the outcome it has tomorrow
helps us overcome our tendency to distort the
future—and our perceptions of ourselves—just
how do we find the means with which to lock
ourselves into a course of action that we might
not otherwise choose but that produces the desired result? As you will see in the next section,
we might just have to tie ourselves to the mast.
Don’t Look Down: Why Penalties
Matter
You can probably guess at this point that penalties come in all shapes and sizes. You have
probably also had some personal experience
with penalties, and are familiar with large
ones, such as stiff fines, imprisonment, and
loss of privileges, as well as small ones, such
as parking tickets, late fees, and early termination fees. It is also not much of a stretch to
conclude that larger penalties are very effective
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motivators of behavior; for instance, the risk
of imprisonment is a very good way to keep
us from breaking the law. But, these larger
penalties, we also know, don’t encourage much
participation. For example, a savings account
that carries an early termination fee of $10,000
would be a very effective way to reduce early
withdrawals, but most people wouldn’t sign
up for it. On the other hand, an early termination fee of $500 might be enough to get us to
sign up, and enough to also effectively deter us
from withdrawing money early.
The thing about penalties is that there has to
be a balance, e.g., between choosing something
that is aversive enough to change our behavior,
while not being so opposing that we won’t sign
up. So how do we design effective penalties?
Let’s look at a few ways.
Penalties should be aversive enough to
provide a strong incentive to perform
desirable behavior.
One way to assess the how aversive a penalty
might be is to rate the proposed penalty in the
following way:
How would you rate… (list the penalty here)?
1.
Neutral
2.
Dislike
3.
Strongly dislike
4.
Very strongly dislike
As we all differ in what may be aversive to us,
the goal of this question is to assess how aversive the penalty feels to us. As we know, penalties that are too aversive, i.e., that we might
rate as “very strongly dislike,” will likely scare
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us off. On the other hand, penalties we rate as
“neutral” would have very little to no effect. But
the penalties that we rate as either “dislike” or
“strongly dislike” might get us signing up—and
makes us keep our word.
Penalties should not so aversive that
they cannot be recovered from.
We have probably all, at some point, felt the
pressure of some external event on our desire to
lose weight— like thinking, “I just have to lose
this weight, I am getting married (or something
else equally important) in six months.” When
we feel like this, not only is losing weight very
important to us, we have a lot riding on it. As
we know, the more we depend on a long-term
goal, the more likely we are to exaggerate the
uncertainty of it. And when a long-term goal
is uncertain, we discount the risks associated
with giving in to impulses. What this has to
do with penalties is that when penalties are so
severe—like telling ourselves that we have to
lose weight—our dependence on reaching those
goals increases, which throws our certainty
into a downward spiral, and makes giving in
to impulses all the more likely. The takeaway is
that when we hinge everything on weight loss—
like trying to fit into that wedding dress in six
weeks—uncertainty increases and our chances
of success decrease. Things get even more complicated when we have a history of failed weight
loss attempts, because our confidence will
already be low and the uncertainty will already
be high. In order to increase our chances of success then, what we need are more frequent, less
severe penalties, such as, instead of focusing on
fitting into your wedding outfit in six months,
focus on completing three half hour strength
training sessions this week. Unlike huge looming goals, if we don’t reach these small frequent
goals, we can regroup, recover, and start again
(hopefully having learned something in the
process). Success at small goals also builds our
confidence—and the experience can then be
used as valuable information with which to design future goals. Over time, these small goals
add up, propelling our larger goals, like strolling down the aisle in that wedding outfit.
PowerPoint: Three Effective
Penalty Designs
The $1,000 Bet
When most of us wager, we play the odds with
the understanding that there is not much we
have control over. And while the losses may
hurt, they hurt significantly less when we feel
there is nothing we can do to prevent them. (As
a side note, many addictive gamblers do recount
feeling as if they have a system to winning—
which is often recognized as a sign of addiction.) But when we bet on something that we
inherently know we can change, we are essentially betting on ourselves—which is something
very much in our control. And because these
sorts of bets are in our control—e.g., we can
stop smoking, stop eating ice cream, and stop
avoiding the gym—we work much harder to
prevent the losses, especially when they come
out of our own pocket. So to use the $1,000
bet idea from before, simply take on one thing
you’d like to change, such as eating after 7 PM,
getting up after 9 AM, or exercising daily, and
give $1,000 of your money to someone who
you trust with the instructions to only release
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the money back to you if you keep your end of
the bargain. And because small, more frequent
goals work best, this bet is best designed in
small increments of time, such as managing
to get up before 9 AM every day for three days
straight, or walking every day for three days in
a row. After reaching each small goal, simply
restart the bet. With each goal you reach, your
confidence will grow, and soon your bets, and
your achievements, will grow too.
Missing Out
While not reaching our goals is painful, it becomes much more palpable when not reaching
our goals is linked to someone else gaining a
reward. Just imagine if every time you failed to
make it to the gym, your best friend got to treat
themselves to a new pair of shoes. Or, let’s say
that every time you smoke a cigarette, eat ice
cream or a piece of pizza, your spouse gets to go
to the beach—without you. When we see someone else getting what we wished we had, not
only do we feel the painful sting of those losses
(especially because they could have been ours),
but to see another person enjoying what felt
like our new pair of shoes is a powerful aversive
device that keeps us focused on doing everything we can to ensure our success—and for us
to keep the rewards. So to set up a missing out
strategy, choose one thing you’d like to change,
such as hitting the gym every day, juicing every
morning, or walking during your lunch hour,
and then choose a reward—anything from a
gift card at your favorite store to lunch at your
favorite restaurant—and place the reward in a
trusted friend’s hands. If you keep your word
and reach your goal, the reward is yours. If not,
Transformation Specialist
your friend gets to enjoy that delicious rib-eye
steak you’ve been craving.
Linking
One of the reasons an undesirable behavior
can be so difficult to change is because we may
not feel the negative effects in the moment. For
example, most of us probably don’t think much
about our pants fitting tightly when we roll
over and hit the snooze button, well aware that
the run we said we would take is not going to
happen. And because these unwanted behaviors
slip by without much consequence, before we
know it we are on the slippery slope of rationalizing our way to a comfortable slumber—all the
while forgetting just where we put our running
shoes. Yet one powerful way we can make that
undesirable behavior all the less attractive is
when we link it to something immediate and
unwanted. For example, imagine that your
alarm clock was linked to your bank account
and every time you hit the snooze button, you
donated $100 to your least favorite political party. While this is an actual strategy (and brilliant
alarm clock design), you can set up your own
linking strategy much in the same way. Simply
start with an undesirable behavior you want to
change, such as sleeping in, drinking alcohol, or
skipping the gym, and then choose something
aversive to you, such as having to mow the
lawn, giving money to your least favorite charity, or having to take out the trash. Next, choose
a trusted family member or friend to play the
role of referee, ensuring that the rules of your
agreement are kept and that should you fail to
reach your goal, it will be you mowing the lawn.
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Section Four: What are the Rules
Again? Why We Need Referees
When we talk about commitment strategies,
as Daniel Goldstein reminds us, we are both
Ulysses and the first mate. While we can have
all the best commitments, agreements and
aversive stimuli as armor, it is still us against
our own best devices—which as you know come
in the form of discounting the benefits of an
activity, exaggerating the cost of temptations,
discounting the risk of giving in to impulses,
deferring to biases, and being blindsided by our
short-term interests. What we so often forget is
that when we ask the same self that is lacking
self-control to enforce strategies upon themselves, we should only expect that the same
errors that complicate making decisions will
also complicate enforcing them.
What we really need then are referees. Referees
are people we assign to enforce the rules of the
commitment agreements that we make. Much
in the same way that a referee in a football game
is responsible for enforcing the rules of the
game, ensuring that play is fair and the rules
are adhered to, referees in commitment agreements are responsible for enforcing the rules of
the commitments we make, and ensuring that
either we are successful in keeping our commitments (achieving the desired change), or that
we suffer the consequences of not keeping them
(and hopefully will then reconsider our decisions for the future).
And when we can find a referee that is able to
be impartial and willing to enforce the rules
of the commitment agreement, it’s like having
a second long-run self. One of the things that
makes decisions so difficult is that our shortrun self—which is responsible for doing the
action of the commitment—doesn’t accurately
weigh up the impact of our short-term decisions
on the long-term picture. Yet referees, being impartial and objective, unlike ourselves, are not
subject to the deceptive workings of our shortterm self, and thus are less likely to inaccurately
weigh up the cost of that ice cream we’d like
to be enjoying right now as we might. Instead,
what a good referee does is call upon our better
nature, i.e., the one who’d like to keep those
commitments.
Commit, Cooperate, and Keeping
Those Promises
It’s hard to think of a way to make a commitment to another person that doesn’t also benefit
them. Our marriage partners’ lives are improved when we are not unfaithful. Our family
members’ lives are made more stable when we
contribute to their welfare. Our employers and
employees benefit when we show up at the office
on time and do our job. The lives of our mechanics, gardeners, handymen, and even the kid
next door we pay to wash the car, all improve
when we keep our word. And because our commitments benefit others, they also invoke our
desire for cooperation and synergy, particularly
if the commitment is reputation or emotionally
based (Frank, 1988; Neese, 2001), after all, nobody wants to be known as the guy who stiffed
someone—especially when done underhandedly. This is also why pledge campaigns are
very effective: they call upon our desire to help
and make a commitment to another person (or
cause) (Chen & Komorita, 1994).
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For most us of, as long as the arrangement
seems fair, we are more than willing to cooperate—and keep our word (Goodenough, 2001;
Frank, 1988; Neese, 2001; Chen & Komorita,
1994). And not surprisingly, the effect is much
stronger when that commitment takes place
in person. In one study, people who made a
written commitment recycled 252 percent
more than those who simply had information
dropped off at their door (Arbuthnot et al.,
1976, 1977). In another study, recycling information alongside personal contact and a request
for commitment to recycle increased self-reported drop-off recycling by 88 percent compared to less than 10 percent for those receiving
written information alone (Arbuthnot et al.,
1976, 1977).
Making a commitment to another person—especially in the service of helping others, and
by extension, ourselves—doesn’t just motivate
us to keep our word, but also to contribute
toward a greater goal, i.e., to get along with
others. And as you will see in the next section,
getting along with others also means maintaining those alliances.
Pat My Back and I’ll Scratch Yours:
Why Alliances Matter In Keeping
Commitments
While including another person in our promise
that we will make it to the gym three times this
week will make us more likely to actually get
there, just who we make that promise to might
have more influence on our commitments than
we think. Historically friendships–and who we
might choose to help us keep our commitments–
were believed to exist for the exchange of goods
Transformation Specialist
and services. In a sort of “I’ll scratch your back
if you scratch mine,” trade-off, who we choose
as friends follows the theory of reciprocal altruism—that is, we help those who help us.
But the problem with believing that friendships exist only to satiate our desire for material
goods and services is that it ignores the fact
that we often choose friends who are similar to
us, seem to care about us, and who don’t give
only to get something back in return. The fact
is most people do not keep regular tabs on the
benefits given and received in close relationships, and further, they seem to help friends
even when they are unlikely to be capable of
repayment (DeScioli & Kurzban, 2009).
Instead, the alliances we form often act as protective devices—particularly in times of distress
or conflict. When fighting with our spouse,
facing a potential job loss (or suffering from one
that has already occurred), or in a host of trivial
arguments, it is our friends that we call upon.
And just who those friends are has a lot to do
with who would be most helpful to us in times
of conflict—that is, who has our back (DeScioli
& Kurzban, 2009).
And if maintaining those alliances creates a
ready-made support group that makes our
world more secure, it might also be a strong
motivation to help us to keep those commitments. If skipping the gym, bingeing on ice
cream, or failing to make it out the door for
our morning run means severing an important
social ally—and losing a key supporter that we
might need down the road—we are probably a
whole lot less likely to do it.
But that is only part of the story. Helping, and
Commitment Strategies | 175
being helped by others, also leaves us with a
warm physiological afterglow. In a study designed to explore the social brain while people
are engaged in authentic social interaction,
researchers used fMRI to scan the brains of
36 women while they played the “Prisoner’s
Dilemma.” The Prisoner’s Dilemma is a game
often used in game theory that was originally
framed by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher
while working at RAND in 1950. The game is
presented as follows:
Two members (denoted A and B) of a criminal gang are arrested and imprisoned. Each
prisoner is in solitary confinement with no
means of communicating with the other. The
prosecutors lack sufficient evidence to convict
the pair on the principal charge, so hope to get
both sentenced to a year in prison on a lesser
charge. Simultaneously, the prosecutors offer
each prisoner a bargain. Each prisoner is given
the opportunity either to: betray the other by
testifying that the other committed the crime,
or to cooperate with the other by remaining
silent. The offer is:
1.
If A and B each betray the other, each of
them will serve 2 years in prison.
2.
If A betrays B but B remains silent, A will be
set free and B will serve 3 years in prison
(and vice versa).
3.
If A and B both remain silent, both of them
will only serve 1 year in prison (on the lesser
charge).
It is implied that the prisoners will have no
opportunity to reward or punish their co-conspirator or partner other than the prison sentences they get, and that their decision will not
affect their reputation in the future. Because
betraying a partner offers a greater reward
than cooperating with them, all purely rational self-interested prisoners would betray the
other, and so the only possible outcome for two
purely rational prisoners is for them to betray
each other (Milovsky, 2009). However, if both
players pursue their own interests and betray
each other, the punishment is worse than if they
both cooperate and remain silent.
For the study, researchers used money, as
opposed to prison sentences, where each player was awarded a sum of money similar to the
terms of the Prisoner’s Dilemma: a player would
earn the most when they betrayed the other,
but were not betrayed; earn the least when
they both betrayed each other; and earned an
amount in between these two amounts when
they both cooperated.
While researchers might have expected players
to try to defect while hoping the other cooperated—as this led to the largest payoff—mutual
cooperation was the most common outcome
(Rilling et al., 2009). And the reason for this
might just be that cooperating is rewarding
in itself—during mutually cooperative social
interactions, activation was noted in those
areas of the brain that are linked to reward
processing: the nucleus accumbens, the caudate
nucleus, the ventromedial frontal/orbitofrontal
cortex, and the rostral anterior cingulate cortex
(Rilling et al., 2009).
Gregory S. Berns, M.D., Ph.D., co-investigator
and associate professor of psychiatry at the Emory University School of Medicine Department
of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences explains,
“The altruistic drive to cooperate is biologically
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embedded—either genetically programmed or
acquired through socialization during childhood and adolescence” (Berns, 2009).
But even more important is that activating
a reward circuit helps us overcome temptations—in this case to take the money and run.
Instead, the physiological benefits come with
mutual and sustained cooperation. While the
players that achieved the maximal reward
by successfully cheating their fellow players
walked away with more money, that was the
only payoff they got—the reward circuits in
their brains did not light up.
The takeaway is that who we choose to help
us keep our commitments matters, such that
when we are guided by our alliances, not only
do we create a strong reward circuit armor
in the face of temptations, but also a built-in
motivation to keep our commitments and to
preserve our alliances.
Commitment and the Power to
Resist Temptations
If keeping our word to others makes us more
likely to resist temptations, the effect might also
have something to do with just how much we
think about those commitments. While we can
make commitments to people in a variety of
ways—such as to show up at work on time, take
the dog out, take the kid to school, and pay the
bills—perhaps the most salient commitment is
the one we make when saying our vows. And
yet, to have and to hold until death do us part
doesn’t make all of us think about commitment
in the same proportions. For one thing, there are
always attractive members of the opposite sex.
Transformation Specialist
Just how tempting an attractive mate can be
when trying to honor a commitment was the
question researchers were asking when they
gathered 120 heterosexual undergraduates in
committed relationships to pore over photographs of attractive members of the opposite sex.
After being asked to identify the member of the
opposite sex to whom they felt most physically
attracted, the undergrads were then asked to
compose an essay on one of three subjects: the
time they felt the most love for their current
romantic partner, the time they felt the most
sexual desire for their current romantic partner,
or anything they wanted to write about. While
writing their answers, the participants were instructed to put the attractive other out of their
mind, and if they did happen to think of them,
to put a check in the margin of their essays
every time they did so.
So what effect did thinking about commitment
have on temptations? Undergraduates who
reflected on the love they felt for their romantic
partner thought about the attractive temptation
of another as much as six times less than those
who didn’t think about the love they felt for
their partner—or instead thought only about
sexual desire. Even more convincing, undergrads in the love group were not only less likely
to think about attractive others, but also had a
much tougher time recalling what they looked
like, or just what their appeal was (Gonzaga &
Haselton, 2008).
Lead study author, Gian Gonzaga explains,
“These people could remember the color of a
shirt or whether the photo was taken in New
York, but they didn’t remember anything
tempting about the person. It’s not like their
Commitment Strategies | 177
overall memory was impaired; it’s as if they had
selectively screened out things that would make
them think about the how attractive the alternative was” (Gonzaga, 2008).
So thinking more about commitment makes us
selectively screen out those temptations? Perhaps
the result shouldn’t surprise us. Past research has
shown that people in romantic relationships do
consistently rate potential others as less attractive—and spend less time looking at them—than
those who are not in committed relationships.
But what defines just how hard we are willing to work at that commitment—especially
in the face of temptations—is how we define
commitment. Commitment for most of us
doesn’t always mean the same thing. We can be
committed to tennis, for example, because we
like playing and we feel we are getting better.
We can be committed to our job as long as we
feel we are compensated fairly. And we can be
committed to our relationships, that is, as long
as they are going well.
But the problem is—and where most of us hit
a roadblock with our commitment—is when
things take a turn for the worse, e.g., suddenly our golf swing takes a nosedive and we are
hitting the green while staring at a shining white
ball perched innocently on the tee. Our coworker
gets a raise while we feel we were overlooked.
And our relationship—the one we committed to
until death do us part—now seems to be teetering dangerously between divorce and separation.
This is also the difference between what psychologists call a commitment and a deeper level
of commitment. A deeper level of commitment
goes beyond committing to something only
when it is going well. Instead, those who commit deeply understand that they may have to
make sacrifices, will hit some roadblocks, and
ultimately must have some resolve in order to
keep those commitments. To measure just how
strongly a deeper level of commitment predicted marriage success, researchers presented newlyweds with statements that gauged their level
of commitment, such as, “I want my marriage
to stay strong no matter what rough times we
may encounter,” “My marriage is more important to me than almost anything else in my life,”
“Giving up something for my partner is frequently not worth the trouble,” and “It makes
me feel good to sacrifice for my partner.” The
newlyweds were then asked to rate how strongly
they agreed with each statement. The researchers then conducted follow-ups every six months
for four years. In the follow-ups, couples were
asked questions about their relationship history, their feelings toward each other, the stress
in their lives, their level of social support, and
their childhood and family.
The result? The couples in which both people
were willing to make sacrifices for the sake of
the marriage were significantly more likely to
have lasting and happy marriages (Schoebi,
et al., 2011). Explains Benjamin Karney, who
co-authored the study, “It (commitment) means
do what it takes to make the relationship successful” (Karney, 2011).
But perhaps even more important is understanding that keeping our commitments isn’t
supposed to be easy. Instead, those who have the
most commitment success do not harbor any
false beliefs that commitments don’t include
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hard work, sacrifices, and probably some
white-knuckling through temptations.
were going to do with two (as reported in the
follow-up interviews).
It is our attitude toward commitments—and
adopting the “I will do whatever it takes attitude”—that separates those who commit when
it is easy (and things are going well) yet jump
ship the minute the waters gets rough, from
those who are willing to ride out the bumps
and bruises of sitting through temptations, the
overwhelming desire to quit, and those sneaky
rationalizations—all for the promise of ultimately arriving at their goals.
Whether we are revisiting why we made a commitment, or reminding ourselves that commitment is not easy, thinking about commitment
matters. Much like making a commitment to
someone we have an alliance with, being consciously aware of our commitments, and just
how much hard work it will take to keep them,
makes us a lot more likely to keep our word (and
a lot less likely to find ourselves trying to explain
just why we didn’t do what we said we would).
And not surprisingly, self-control is like a muscle, that is, the more we make a habit of keeping
our commitments (in every area of our life), the
easier it is to keep them when it really matters.
If you are wondering if this model applies to
keeping those weight loss commitments and
resisting the urge to reach for the donuts, pizza,
cookies, and marshmallows, it does. When
studying children in the classic marshmallow
test—a well-known test of self-control that
assesses whether a child can override the urge
to eat a marshmallow for fifteen minutes in
order to be rewarded with two marshmallows
later—researchers found that the ability to
override impulses can be generalized across
the board. In follow-up studies, the children
who successfully resisted the impulse to eat the
marshmallow (and held out for two) had better
life outcomes, as measured by their SAT scores
(Mischel et al., 1989), educational attainment
(Ayduk et al., 2000), body mass index (BMI)
(Schlam et al., 2013), and other life measures
(Schoda et al., 1990).
And what did those children do to delay gratification? Not surprisingly, they didn’t look at
the marshmallow. Further, instead of thinking
about how much they wanted to eat the one in
front of them, they thought about what they
Transformation Specialist
Here are the important points to take away:
1.
Making a commitment to another person—
especially when that commitment is in the
service of helping others—is a very powerful
motivational factor.
2.
Making comsmitments to our alliances is a
much stronger motivator—one that offers
sustained psychological benefit—than those
we make to strangers or acquaintances.
3.
Both thinking about our commitments and
understanding that they are not supposed
to be easy, improves our ability to resist the
temptations that often derail us.
So just how do we make commitments that will
last (and choose the right people to make them
to)? Here are three ways:
Make commitments with your alliances. In
many ways, whatever commitment we make is
only as strong as who we make it to. When the
recipient of our commitment is at our disposal,
Commitment Strategies | 179
like someone we don’t know that well or don’t
have a history or alliance with, that commitment suddenly loses its value. Because we haven’t
risked much (in the sense of a valued alliance), if
we don’t keep our word, we don’t lose much. On
the other hand, when we make a commitment to
an alliance, we risk not only our reputation with
them, but also our relationship with them. No
one wants to let a friend down—especially when
that friend has been there for you, and you need
them. And when you make a commitment to a
friend who has also kept their word with you,
you strengthen your commitment even more—
because if you don’t keep your word, you not
only fail to live up to your own standards, but
your friend’s as well.
Think about those commitments. Commitments, for many of us, are taken much too
lightly. We make them without really thinking about how (and why) we are going to keep
them. Then, not surprisingly, when faced with
the hard work of keeping our word, we find
ourselves grasping for excuses. Further, the
less we think about commitments, the more
those attractive temptations seem to beckon
us. Yet when we consciously think about our
commitments—asking and answering why we
made them, what they mean to us, and what the
benefit of keeping them is—not only are we less
aware of the temptations around us, but they
are less likely to look like temptations. As you
know, focusing on commitments dampens our
memory of temptations. Just like the kids in the
marshmallow test, when we avoid staring at the
marshmallow and think instead about the value
of keeping our commitments (in the kids case,
receiving two marshmallows later is always better than one now), we find the resources needed
to override impulses, look past temptations, and
enjoy the reward of keeping our word.
Understand that keeping commitments will
require sacrifice. Making a commitment—especially if we don’t think much about it—is always
easier than keeping it. And making that commitment is even easier when things are going well.
But making commitments only when things are
going well is like only showing up at work on
payday. The rewards we want—fitting into that
pair of jeans, running that three miles, losing
that last stubborn twenty (or fifty) pounds, and
collecting our paycheck—all require some heavy
lifting. If we acknowledge that fact before making
a commitment, then when faced with things not
going well, we will remember that hard work,
grit, sacrifice, and, yes, blood, sweat, and tears,
are all part of commitments. Further, we will understand that commitments exist not simply as a
dispensary for our many desires (although they
may be noble), but rather to test and build our
resources. When we put in that blood, sweat, and
tears, the reward will taste that much sweeter.
PowerPoint: The Three Qualities
of a Good Referee
Objective
Good referees must not be persuaded by subjective opinion, negotiation, or even threats.
Instead, to be effective, a referee must only pay
attention to the objective information at hand,
that is, the rules of the commitment agreement.
Good Emotional Control
A good referee must be able to operate in
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situations that have the potential to be emotionally charged. They should have high emotional
tolerance (they can deal with stressful situations) and a high degree of emotional control
(they do not become upset easily).
Honest
Referees are only effective when they are honest—even if it means there will be negative consequences. A good referee should have a high
tolerance for discomfort and a very strong sense
of authority (to follow the rules of the commitment agreement).
Section Five: Maintenance
Strategies
Weight loss, like any game, isn’t won overnight.
It’s a game that’s played every day. In this section,
you will learn the maintenance strategies, tools,
tips, and exercises that can keep you winning the
game of weight loss for years to come.
Starting change is never as difficult as maintaining it. For one thing, change often feels
novel. We get excited about our new possibilities and like to imagine ourselves wearing the
jeans we wished we could fit into, sporting a
sleek new body, and enjoying the praise and
admiration of our friends. Over time, however, the novelty wears off, we lose interest, the
challenge sets in, and before we know it, we find
ourselves sitting in front of the television with a
box of pizza and a bag of chips. What we often
forget is that at its core, weight loss is neither
glamourous, nor easy. But this is also why the
goal of changing behavior always needs to be
to maintain the good behavior. Starting simply
Transformation Specialist
does no good if that’s all we do. In fact, as many
rebound dieters would attest, starting and stopping is often worse than not starting at all.
So just how do we keep that change going over
the long term and avoid the diet rebound cycle
for good? Let’s take a look at a few ways.
Use Goals That Encourage
Cooperation.
As you will recall from section nine, goals that
encourage cooperation with others have better
outcomes. We all want to cooperate, help others, and be seen as helpful, and goals that call
upon our innate desire for synergy and cooperation utilize desirable pro-social characteristics,
one of which is keeping our word.
Connect Our Goals With Those of
Others.
Shared goals—those that are connected with
the goals of others—can be very effective, not
just in harnessing our desire for cooperation,
but also in increasing our interest in these goals.
In general, we tend to work much harder on
goals that affect others. In short, when others
depend on us, we don’t want to let them down.
Further, goals that affect others also transcend
our self-interest, and call upon a greater purpose. Often when we see that what we are doing
has meaning beyond ourselves, our interest and
continued involvement soars.
Look for ways to use commitment
strategies in other areas of life.
In order to maintain the skills of change, we
have to continue practicing them. And because
Commitment Strategies | 181
we learn in a variety of contexts, the skills of
change do not always have to involve weight loss.
For example, if we want to get better at going to
bed earlier, we can create commitment strategies that will help us accomplish this, while also
strengthening our willpower. Remember while
willpower is a limited resource, it is also one that
can be built up. And the more success we have at
changing behavior in small ways, the more confident we will become at maintaining behavior in
larger, more challenging ways.
Use Small Quantitative Change to
Create Larger Qualitative Changes.
Small changes, as you know, build confidence,
but they also build momentum. Because they
incorporate a sense of mastery—which tends to
be progressive in nature—once we accomplish
one goal, we generally want to turn our desire for
mastery toward another goal. And while we may
begin as someone who doesn’t see ourselves as
capable of change—much less capable of maintaining it—as these small goals add up, and we
begin to shift our perspective of ourselves. We
are no longer the person wanting change to happen, we are the person making change happen.
This is not just a very powerful shift, it’s also a
very effective way to maintain change.
Use Effective Referees.
Much of achieving our goals depends upon the
rules that govern them. When the penalties for
not reaching our goals become strong enough
incentives, we will move in the direction of
the desired behavior. But what all good rules
depend on are effective enforcers. Referees have
to be able to consistently enforce the rules of
our commitment agreements, even if we suffer
the penalties for it. They must be firm enough
to not bend the rules should we fail to keep our
end of the bargain, as learning to accept the
consequences of our actions is just as important
as learning how to allocate the cognitive resources needed to achieve our goals. When we
use effective referees not only do we learn that
our actions matter, but that the outcomes of our
actions are in our control.
Commitment Strategy Skills for
Personal Trainers
Now that we have a clear understanding of the
many ways in which making desirable choices
and changing behavior can be difficult, and we
have some general understanding as to how to
better improve the connection between shortterm and long-term consequences, how to gain
control over unconscious drives, and how to use
soft and hard commitments and employ referees, we will look at specific commitment strategy skills that you can use with your clients to
improve behavior change. We will explore how
to familiarize the client with the commitment
strategy model, how to choose the most effective
strategy, and for the client, how to choose the
best penalty and identify a referee. Lastly, we
look at commitment maintenance strategies, and
present some examples of effective commitment
strategies that have been used with clients.
Familiarizing the Client
Whenever you use any new methodology—
whether it be a new exercise, or a commitment
strategy—it is first important to familiarize
your client with the technique (or exercise) that
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you will be using. What this essentially means
is you should educate your client as to what
the technique is, how it works, what will be
expected of them, what will be expected of you,
any precautions they need to be aware of, and
the outcomes they might expect. In the case of
commitment strategies, it is best to start with
the following general definition provided by
economist Stephen Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubner, who are credited with the term
commitment device:
“A commitment device is a means with which
to lock yourself into a course of action that you
might not otherwise choose but that produces a
desired result” (Levitt & Dubner, 2007).
Going further, you should also explain to
your client that commitment devices are
used across a variety of situations—not just
for health and fitness or weight loss. It is also
helpful to give your client the basic model of
commitment devices:
“Commitment devices are incentives or penalties imposed upon yourself, or through the
use of a referee, to decrease the likelihood of an
unwanted behavior, or increase the likelihood
of a desired behavior.”
In providing this definition and model, you
should also emphasize that the use of commitment devices arose out of the general recognition of a deficit of self-control that is universal
to all people—particularly when changing
behavior—and that commitment devices act
to enhance self-control and improve decisions,
therefore making behavioral change more likely. It is especially important in your explanation
to highlight the point that all people experience
Transformation Specialist
self-control problems, and it is not a difficulty
exclusive to your client or exclusive to the goal
of weight loss. To do this, it is helpful to give the
following examples of commitment devices:
•
Cutting up your credit cards to lower your
spending.
•
Drinking extra water after dinner to reduce
nighttime eating.
•
Taking Antabuse to avoid drinking alcohol.
•
Telling your friends that you are going to run
ten miles to increase the chance of you completing your goal.
•
Paying a non-refundable marathon race entry
to encourage yourself to run the race.
•
Using automatic deposits into a savings account to encourage savings.
•
Opening a savings account with an early
withdrawal fee to discourage taking money
out of your savings.
•
Selling your car to increase your use of public
transport.
•
Removing ice cream from your house to avoid
eating it.
•
Prepaying a non-refundable fee for a package
of classes at the gym.
•
Giving your spouse $100 to keep if you eat ice
cream—or asking them to return $10 for every
week you do not eat ice cream.
After providing these examples, it is then helpful to clarify the difference between hard and
soft commitments with the following definition:
“Soft commitments use social, psychological
and financial incentives to encourage behavior
toward desired outcomes, while hard commitments use penalties—usually financial in
Commitment Strategies | 183
nature—to encourage behavior toward desired
outcomes.”
assign to enforce the rules of your commitment
agreement.”
It is also useful to provide the following
examples:
Some examples of referees that you could suggest to your client are:
Soft Commitments:
•
Avoiding bringing ice cream into the house to
reduce the likelihood of eating it.
•
Scheduling to meet a friend at the gym twice
a week to increase your physical activity.
•
Using automatic deposits into your savings
account to increase your savings.
•
Avoiding driving by your favorite bar to reduce the likelihood of stopping in for a drink.
Hard Commitments:
•
Opening a savings account with an early
withdrawal fee to discourage taking money
out of your savings.
•
Imposing an additional tax on cigarettes to
decrease consumption.
•
Opening a savings account that is only
accessible to you when you reach your goal
weight.
•
Giving your spouse or friend $100 to hold,
from which they will release $10 for every
week you don’t eat after 6 PM.
Once your client has a clear idea of what commitment devices are and the difference between
soft and hard commitments, you should introduce them to the idea of a referee with the
following definition:
“A referee is a person who is impartial and who
has no direct involvement in your goal that you
•
A trusted friend that you can give $100 to
with the explanation that they are to keep the
money if you fail to keep your commitment to
work out three times per week.
•
A family member that will enforce the commitment agreement that, for every time you
spend more money than is in your budget,
you will have to wash the car and clean the
house.
•
A bank from which you open a savings account with an early withdrawal fee.
•
A race director to whom you pay a non-refundable race entry.
•
A personal trainer to whom you pay a non-refundable fee for a package of sessions.
•
A personal trainer to whom you ask to hold
$100 and then to return $10 to you every
week when you run a total of ten miles on
your own.
It is also important that you explain to your client that the use of referees is a very effective way
to increase their self-control, and that having
a referee will enhance the likelihood of them
achieving their desired behavior.
Once your client has a general idea of what
commitment devices are, why they are used,
how they are implemented, what the difference
between soft and hard commitments are, and
what referees are, it is important to explain
to your client what they can expect by using
a commitment device. Here it is important to
tell your client that commitment devices are
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powerful methods for changing behavior, and
that through the use of them, they are much
more likely to reach their goals. You should
also inform your client of the difference in
outcomes between soft and hard commitments:
that soft commitment have greater participation
rates, but hard commitments have better longterm outcomes. While it is always your client’s
decision as to which type of commitment to
use, it is first important that they understand
the difference in implementation and outcome
of soft and hard commitments. Further, you
should inform your client that the decision as to
whether or not to use a commitment device at
all is completely up to them. Lastly, it is helpful
to refer your client to the section of their workbook that addresses commitment devices for
further reading and for some examples of the
ways in which they can incorporate commitment devices into their life, and then ask if they
have any questions that you can answer.
To summarize, let’s take a look at the steps
involved in familiarizing your client with commitment devices:
1.
Provide your client with the definition and
model of commitment devices.
2.
Emphasize that all people experience
self-control problems and that commitment
devices are a powerful way to enhance behavior change.
3.
Give your client several examples of commitment devices.
4.
Explain the difference between hard and soft
commitments, providing examples of each.
5.
Explain what referees are and how they are
used, offering some examples of referees.
Transformation Specialist
6.
Inform your client that the use of referees
increases their self-control and the likelihood
of them achieving their desired behavior.
7.
Provide the expected outcomes of both soft
and hard commitments: that soft commitments enjoy greater participation but
hard commitments have better long-term
outcomes.
8.
Refer your client to the section of their workbook that discusses commitment devices
and some examples of the ways they can use
them to change behavior, and then answer
any additional questions they may have.
Now that your client is familiar with the general model of commitment devices, we discuss
how to choose the commitment strategy that
they will be most comfortable with.
Choosing the Strategy
From the discussion above, we know that different commitment strategies lead to different
outcomes. On the one hand, those that use incentives—as opposed to penalties—have higher participation rates, yet, on the other hand,
those that use penalties have better long-term
outcomes. Further, we also know that incentive
programs designed around cooperation and
synergy with others—such as giving someone
your word on an action that is mutually beneficial—can be quite effective, both in participation and outcome. For the purpose of this discussion, we look at ways in which you can work
with your client to develop the commitment
strategy that works best for them. With that in
mind, it is important to always keep in mind
that the overall goal is behavioral change, and
the actual commitment strategy to be used is
ultimately the decision of your client. However,
Commitment Strategies | 185
when designing commitment strategies with
your client, it is helpful to keep the following
points in mind:
Use Small Goals That Carry High
Confidence Levels.
Before considering which commitment strategy to use with your client, you should keep in
mind that before your client ever considered
asking for your help on behavior change, they
may have probably tried multiple times unsuccessfully. This is the case with almost any
helping profession—from counselors, to doctors, physical therapists, and personal trainers—that most people wait until their situation
is very severe before ever seeking help. In the
case of personal training, this means that your
client has probably tried several different weight
loss methods, and the fact that they have asked
for your help at this point is testament to the
fact that these have been unsuccessful so far.
And for most clients, a history of unsuccessful
weight loss attempts means that their confidence (at weight loss) will be very low. It is for
this reason that you should always start with
small goals that your client is very confident
about achieving. To do this, begin by asking
your client a few questions: What is one small
change that you could make that you would
consider a success toward weight loss? On a
scale of 1–10, how confident are you that you
could make that change? What you are looking
for in your clients answers is for them to set a
goal that is relatively minor in the overarching
construct of their overall weight loss, but that
will give them a tangible result as a step along
the way. Some examples are walking for twenty
minutes every other day, eating twenty grams
of protein every morning, drinking coffee as
opposed to cappuccinos or mochas, or eating
only one brownie every other day instead of
three. In assessing your client’s confidence at
reaching these goals, their answer should reflect
a confidence level of 8 or above. The reason for
this is that you want to introduce your client to
the use of commitment strategies in a way that
will make them feel successful, build their confidence, and encourage their interest in future
commitment strategies, which, as you will see,
will lead to a larger qualitative change.
Use Frequent Hard Commitments to
Build Confidence.
As you know already, soft commitments improve participation, but hard commitments
have better long-term outcomes. Because your
focus is on building your client’s confidence
through measurable outcomes, it is best to
accomplish this with the use of frequent, hard
commitments. The other reason for this is that,
because most clients have a history of unsuccessful weight loss attempts, they will have
probably also unknowingly tried soft commitment strategies by themselves. It is not uncommon to hear clients say things like, “I have
tried buying smaller quantities of cookies and
sweets,” “In the past, I tried joining a walking
group,” “My sister and I were supposed to start
working out together.” These are all examples
of soft commitments. So instead of using soft
commitments that your client may have already tried without success, it is best to start
with hard commitments—not only because
they usually have better outcomes, but because
they have no “negative” history with your
client. What this means is using commitment
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strategies that focus on small goals and that incorporate penalties that are imposed frequently
to build your client’s confidence. For example,
let’s say your client would like to exercise more.
You can start with the small goal of walking ten
minutes per day, ensuring that your client has a
confidence level of 8 or higher, and then impose
a penalty of $70 per week should your client not
reach their goal. But to increase the frequency
with which you implement the penalty, you will
give your client (or have your client assign a
referee to do this) $10 every day that she walks
for ten minutes. You can work with your client
to choose whatever specific goal they would
like—from exercising more, to getting up earlier, to eating less sweets—as long as you design
a commitment strategy that uses small goals
and frequent, preferably at least every other day,
penalties to build confidence.
Move from Smaller Goals to Larger
Goals.
Starting with small goals is a great way to build
confidence, and once your client has some
success at achieving a desired goal, she will
be ready to move to a larger one. For example, let’s say that you started with a small goal
to walk ten minutes every day for one week,
and your client successfully reached this goal;
you can then move to fifteen minutes every
day for another week. You could also choose a
different goal entirely, such as eating only one
small yogurt for desert every day for the next
week. However, one thing to keep in mind is to
make the shift from small goals to larger ones
incremental in nature. What this means is that
if your client was successful at reaching a goal
at which they expressed a confidence level of
Transformation Specialist
8, the next progression would be to attempt a
goal at which they had a confidence level of 7.
Progression should be no more than one number (in confidence rating) per week, and if your
client is not successful at that goal, you should
move them to a smaller goal, one in which their
confidence is higher. For example, let’s say that
your client chose a goal at which they rated
their confidence at 8, yet they were not successful at reaching this goal, then you should move
to a goal at which they rate their confidence
at 9. The reason for this is twofold: people do
not always estimate their confidence accurately (sometimes we are more confident than we
think, or conversely sometimes we underestimate the difficulty of the task) and you always
want your client to feel successful.
Connect Goals to Long-term Outcomes.
While any goal attainment carries a positive
connotation for clients, it is best to always
connect whatever goals are met to long-term
outcomes. The reason for this is, as we know
from the previous section, that people always
work harder on goals that they have an interest
in. Your client, is much more likely to allocate
effort toward achieving a small goal, when they
see it in the much larger perspective of their life
and when it represents something that is very
important to them. For example, let’s say that
your client tells you that one of the primary
reasons for losing weight is to “be able to keep
up with my kids.” You might begin by helping
them choose a commitment strategy with a
small goal, e.g., of walking ten minutes per day,
and a penalty of $10 a day should your client
not complete the walk. Your client is successful
at this goal, so you move on to another goal
Commitment Strategies | 187
to eat only half a candy bar for desert for one
week, and again your client is successful. While
these goals are a great start, you must keep
in mind that your client’s primary reason for
weight loss is to keep up with their kids. Therefore, goals that directly reflect this will increase
their interest and participation. For example,
you could work with your client to choose a
goal to play ten minutes of soccer with their
kids every day—which is a goal in direct relationship to her overall long-term goal. When
small goals such as this connect with long-term
outcomes, clients experience them as much
more purposeful, and demonstrate much greater interest in them because they reflect their
own motivations.
early. Choosing a penalty with your client works
much in the same way: it is a balance between
choosing something that is aversive enough to
deter behavior, while not being so aversive as to
detract from participation. While you already
know that one way to increase participation
is to choose small goals with high confidence
levels, when choosing penalties, it is helpful to
keep the following two principles in mind:
Choosing the Penalty
How would you rate (list the penalty here)?
What you can probably guess at this point is
that penalties come in all shapes and sizes. You
have probably also had some personal experience with penalties, and may be familiar with
large ones, such as stiff fines, imprisonment,
and loss of privileges, as well as small ones, such
as parking tickets, late fees, and early termination fees. You can probably also conclude that
larger penalties are very effective motivators of
behavior—e.g., the chance of imprisonment is
a very good way to keep us from breaking the
law—but might not invite healthy participation.
For example, while you may know that a savings account that carries an early termination
fee of $10,000 would be a very effective way to
reduce early withdrawals, most people would
not sign up for it. On the other hand, an early
termination fee of $500 might be just enough
to get us to sign up for the account, but also to
effectively deter us from withdrawing money
Penalties should be aversive enough in
nature to provide a strong incentive to
perform a desirable behavior.
One way to assess the how aversive a penalty
might be to your client is to ask them to rate the
proposed penalty in the following way:
1.
Neutral
2.
Dislike
3.
Strongly dislike
4.
Very strongly dislike
As clients differ in what may be aversive to
them, the goal of this question is to assess how
aversive the penalty feels to your client. As you
know, penalties that are too aversive, i.e., those
that the client may rate as “very strongly dislike,” will likely deter their participation. On
the other hand, penalties rated as “neutral”
would have an effect similar to a control group,
i.e., none, or very little effect. For this reason,
penalties that your client rates as either “dislike” or “strongly dislike” will have the greatest
effect, without discouraging participation.
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Penalties should not be so aversive that
they cannot be recovered from.
You have probably had the experience of meeting
a client who says to you, “I just have to lose this
weight, I am getting married (or something else
equally important) in six months.” There are
two things a statement like this tells you: losing
weight is very important to your client, and your
client has a lot riding on them losing weight.
As you will recall from the discussion on shortterm and long-term consequences, the more we
have riding on a long-term goal, the more likely
we are to exaggerate the uncertainty of it. And
when a long-term goal is uncertain, we discount
the risks associated with the short-term consequences of giving in to impulses. What this has
to do with penalties is that when penalties are so
severe—like a client telling you that they have to
lose weight—their dependence on the long-term
goal increases, which throws the certainty into a
downward spiral, and actually makes them giving in to impulses all the more likely. The takeaway for you, as a personal trainer, is that when
clients have everything riding on weight loss—
either through self-imposed penalties (I have to
fit into my wedding outfit) or through those that
you and your client collectively imposes, the uncertainty increases and their chances of success
decrease. This situation is even more complicated
when you have a client that has a history of failed
weight loss attempts, because their confidence
will already be low and uncertainty is already
high. In order to increase your client’s chances of
success then, you should work with your client to
choose more frequent, less severe penalties—instead of focusing on not fitting into your wedding outfit in six months, focus on completing
Transformation Specialist
three half hour strength training sessions this
week—that if not accomplished, can be recovered from. In this way, should your client not be
successful at one small goal, the experience can
be used as valuable information with which to
design future goals. By focusing on smaller goals
with less severe—although still aversive—penalties, your client will also learn to use small goal
achievements to propel them toward their larger,
longer term outcomes.
Identifying a Referee
While you already know that a referee is someone assigned to enforce the rules of the commitment agreement and that the use of one will
increase your client’s sense of self-control and the
overall likelihood of their success, let’s revisit the
two important points of choosing a referee:
Ensure That the Referee Is Impartial.
While the referee should be impartial, this
should not be taken to mean that they cannot
have the client’s best interest in mind. A spouse,
for example, is not necessarily impartial in that
they will want their partner to succeed, and
probably more than a stranger would. However,
what is most important in terms of impartiality is that the referee has no direct stake in the
outcome. A husband will be happy that his
wife achieves her walking goal, but he will not
suffer any direct penalty if she doesn’t. On the
other hand, imagine the case that your client
signs up for a running race with a friend where
both your client and their friend have to raise
$1,000 combined for a charity to gain entry into
the race. Here, your client is effectively making
Commitment Strategies | 189
a commitment to their friend, and thereby
assigning them the role of referee, but here your
client’s friend will be directly impacted if your
client doesn’t achieve their goal to raise their
share of the $1,000 and will also lose her entry
and so is not really impartial and has a vested
interest in the goal being achieved. In this case,
should your client fail, their friend is likely to
take up the slack to ensure that the full $1,000
is raised and both your client and their friend
are assured of a race entry. The problem with
this sort of referee is that because they will be
directly affected—through the enforcement of a
penalty—they are not able to be impartial with
your client. Here, it is helpful to remember that
a referee should always be the one enforcing the
rules of the commitment agreement, and therefore should not be affected by the rules.
Ensure that the referee is able to
enforce the rules of the commitment
agreement.
When thinking about making commitment
agreements, people often choose referees that
they are familiar and comfortable with. While
there is no real problem with this, it is important that the referee is able to enforce the rules
of the commitment agreement. For example,
let’s say that your client makes a commitment
agreement to run ten miles per week and chooses their best friend as their referee. However,
you later learn that your client’s best friend did
not really want to be the referee because, in the
past, your client hasn’t taken criticism well, and
their best friend was worried that enforcing
the rules of the commitment agreement might
result in a fight with your client. In a case like
this, while your client may be comfortable with
their best friend, this person would not be an
effective referee. The way to ensure that a referee is able to enforce the rules of your client’s
commitment then, is to ask to meet with them
to first ensure that they understand the commitment agreement and the role of the referee.
You should ask them the following questions:
•
Is there any reason you would not be able to
enforce the rules of this agreement?
•
Can you foresee any negative consequences
in enforcing the rules of this agreement?
•
Is there any reason you do not want to be the
referee for my client?
The aim of asking these questions is to assess if
the referee is both capable of enforcing the rules
i.e., that they fully understand them, and see no
negative consequences, and actually wants to be
in the role of the referee. As you know, referees
are crucial components of commitment agreements, and it is for this reason that they must
be both impartial and fully able to enforce the
rules of the commitment agreement.
Maintenance Strategies
As you can imagine, achieving behavioral
change is not as difficult as maintaining it. For
one thing, when working on changing behavior,
most clients have support. Once the desired behavior is achieved, on the other hand, support
systems often fade away. Additionally, when
changing behavior, the change itself may feel
novel to your client, and for this reason, hold
high interest. Over time, however, the novelty
wears off, and the interest in the change itself,
or the desired goal, may not be as strong, and
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your client can relapse into previous behaviors.
For these reasons, what must be kept in mind
is that the overall goal of behavior change is for
your client to become able to maintain their behavior. Much like we raise a child to eventually
be independent, your client must be encouraged
to take independent steps toward managing and
directing their own behavior toward their desired goals. Let’s take a look at some of the ways
in which you can accomplish this.
Use Goals That Encourage Cooperation.
As you know from the section on familiarizing
your client with commitment strategies, goals
that encourage cooperation with others have
better outcomes. Because goals such as these
call upon our innate desire for synergy and
cooperation, they utilize desirable pro-social
characteristics. That is, we all want to cooperate, help others, and be seen as helpful. For this
reason, it is very helpful to develop goals with
your client that encourage cooperation.
Connect Goals With Those of Others.
Shared goals—those that are connected with
the goals of others—can be very effective not
just in harnessing our desire for cooperation,
but also in increasing our interest in these goals.
In general, people tend to work much harder on
goals that affect others. Much of the reason for
this is that when others depend on us, we don’t
want to let them down. Further, goals that affect
others also transcend our self-interest. That is,
they call upon a greater purpose. When your
client sees that what they are doing has meaning beyond just themselves, their interest and
continued involvement in it will soar.
Transformation Specialist
Look for ways to use commitment
strategies in other areas of life.
In order to maintain the skills of change, we
have to continue practicing them. And because we learn in a variety of contexts, the
skills of change do not always have to involve
weight loss. For example, if we want to get
better at going to bed earlier, we can create
commitment strategies that will help us accomplish this task, while also strengthening
our willpower—remember, while it is a limited
resource, it is also one that can be built—and
building our confidence. The idea is that the
more success your client has at changing their
behavior in small ways, the more confident
they will become at maintaining behavior in
larger, more challenging ways.
Use Small Quantitative Change to
Create Larger Qualitative Changes.
Small changes, as you know, build confidence,
but they also build momentum. Because they
incorporate a sense of mastery—which tends
to be progressive in nature—once we accomplish one goal, we generally want to turn our
desire for mastery toward another one. And
while we may begin as someone who doesn’t
see ourselves as capable of change—much less
maintaining it—these small goals soon add up,
and we begin to shift our perspectives of ourselves. We are no longer the person wanting
change to happen, we are the person making
change happen. For your client, this can be a
very powerful shift, and a very effective way to
maintain change.
Commitment Strategies | 191
Use Effective Referees.
Much of achieving our goals depends upon
the rules that govern them. When the penalties for not achieving our goals become strong
enough incentives, we move in the direction of
the desired behavior. But what all good rules
depend on are effective enforcers. For this reason, referees have to able to consistently enforce
the rules of our commitment agreements, even
if we suffer the penalties for it. They must be
willing to not bend the rules should we fail to
keep our commitment, as learning to accept the
consequences of our actions is just as important
as learning to allocate the cognitive resources
needed to achieve our goals. When your client
uses effective referees not only will they learn
that their actions matter—and they matter
enough to the referee to uphold the rules of the
commitment agreement—but that the outcomes
of their actions are in their control.
Commitment Strategy Examples
Now that you have an understanding of commitment strategies and how to use them to
create effective behavior change in your clients,
let’s take a look at a few case study examples.
Jan
Jan was a 47-year-old woman with a history of
overeating and isolating. Jan had lived alone for
many years, had few close relationships, and
only one remaining family member (her mother). In her youth, Jan had been very active, and
even run a few marathons, yet now found herself struggling with motivation, and the feeling
of “being heavy.” At the time Jan came to see
me, it had been six years since she had been at
her goal weight (135 pounds). In reviewing Jan’s
history, it became clear that from the time her
dad had died (six years prior), she had felt little
connection in her life, as evidenced by her frequent moves, as shown by the fact that she had
lived in eight different states, and job changes,
where she had held eighteen different jobs in six
years. What was even more clear, however, was
that the less connection Jan felt, the more her
weight became a problem. To achieve Jan’s goal
of returning to her “running weight,” we designed a commitment agreement targeting the
connection between her isolation and overeating. Jan was to join a running group as a pacer
(she was very confident in her ability to run)
for new runners that would be participating in
a marathon eight months away. Jan and I did
not have to assign a referee for her commitment
agreement as Jan would report to the director
of the running group three times a week at
the group’s training runs. However, the terms
of Jan’s agreement with the director were as
follows: she would have to commit to be available to train her group of twenty runners three
times a week, be available for questions during
the week (delivered via email) they may have
about training, hold the commitment for eight
months, and eventually run the marathon with
her group. If Jan defaulted on any part of the
agreement, she would never again be considered
as a pacer for the running group—or would she
be allowed to run with them again. Because Jan
felt confident in her ability as a runner, and as
she naturally loved to help people, this agreement achieved two things: it forced Jan to run at
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least three times per week and it connected her
with other people in a very powerful way. The
combination of the connection with others (Jan
didn’t want to let her runners down) and the
running provided an effective antidote to Jan’s
overeating, and the very strong penalty of never
again being allowed into the group should she
default on her agreement also worked as a powerful motivator toward her behavior change. Jan
was able to complete the commitment agreement, uphold her responsibilities as a pacer, and
returned to her running weight. After completing the marathon, Jan enjoyed the experience
so much—and for the first time in several years
felt connected to something—that she signed on
as a permanent running coach for the group.
Andrew
Andrew was a 39-year-old man with a lifelong
history of weight problems. Beginning just after
college, and after a difficult breakup, his weight
began to escalate. At first, he was not bothered
by the weight gain, but when his weight ballooned to over three hundred pounds, he knew
he had to take action. Going on a juice diet, he
lost eighty pounds, and returned to his pre-college weight. However, almost as soon as he lost
the weight, he regained it all—plus ten pounds.
By the time Andrew came to see me, he had repeated this cycle a total of five times. What was
clear to me was that for Andrew, losing weight
wasn’t hard, it was keeping weight off that was
the problem. Much of this was due to the fact
that in the past in order to lose the weight each
time, Andrew had gone on an extremely strict
diet, and by the time he reached his goal, his
willpower had been exhausted, and he binged
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on everything he had restricted from his diet to
lose the weight. In order to achieve his goal of
long-term weight loss, Andrew and I designed
a commitment agreement that targeted his
tendency to “backslide”, i.e., letting one slipup lead to a chain of them. The agreement was
as follows: Andrew was to maintain his usual
weight loss diet, with the exception of adding in
three “slipups” (where he ate one item he considered unhealthy) per week. After each slipup, Andrew was to immediately return to his
diet, without any further binges on his favorite
unhealthy foods. Andrew assigned his father as
the referee and set the terms of the agreement
as such: Andrew was to give his father $1,000,
for which his father was to return $50 after each
“bounce back” (this is the term we assigned to
recovering from an unhealthy food ingestion
with no further fallout). When Andrew regained all of his money, we restarted the agreement. After three successful cycles of the agreement, Andrew felt he no longer needed to have
the agreement in place to maintain his healthy
eating, and decided then to target his exercise
routine using a similar agreement, again first
assigning his father to the role of referee again.
No longer dieting and backsliding, Andrew was
finally confident in his ability to not only create
a habit of healthy eating, but to regulate his
behavior, and maintain his weight.
Jenny
Jenny was a 25-year-old woman who had been
heavy for most of her life. Although she played
softball throughout high school, and identified
herself as an athletic person, she had never
been able to “lose the last thirty pounds.” An
Commitment Strategies | 193
investigation into Jenny’s background, however, revealed a history of hiding food and binge
eating. Any time she was alone, Jenny would
binge eat, and many times turned down friends’
invitations for social events so she could stay
home and eat. What was clear to me was not
so much that Jenny had a problem with controlling herself around food, but that she had a
much larger problem of being alone. Jenny, herself, admitted that she didn’t remember the last
time she was alone and didn’t binge. To target
this problem, Jenny and I designed a commitment agreement where she was to spend one
night per week alone and not binge. Jenny chose
her best friend—who was aware of her binge
eating—as the referee, and we set the terms as
follows: Jenny was to give her best friend the
keys to her car for the one night she is alone; in
the morning, if Jenny had not binged, her friend
would return her car keys. The first week, Jenny
lost access to her car keys and had to ride her
bike to work (about five miles away). However,
the first week revealed something perhaps even
more important—Jenny enjoyed riding her bike
to work. In order to give the agreement time
to work, we didn’t change the terms, and the
second week, when Jenny’s best friend arrived,
Jenny informed her that she had not binged, but
that she also would like her friend to keep the
car keys for another week as she wanted to continue riding her bike to work. After two weeks
of riding her bike to work, Jenny’s weight began
to change, and for the first time in her life, she
began to feel successful. But she also realized
something else: what had begun as a commitment strategy to avoid binge eating turned
into a commitment strategy to ride her bike to
work. Perhaps even more importantly, what
became clear to Jenny was that being successful
at riding her bike to work gave her the confidence to not binge. Jenny’s friend kept her car
keys for eight weeks and Jenny not only rode
her bike to work, but to the grocery store, and
to run errands as well. By the time Jenny finally
asked for her car keys back, she had reached her
goal weight, and chose to enter a marathon as
another commitment agreement which would
encourage her to learn to run—something she
had always wanted to do—but also to continue
building her confidence.
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Summary
Attempts at weight loss, however, have historically been fraught with problems. As clients
consistently overlook the role of emotions, deny
themselves desirable foods (making them even
more desirable), fail to recognize self-control as
a limited resource or account for the decreasing
benefits of a desirable behavior over time or
the temptation costs of overriding other more
desirable options, what becomes clear is the
need for more effective strategies to achieve
their goals. One such strategy, called a commitment device, offers a way for clients to gain
leverage on themselves when it is most needed.
Through connecting long-term consequences
with actions taken in the present, making goals
less uncertain, limiting exposure to unreachable
thin ideals, and using mastery goals instead of
performance goals, clients can strengthen their
self-control, much like they would strengthen their physical muscles. Further, when clients use hard commitments—those with stiff
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penalties, firm rules and active referees—make
commitments to alliances, focus on inhibiting
(negative) action, as opposed to taking (positive)
action, use immediate penalties, and expose
themselves to the future consequences of their
actions, they employ the most powerful strategies of behavior change available today.
When personal trainers first familiarize their
clients with the commitment strategy design
and help them choose a strategy that uses
small goals with high confidence levels, frequent penalties, and connects goals to their
long-term outcomes, and then assign a fair and
capable referee for them to see through their
commitment, they become an invaluable asset
in helping their clients use small achievable
goals to propel larger qualitative change, and
ultimately help clients to apply the strategy to
overcome the many barriers to weight loss and
to help them realize the healthy lifestyle they
have been striving for.
UNIT 6
Flow and Experience Sampling
196 | Unit 6
Unit Outline
1.
Flow and Why it Matters
a.
Section One: Going Fast in Every Different
Direction
e.
Section Five: Turning Trials into Triumphs:
How Flow Helps Us Face Setbacks
f.
Section Six: A New Normal: How Optimal
Experience Transforms Our Lives
b. Section Two: The Spotlight Effect: How
Flow Harnesses Attention and Heightens
Awareness
g. Section Seven: The Experience Sampling
Method
c.
h. Experience Sampling for Personal Trainers
Section Three: The Gift of Stress: How Flow
Can Help Us Identify Our Strengths
d. Section Four: Wired to Transcend: How
Flow Transforms Us
2. Summary
Flow and Why It Matters
Today we are more distracted than ever. Statistics from 2013 reported in the Huffington Post
showed that Americans spent an average of
11.52 hours per day on some sort of digital device. If you stop and think about that, the number is quite startling. Indeed, for most people,
that is more than double the amount of time
they might spend productively working. And as
Sherry Turkle, the author of Alone Together, explains, it is not simply that we spend more time
than ever on our devices, it is that, “We expect
more from technology and less from others.”
On the other hand, there might be a larger issue
at hand, because it is not simply other people we
are distracted from. On a fundamental level, we
are distracted from ourselves.
Yet the numbers should also tell us that when it
comes to expectations, we prefer looking outward rather than inward and instead of asking
ourselves questions, we are asking them of our
devices. And while understanding ourselves
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more clearly might be a lengthy process—and
one in which the answers do not come immediately—information about the world around
us is now traveling faster than ever before. But
that might also be part of the problem: it is not
so much that we don’t want to look inward, it
is that we don’t have the patience for it. Indeed,
we have come to expect instantaneous results,
whether images, video, texts, and snippets of
information. It is attention condensed, summarized, and bullet-pointed—all in service of our
truncated attention spans.
And if we are used to seeing a panoply of
exciting images, videos, and dramatic headlines, when we look inward, we are likely to
be bored. And not simply bored, also likely
unable to focus. Because the questions we ask
of ourselves, such as What makes me happy?
What gives me meaning? What is most important to me?, are not going to jump off the page.
Instead, the qualitative questions that drive a
Flow and Experience Sampling | 197
fulfilled life are going to require some searching and will take some time.
Yet, we may have simply become accustomed to
allocating as little energy as possible to understanding things—even ourselves. Finding
meaning, purpose, fulfillment, after all, are
not small problems, and they don’t have immediate solutions. On a very basic level, they
are questions that require not only complete
attention, but also sustained attention. They
involve exploring ourselves, asking questions,
receiving feedback, adjusting our approach, and
asking again—all in the service of finding our
strengths and directing our resources toward
something larger and often more meaningful
than ourselves. And they may come with undue
hardship, especially if we are used to the kind of
injected stimulation that digital devices provide. We cannot simply change our newsfeed,
switch our Facebook friends, or scroll down
the page of our internal experience, because we
would be likely to hit some dead space.
And we might also simply be used to finding
the answers outside ourselves. And not just
answers, but feelings too. All of the screens
we look at, after all, are designed to make us
feel something, and while we might have been
moved on some emotional level when we began
looking at them, over time, we might start
looking to them to be moved. That is, to fill an
emotional space.
And filling emotional spaces—especially those
that result from not knowing the answers to
our own fundamental questions—from the
outside in is like running on a hamster’s wheel.
The more we look, the more disconnected from
ourselves we become, and the more the answers
evade us. And what the numbers show here, is
that while the time we spend with our devices
has steadily increased, our reported levels of
happiness have consistently decreased. So spend
time we might, but we are not finding the life
satisfaction we are looking for.
But, also we might just not recognize it. Life satisfaction, after all, unlike our smartphones, is not
at the mercy of our fingertips. It is not a smooth,
immediate, or even predictable process. But there
is one commonality that has been well recognized for some time: life satisfaction is rooted
in knowing—and activating—our strengths. If
there is anything studies on subjective well-being
have taught us, it is that we are happier when our
strengths are put to use.
And yet, if we have become accustomed to distraction, finding answers outside of ourselves,
and many would argue operating at sub-optimal levels, then activating our strengths will
feel foreign and unfamiliar to us. Perhaps what
distraction does is not just make us expect less
from those around us, but maybe on a certain
level, it makes us expect less from ourselves.
The optimal level—where presumably most
of us would like to be—requires not just that
we pay attention, but that we don’t mind the
challenge. In fact, the challenge energizes us
not only because it is the pursuit of something
much larger and more profound than what we
are used to, but because we recognize its familiarity. Whether it be somatic, like a felt sense, or
a conscious awareness, we all are driven toward
realizing our potential.
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Flow: state characterized
by intense and focused
concentration on the present
moment, what many call
“hyperfocus”; a merging
of action and awareness; a
feeling of oneness; a loss of
reflective self-consciousness,
described as having a “quiet
mind”; a sense of personal
control or agency over the
situation or activity, feeling
as if the task is challenging,
but one in which you are
capable; a distortion of
temporal experience, where
one’s subjective experience
of time is altered through
complete immersion in the
activity so that no attention
is paid to time; and an
experience of the activity
as intrinsically rewarding,
also referred to as autotelic
experience, where the
experience of the activity is
its own reward.
Psychic entropy: opposite
of peak experience.
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And this is what flow (the recognized term for operating at optimal
levels, first coined by the Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) offers: the heightening of our attention, the sharpening
of our strengths, and the self-transcendent experience that deeply elevates our existence. At some point, we have all been there,
so absorbed in something that we lost track of time. Flow is what
happens when what we are doing so captivates us, even almost enthralls us, that for a moment (and sometimes hours) our awareness
and actions merge, and our movements flow effortlessly, without
conscious thought, direction, or intervention. Our skills almost
perfectly match the demands of the task, and we experience the
challenge in front of us with the delighted exaltation that perfecting
our strengths provides. As we do, our self-consciousness quietens
and we feel what can only be described as a “passive mind and active
body.” In this self-transcendent state, many people describe experiencing feelings of euphoria, ecstasy, and elation. And while flow
is often attributed to extreme athletes or the most creative minds,
or indeed to exceptional performances, the experience is universal
to us all as we are all wired toward self-actualization. Because in
flow we get to know our greatest potential, we can come to see just
what we are capable of, and we emerge uniquely positioned not just
to face challenges, but to transform them into opportunities. And
consistently, those who report higher levels of flow also report better
adaptation to difficult life experiences. While Csikszentmihalyi says
that in flow we are made more complex, I would argue that in flow
we are made more capable.
Flow is a universal condition with unexpected benefits. Here, we
not only explore how flow makes us more capable, but how it can
dramatically improve our lives: teaching us not just to expect more
from ourselves, but also how to cultivate the very conditions that
make expecting more possible. We begin with an exploration of
psychic entropy, which is, in many ways, the opposite of flow, and
then look to the research on thermodynamics, energy, addictions,
and neurophysiology to help us understand just what flow is and
why it matters. Then, we turn our attention to awareness and draw
upon research on attention, conscious regulation, and even attention
deficit disorder to see how flow uniquely harnesses one of our most
powerful resources: our attention. Research on extreme athletes,
Flow and Experience Sampling | 199
outliers, and exceptional performers can inform
our understanding of how flow can help us realize our true potential—in the form of strengths
we might not have recognized. Then, we draw
on the most current research on elevated states
and transcendence, to see how flow can create
a self-transcendent experience that not only
helps us move past our weakness, but past
ourselves—in the service of something much
larger. You will also find interspersed in each
section a series of “Flow Power Ups” designed
to help you take the essential components of
flow and put them to use to turn your life—and
your clients’ lives—into optimal experiences.
Section One: Going Fast in
Every Different Direction: Why
Psychic Entropy Matters
More than anything else, men and women seek
happiness.
~Aristotle
Tom was distracted by the note his girlfriend
had left on the kitchen table from the time he
clocked in for his shift at the restaurant. Tom,
a waiter, was a model employee, yet today he
found himself forgetting orders, overlooking
specials, and even having to take several orders back—for errors he had made. As much
as he tried to bring his attention back to his
work—carefully reciting the specials of the day,
detailing specific orders, and making use of his
characteristic charm—all he could see was the
image of the note that read, “We have to talk.”
He replayed the events of the last few days and
imagined his girlfriend sitting across from him
and telling him that after six years, she was
through. Then he thought about the ring, his
plans to propose—he had already made the
reservations at their favorite restaurant—and
the life he had thought they would have together. Of course, his girlfriend, Cindy, knew
nothing of his plans, but for the first time in his
life, Tom had felt sure. And now it all seemed to
be crashing to a halt. Making matters worse, at
the end of his shift, Tom’s boss took him aside
and told him that he didn’t seem like himself.
For many of us, the feeling of distraction is
easy to recognize—especially if we spend any
amount of time there. We have trouble remembering things, easily miss important details,
and find completing tasks challenging. Distraction also effects those around us. Our relationships suffer when people feel we don’t invest
enough energy in them, and distraction can
even make us seem selfish.
But distraction might not accurately describe
what is happening when we find our minds
wandering. For most of us, the problem is not
so much that we have too many demands, it is
that we have competing demands. Presumably,
if the importance of any of the demands on us
significantly outweighed the others, we could
easily cease paying attention to the others.
However, what many of us call distraction is
really better understood as psychic entropy.
Entropy was first defined in Rudolf Clausius’s
classic description of the Carnot cycle in the
field of thermodynamics. In a Carnot cycle,
heat is absorbed from a hot reservoir (an isothermal process), and given up as heat to a cold
reservoir (an isothermal process). According to
the Carnot principle, work can only be produced by a system when there is a temperature
difference, and the work should be some function of the difference in temperature and the
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200 | Unit 6
heat absorbed. In other words, the heat energy
that leaves the system is greater than the heat
energy that entered the system, preventing the
cycle from outputting the maximum amount of
work as predicted by the Carnot equation.
But entropy doesn’t only sap energy from
thermodynamic systems, psychic entropy saps
energy from us. While studying the subjective
experiences of exceptional people, such as gifted
writers, talented athletes, and coveted painters,
noted psychologist and author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi found not only the constituents of
peak experience, but also its opposite: the state
of psychic entropy. Like with thermodynamic
entropy, psychic entropy results in a net loss
of energy because it disrupts our attention,
causes a reduction in psychic output, and leads
to a sub-maximal psychic effort. According to
Csikszentmihalyi, “Emotions refer to the internal states of consciousness. Negative emotions
like sadness, fear, anxiety, or boredom produce
psychic entropy in the mind, that is, a state in
which we cannot use attention effectively to
deal with external tasks, because we need it to
restore an inner subjective order.” Like Tom, the
waiter in our previous story, we could be preoccupied and worried about our relationships
while trying to perform our jobs. We might also
be angry about an argument we have had with
a loved one and be distracted and find ourselves
running a red light on the way home, simply
because we didn’t see it or react quickly enough.
Even further, we can feel as if our goals, ambitions, and dreams don’t fit the life we are living.
At some level, all psychic entropy is the result of
an energy imbalance, whereby more energy is
Transformation Specialist
devoted inward (to restore internal chaos) than
is devoted outward (toward our desired goals).
Psychic entropy can occur for many reasons. As
you saw in the example above, competing forces—like an upsetting argument with a loved one
or work demands—can create a state of entropy.
But entropy is also highly linked to feedback. If
feedback levels are too low, we have what Carl
Jung called a “closed system”, which doesn’t allow for the natural calibration that feedback usually supplies. The examples Jung gave involved
mental disturbances characteristic of intense
seclusion from the environment, such as the
dulling affect in dementia praecox or schizophrenia. For these people, their overdependence on
internal stimuli without external feedback is like
a system without checks and balances—there is
little insight. On the other hand, feedback levels
that are too high make focusing almost impossible, which is why most of us turn the radio
off when trying to navigate our way around a
crowded city. And, as you will see in the next
section, society plays a huge role in whether or
not we experience psychic entropy.
Powerpoint: Flow Power Up One:
Be Willing To Take a Risk
Because flow depends on a balance between
skills and challenges—with the challenge being
slighter greater than the skills—it comes with
inherent risk. There is a chance that we might
overestimate our skills, underestimate the challenge, not perform as we expect ourselves to, or
make mistakes. Ultimately, we could fail. Yet
if we avoid risk, we also avoid to opportunity
not just to find flow, but also to grow. In speaking about the relationship between risk and
Flow and Experience Sampling | 201
mastery, Kotler quoted England neuropsychologist Barbara Sahakian from Cambridge University, “If you are interested in mastery, you have
to learn this lesson. To really achieve anything,
you have to be able to tolerate and enjoy risk. It
has to become a challenge to look forward to.
In all fields, to make exceptional discoveries
you need risk—you’re just never going to have
a breakthrough without it.” Risk is simply part
of the process of learning. Avoiding it keeps us
attached to the outcome of avoiding failure, as
opposed to seeing risk and failure as essential
pieces of information that are crucial to the
process of learning. This is also why there is an
inverse relationship between perfectionism and
learning; whereby those who need to maintain a
visage of perfection are often unwilling to take
the risks needed to truly learn.
So how do you become more tolerant of risk?
The best way is to adopt a growth mindset. A
growth mindset, originally identified by Carol
Dweck, and described in her book Mindset: The
New Psychology of Success, means seeing your
ability as a malleable entity. Those who have
a growth mindset see outcomes as dependent
on effort. That is, what you get out is representative of what you put in. If you want a better
result, you simply need to apply more effort.
For people with a growth mindset, failure is an
impetus to try harder. On the other hand, people with a fixed mindset often see outcome as
dependent upon external factors—often out of
their control. Fixed mindsets also see ability as
a static state, and not one that can be improved.
For that reason, fixed mindsets also avoid risk,
and when failure happens, tend to also avoid
trying again. As Dweck explains, “When you
think about it. This makes sense. If, like those
with a growth mindset, you believe you can
develop yourself, then you’re open to accurate
information about your current abilities even if
it’s unflattering. What’s more, if you’re oriented
toward learning, you need accurate information
about your current abilities in order to learn
effectively. However, if everything is either good
news or bad news—as it is with fixed mindset
people—distortion almost inevitably enters the
picture. Some outcomes are magnified, others
are explained away, and before you know it, you
don’t know yourself at all.”
While a growth mindset might be advantageous to knowing yourself—and accurately
gauging your abilities—it is critical to finding
flow. Those who have a growth mindset not
only see their abilities as malleable, but because
they do, they tend to constantly assess them,
meaning that they always have their finger on
the scope of their skills. And because flow is
not a static state—but rather, tends to exist in
an upward helical cycle as our skills advance—
knowing just where your skills lie is crucial.
And facing the risk necessary for the upward
helical growth that flow offers is what a growth
mindset is all about. Because if you overshoot
your skills, or underestimate the challenge of
the task and experience failure, it is the growth
mindset that will get you back on your feet.
Overprotected and
Underprepared: An Entropic State
of Mind
Evelynn M. Hammonds, the former dean of
Harvard College is credited with first using the
term “overprotected and underprepared” when
describing her class of incoming freshmen.
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Hammonds went on to say that today’s students
“are less prepared than ever” to face the demands not just of college education, but of life
itself. Hammond’s assertion was seconded by
David McCullough Jr, in 2012, when delivering
the commencement speech at Wellesley High
School. Support for McCullough’s speech is not
hard to find as his speech went viral, and he
soon found himself writing a book titled, You
Are Not Special and Other Encouragements. The
point both Hammonds and McCullough were
making—and it is one that has been well recognized—is that today, we focus much more on
avoiding risk, than we do on actually learning
how to deal with it. And we certainly don’t see
the benefit of risk.
Consider the notion of risk management. The
idea is to reduce the exposure to risk. We might
start by writing down all of the possible things
that can go wrong, and then create plans for how
to deal with them. The problem is, we simply
cannot categorize, catalog, or write manuals for
the totality of risks that could occur. But we can
identify more conceivable risk, write longer lists,
and imagine more complex scenarios. And over
time, what we get better at is imagining more
potential setbacks. Risk, after all, happens in the
future, and the more we focus on future events
that do not have any sort of predictable nature,
the more we identify them. This is exactly why a
psychologist would not use a hierarchy of fears
with a patient who suffers from generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), but would with a patient
who has a specific phobia. Generalized anxiety
works on a system of anticipation, whereas specific phobias relate to fear of a predictable event.
And trying to manage anticipated fear by cataloging it is about as useful as trying to minimize
Transformation Specialist
risk by managing it. The problem is, this is
exactly the role society can find itself in, i.e., that
of a neurotic overprotective parent who creates
more harm than good. And what we end up with
though this is a state of disconnection—focused
on future risk while doing tasks in the present—
and a recipe for becoming bogged down by a set
of competing demands that ultimately lead us to
psychic entropy.
But let’s examine the equation another way.
Let’s say that we employed a strategy of risk
management that didn’t focus on avoiding risk.
Instead, it invited risk, uncertainty, opacity, and
even external entropy (entropy in the environment). And as opposed to trying to find ways to
better identify and minimize risk, it searched
for ways to use risk to improve the system as
a whole. We might call this “risk utilization.”
The result of this, according to Nassim Nicholas Talleb, author of Antifragile: Things That
Gain From Disorder, would be that we would
become less fragile and less susceptible to risk.
Through allowing “small errors” that typically
lead to improved knowledge, skills, and abilities, we become not just more robust, but even
antifragile. While Talleb’s claim may seem a bit
far-fetched, we only have to look to the psychological world to find support for it. Richard
Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun, two psychologists who studied people who had undergone
extremely traumatic events that usually lead to
post-traumatic stress disorder, uncovered a concept called “Post-Traumatic Growth”. Identified
as a response to trauma that exceeds pre-trauma levels of functioning, Tedeschi and Calhoun
found that more than half of people who undergo extremely challenging life events experience
post-traumatic growth as a response. Even more
Flow and Experience Sampling | 203
convincing, was that the more fundamentally
the traumatic event challenged a person, and
the longer the trauma continued, the greater the
level of growth that resulted.
You might be asking why very traumatic events
and the kind of environmental entropy that most
of us try to avoid actually leads to growth, but
the answer is relatively simple. When external
entropy is faced head on—either because it is
invited, as in Talleb’s example, or when it occurs
without warning, as in the case of trauma survivors—the psychic entropy that it causes leads
to growth. It is actually the case that when we
try to avoid the unavoidable—in the form of risk
or trauma—that we run into problems. Talleb
identified this through systems that overprotect
and underprepare, while Tedeschi and Calhoun
identified it through studying trauma survivors
who employed cognitive avoidance strategies, or
used illusive notions of growth, but in both cases
it is clear that denying entropy, whether it occurs
in the environment or the psyche, is a recipe for
fragility—and unhappiness.
One Is Too Many and Ten Is Never
Enough: What Addictions Can
Teach Us About Losing Control
There is perhaps no better place we can look to
understand how denying psychic entropy leads
to distress than to studying addictions. But first,
let’s employ a little physics. Identified in 1852 by
William Thomson, an Irish physicist, the law
of dissipation of energy states that in the material world, there exists a universal tendency
to the dissipation of mechanical energy. While
originally studying energy conservation—the
idea that energy within a system is nether lost
nor gained, but merely transferred—Thomson
noticed that when energy was directed toward
material things, it did not observe the law of
conservation. Thomson’s theory of energy dissipation has three important parts:
1.
There is at present in the material world a
universal tendency toward the dissipation of
mechanical energy.
2.
Any restoration of mechanical energy, without more than an equivalent dissipation, is
impossible in inanimate material processes,
and is probably never effected by means of
organized matter, either endowed with vegetable life or subject to the will of an animated
creature.
3.
Within a finite period of time past, the earth
must have been, and within a finite period
of time to come the earth must again be,
unfit for the habitation of man as at present
constituted, unless operations have been, or
are to be performed, which are impossible
under the laws to which the known operations going on at present in the material
world are subject.
The takeaway from Thomson’s work—and what
this has to do with addictions—is that when we
place energy in material things, there is no return. However, every addiction has, at its core,
a dependence on external (and non-animate
objects), that is, things that don’t return energy.
So let’s imagine a system like this: an undesirable
state is detected, and a more desirable state is
found (the “high” that characterizes addiction).
Because the desirable state provides relief from
the undesirable one, over time, it is employed
with greater frequency. However, this more desirable state doesn’t return any energy back. Like
a free-loading friend, the more we give (here, in
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time spent being high), the more we lose (here,
in psychic energy). And the more we lose, the
worse we feel, so the greater the attraction to the
desired state becomes. Over time, as we spend
more time in the desired state (high), the undesirable state—and the one that is causing the
entropy—becomes less and less appealing. Also,
the less time we spend facing psychic entropy,
the less able we are to fix it. But because we also
spend most of our time feeling high (desirable)
we would most probably also deny that we have a
problem. Thus, in effect we deny psychic entropy. Much like those in risk management employ
strategies to reduce the impact of risks by trying
to better anticipate them (when they are unpredictable by nature), an addict attempts to reduce
the impact of psychic entropy by avoiding the
very negative feelings that characterize it.
As those who work in addictions say, “It’s not
the drugs that create the drug addict, it is the
need to escape reality.” Indeed, current research
on addictions now recognizes it is a “dual
diagnosis” disorder, where the presence of an
underlying psychological condition (such as
depression, trauma, or anxiety) precedes the addiction. According to the dual-diagnosis theory,
unless we treat the underlying psychological
disturbance, the addiction will continue.
Whether we are trying to escape reality by
using drugs, or by minimizing risks that are
unpredictable by nature, the conclusion is the
same: escaping psychic entropy makes us more
dependent on the very mechanisms of escape.
Yet, as you will see in the next section, there is
one condition that does escape psychic entropy,
namely, the state of flow.
Transformation Specialist
Powerpoint: Flow Power Up Two:
Learn to Understand Adversity
While flow is arguably the most enjoyable experience available to us, in the moment, it is often
not reported as pleasant. Finding flow, after all,
involves facing challenges, which usually come
with adversity. And this makes sense, as our
strengths are best exposed when we are most
called to rise. Further, recognizing our greatest
potential is not supposed to be easy. However,
what makes flow so appealing is the opportunity that adversity offers: a chance to gauge
our strengths, draw upon our skills, refine our
abilities, and perhaps discover new strengths
we didn’t know existed. And while being in the
midst of struggle is not enjoyable, flow comes
with a considerable afterglow. For instance, not
only is there a hearty neurochemical boost—
dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins surge—
but when we reflect upon the experience, it is
usually with extraordinary fondness. And the
feelings are enduring—peak experiences when
reflected upon years later, can generate the same
neurochemical response as the original experience. But in order to get to flow, we have to be
willing to face some adversity.
More importantly, we have to understand
adversity. The struggle in facing challenges
exists to draw out our strengths, to test us, and
ultimately to expose the best we can possibly
be. However, struggling is not necessarily supposed to be enjoyable in the moment. It is when
we look back on the experience that we find
flow’s greatest gifts: knowing that we overcame
our limits and recognized new strengths and
skills. Ultimately, we became a better version of
Flow and Experience Sampling | 205
ourselves. As Csikszentmihalyi explains, flow is an experience that
is expansive, making the self more complex. Through facing our
biggest challenges, we develop a more enhanced sense of ourselves,
one that recognizes that our potential is as yet untapped. And further, one that sees flow—and the adversity inherent within—as the
wellspring of this potential.
Asymmetry for Symmetry’s Sake: What We Can
Learn from Flow?
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who coined the term “flow”, originally
set out to study exemplary people because he wanted to understand
what constitutes those “peak experiences” often described by champion athletes and recognized artists. However, what he discovered
was a state not just where psychic entropy is absent (he called this
state “negentrophy”) but where optimal experiences happen.
What Csikszentmihaly uncovered was that the state of flow differs
greatly from all other states of consciousness, such as psychic entropy,
where information conflicts with our existing intentions or prevents
us from carrying them out. In the state of flow, the entirety of our
attention is devoted to the task at hand. The example that Csikszentmihalyi gave was the difference between being distracted at work by
the flat tire you will have to deal with on your way home, and being
completely immersed in what you are doing. Csikszentmihalyi described this type of experience as “the order of consciousness”, where
all of the information that comes into our awareness is congruent
with our goals. In this state, psychic energy flows in the direction of
our intentions. That is to say, we operate without distraction, worry,
self-doubt, or questioning ourselves (Csiksentmihalyi, 2005).
According to Csikszentmihalyi, flow experiences result when the
challenge in front of us perfectly matches our skills. He described
a “flow channel”; whereby, when our skills exceed the task we face,
the result is boredom, while on the other hand, when the task is
too challenging, we experience anxiety. To have flow, then, challenges must fall into the “channel” just enough to challenge us, but
not too much to overwhelm us. When in the flow state, we become
Flow channel: when
challenges fall into the
“channel,” where they are
just enough to challenge
us, but not too much to
overwhelm us.
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so completely engrossed in the task at hand
that—without consciously choosing to—we
lose awareness of all other things: time, people,
distractions, and even basic bodily needs. The
reason for this, Csiksentmihalyi explains, is
because all of our attention in the flow state is
on the task at hand; there is no more attention
to be allocated (Csiksentmihalyi, 2008). Csikszentmihalyi further describes flow as the “optimal experience” and one that brings a high level
of gratification.
In describing what leads to flow, Csiksentmihalyi
explained that three conditions must be met:
1.
One must be involved in an activity with a
clear set of goals and progress. This adds
direction and structure to the task at hand.
2.
The task at hand must have clear and immediate feedback. This helps the person negotiate any changing demands and allows them
to adjust their performance to maintain the
flow state.
3.
One must have a good balance between the
perceived challenges of the task at hand and
their own perceived skills. One must have
confidence in one’s ability to complete the
task at hand (Csiksentmihalyi, 2005).
When all three conditions are met, the theory
holds that flow will be characterized by the
following six factors:
1.
Intense and focused concentration on
the present moment, what many call
“hyperfocus.”
2.
A merging of action and awareness, i.e., a
feeling of oneness.
3.
A loss of reflective self-consciousness, described as having a “quiet mind.”
Transformation Specialist
4.
A sense of personal control or agency over
the situation or activity, i.e., feeling as if the
task is challenging, but is one that you are
capable of achieving.
5.
A distortion of temporal experience, where
one’s subjective experience of time is altered,
i.e., complete immersion in the activity so
that no attention is paid to time.
6.
Experience of the activity as being intrinsically rewarding, also referred to as an autotelic
experience, i.e., where the experience of the
activity is its own reward (Nakamura, Csiksentmihalyi, 2014).
The trick to experiencing flow then is to find
just the right environmental conditions that
lead to the right level of arousal. Also, because
the arousal level is also influenced by a set of
internal factors, such as temperament, working memory capacity, cognitive appraisal and
processing, and previous experiences, just how
stimulated a person needs to be to find flow can
take some tinkering.
Yet when we look at the results of some neurophysiological studies that used EMG imaging
of the brain in flow we get a different picture.
When comparing the brains of two people
in identical circumstances, the brain in flow
looks dramatically different from the brain at
resting, but not in the way you might expect.
While in flow, there is a high arousal level,
but actually this involves no more stimulation
than the baseline levels. However, the brain
in flow shows activation on both sides of the
brain, while under normal conditions, there
is a dominance of left-brain activity. And this
makes sense. When we are completely absorbed
in an experience that we enjoy, we are employing imagery, visualization, and felt sense—all
Flow and Experience Sampling | 207
of which are brain processes on the right side
of the brain. Outside of flow—often to meet
daily demands—we rely on logical, analytical, left-brain processes. And the results are
dramatically different too. While in flow, we
experience challenges as enthralling, absorbing,
and even euphoric—in fact, they often excite
us. However, these same challenges in our daily
lives often leave us feeling overwhelmed, unable
to focus, and highly anxious. In flow though,
we are transformed: obstacles become exciting
tests of our skills, activating and directing our
strengths toward the challenge. And when in
flow, we experience ourselves differently. No
longer are we bound by our imposed limits,
but rather, we are capable, indeed more capable
than we have ever been. And the reason for this
might have something to do with symmetry.
While Talleb describes antifragility in asymmetrical terms—defining antifragility as the
presence of more positive than negative outcomes after exposure to uncertainty or stressors—flow can be understood as both symmetrical and asymmetrical. It is a state that creates
a unified interaction of right- and left-brain
process in an upward trajectory that expands
the sense of self. Not only do we become more
at one with the self through flow, but the self
at which we become one with becomes more
advanced, better able to take on stressors and
harnessing our best resources to meet the challenge. And the result is not just an improved
sense of self, it is an expanded sense of self—
one that incorporates the experience of risk,
difficulty, and stress in a process that seeks not
to manage them, but rather to use them.
Yet the evaluation of symmetry and asymmetry
is implicit in every situation we find ourselves in,
i.e., as an assessment of the benefits and losses
(or pros and cons). It’s only natural to weigh up
what we stand to lose alongside what we stand to
gain. For example, if we could gain five thousand
dollars, but might lose only five hundred in the
process, the risk might be worth it. On the other
hand, if we could lose five thousand, while only
potentially gaining five hundred, the answer
is less obvious. However, to really determine
asymmetry, we need to weigh up the potential
gains against the equivalent potential losses. For
instance, if the pain of losing five thousand outweighs the benefit of gaining five thousand, we
would have a case of asymmetry.
The important thing to understand about flow is
that it is a game of symmetry. And where there
is symmetry, there is paradox. While we should
have a degree of confidence in our ultimate
success, we might also recognize our complete
lack of control over the external circumstances
that we face. But if our confidence outweighs the
invariability that surrounds us, we are not challenged. We are bored. On the other hand, if we
feel as though the uncertainty that we face (and
the perceived chance of failure) is too great, we
have anxiety. And this is the paradox of control:
in flow one feels both in control, and at the mercy of the task—in equal proportions.
And because symmetry in flow can also been
seen through the combination of two central
characteristics of flow: the merging of action and
awareness and the loss of self-consciousness, the
loss of self-consciousness may provide a gateway
through which the feeling of control is facilitated.
So here is the second paradox in flow: it is only
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when we let go of control (through decreased
self-consciousness), that we truly gain control.
The energy states in flow also observe a symmetrical nature; whereby, what we put out we
gain back. Rather than relying on mechanical
energy (or the use an external energy supply),
flow is powered by the feedback we receive—
often, the more immediate the feedback, the
greater the opportunity for flow. Those in flow
consistently report significantly elevated states
of energy, which are often combined with
the accomplishment of otherwise physically
impossible tasks. And these states cannot be
attributed only to physical causes, because flow
states, while they require a physical condition
that provides immediate feedback and clear and
consistent goals, depend rather on a physiological readiness, marked by one’s arousal states.
Arousal states are psychic states. So here is the
third paradox of flow: the more we devote our
energy to reaching our threshold for being challenged (remember the “flow channel”), the more
energy we gain in return.
And this might be the biggest argument we can
make for flow: that flow directs our energy into
a system that pays dividends. Unlike synchronization with the material world, flow involves
synchronization with ourselves, and offers clear
psychic rewards.
Here are the important points to take away:
1.
Psychic entropy, which means to be distracted and not focused, doesn’t just sap our
mental and psychological energy, it saps our
physical energy too.
2.
Avoiding risk is not just a recipe for fragility,
it also disables growth.
Transformation Specialist
3.
Trying to avoid or distract ourselves from
a feeling of discontentment leads to dependence on external factors, and a lack of
growth.
4.
Flow is a state which creates a unified interaction of right- and left-brain processes in an
upward trajectory that expands the sense of
self.
5.
The result (of flow) is not just an improved
sense of self, it is an expanded sense of self:
one that incorporates the experience of risk,
difficulty, and stress in a process that seeks
not to manage them, but rather to use them.
Powerpoint: Flow Power Up Three:
Clear Goals
As you already know from above, clear goals
are one of the three requirements of flow, as
described by Csiksentmihalyi. But clear goals
also promote flow. When we know exactly
what is expected of us, not only can we measure progress, we can also assess our level of
mastery. If, for example, the goal is to shoot a
free throw shot, with each shot we throw we
will know whether or not we have met our goal.
Further, we will know where we are in relation
to meeting our goal. A ball that flies past the
backboard is clearly nowhere near the target,
while a ball that hits the rim, on the other hand,
is very close to becoming a ball that goes in the
basket. It is this kind of knowledge that makes
clear goals the foundation of mastery. And
as mastery is an integral part of motivation,
knowing we are close to reaching our target sets
in motion the drive to keep practicing until we
reach it. So how do we make our goals more
clear? First, they should be measurable. While
it’s fine to say that you would like to be a nicer
Flow and Experience Sampling | 209
person, and it’s clearly a worthy goal, there is
no real way to measure it. Niceness is simply
too subjective. What one person considers nice,
another may consider to be neutral, or even
self-serving. However, if we wanted to be nicer,
we could set ourselves goals like: to say thank
you ten times in one day; to open a door for
at least three people in a day; to do five acts of
service for others; or to schedule fifteen minutes
a day to tell one person how much you appreciate them. With goals like this, it is not hard
to determine whether or not we have reached
them, as well as just how close we are to hitting
the target. But goals should also be time oriented. Much like the example above, a goal to
thank ten people at some point in the future is
impossible to measure. But adding a time limit
to goals makes them measurable. You can very
easily determine if you have thanked ten people
in a day, opened the door for three people in
one week, etc. Time limits not only keep goals
clear, they create a boundary between where
we are and where we would like to be (goal
attainment). It is this recognition—that we are
not where we want to be—that inspires the
challenge that goals offer, namely to enable us
to become a better version of ourselves. Lastly,
goals should be attainable. For example, a goal
to run a marathon in two weeks is certainly
measurable and time oriented, but for a person
who has not been training, it is probably not
very attainable (without some serious pain).
On the other hand, this might be a perfect goal
for someone who regularly clocks twenty mile
runs. The reason attainability matters is because when goals are attainable they provide a
glimmer of possibility. While we may have to
struggle to reach them, they appear just possible
enough that we will give it a try. As you will remember from section one, one of the conditions
of flow is that we experience a balance between
our perception of our skills and our perception
of the challenge in front of us. Feeling that the
goal is possible (albeit with some hard work)
means that we got the balance right.
Now here is the fun part. And you can choose
any area of your life that you like: perhaps you
want to get out of bed earlier, exercise every day,
eat healthier, improve your mood, or finish a
long forgotten project. All you have to do is create a goal that is measurable, time oriented, and
attainable. Let’s take a look at a few examples:
Area to
Improve
Goals
List three things you are grateful for
every day.
Mood
Help one person every day for one
week
Forgive three people who have
harmed you in one week.
Do fifty push-ups every day for one
week.
Health
Walk ten miles in one week.
Drink a green smoothie every day for
one week.
Complete one new project every day
for one week.
Productivity
Get up fifteen minutes earlier every
day for one week.
Spend twenty minutes every day preparing for the next day’s tasks.
Choose one task to master in one
week.
Performance
Select three new challenges for yourself every day for one week.
Train with someone better than yourself two times in the next week.
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Clear goals not only give us direction, but provide a window of opportunity—a glimpse into
just what we are capable of—that when acted
upon, come with some pretty hefty rewards.
Not only does our sense of mastery flourish
when we set goals with which we can measure
progress, but there is a very powerful neurochemical reward to reaching goals. Accomplishing challenging tasks sends dopamine,
norepinephrine, and serotonin levels surging.
And this potent neurochemical cocktail not
only skyrockets our mood—we are likely to feel
euphoric, energized, alive, and hyperfocused—
but turns on the drivers of motivation and flow,
making us want to take on more challenges and
accomplish even more goals.
Section Two: The Spotlight
Effect: How Flow Harnesses
Attention and Heightens
Awareness
The tragedy of life is in what dies inside a man
while he lives—the death of genuine feeling, the
death of inspired response, the awareness that
makes it possible to feel the pain or the glory of
other men in yourself. ~Norman Cousins
In a 2009 Stanford University study investigating the effects of multitasking, study author Clifford Nass concluded, “The research is
almost unanimous, which is very rare in social
science, and it says that people who chronically
multitask show an enormous range of deficits.
They are basically terrible at all sorts of cognitive tasks, including multitasking.”
While research like this shouldn’t shock
us, the problem for many of us is that
Transformation Specialist
multitasking—which is a form of psychic entropy—is really a silent killer. While we may be
aware that we are more tired after a day of juggling several different tasks, and that competing
demands make us focus on the wrong things,
we seldom realize just what multitasking does
to our awareness.
Looking Everywhere and
Noticing Nothing: The Problem of
Multitasking
Toggling between emails, upcoming meetings, text messages, and Facebook updates for
instance is not as simple as it sounds. Every
time we transfer our attention from one task
to another, there is a cost, much like changing
cell phone carriers. For a typical office worker,
the result is a net loss: interruptions happen on
average every 11 minutes, while it takes 25 minutes to return to the original task (Mark, 2013).
In one study, subjects were asked to sit in a lab
and perform a standard cognitive skill test;
two-thirds were told they might be contacted
for further instructions, while the remaining
one-third was simply asked to complete the test.
In the first part of the experiment, the second
and third groups were interrupted twice. Then a
second test was administered, but this time only
the second group was interrupted, while the
third group awaited an interruption that never
came. The three groups were labeled Control,
Interrupted, and High Alert. The results were
eye opening: during the first test, both the interrupted groups answered correctly 20 percent
less often than members of the control group.
In other words, both the distraction of an
interruption, and the brain drain of preparing
for an interruption, made test takers 20 percent
Flow and Experience Sampling | 211
dumber. In relative terms, that’s enough to turn
a B-minus student (80 percent) into a failure (62
percent) (Acquisti & Peer, 2014).
But the real problem is not just that we all
multitask, it’s that when we do—just like the
study subjects—we learn to expect to be interrupted. If we are used to a daily onslaught
of ringing phones, disgruntled employees
and customers, and unexpected demands,
the effect is the same as driving on a crowded
freeway in the rain: we are constantly on high
alert, even when we don’t need to be. In what
Nass calls “suckers for irrelevancy”, our ability
to decipher the importance of interruptions
becomes muted and we find ourselves responding to everything with high importance.
But this is also what those who study trauma
know as an “exaggerated startle response.” The
idea is that, after we have faced an event that
overwhelms us emotionally, we become much
more aware of our surroundings—known as
“hypervigilance”—and remain on high alert,
ready to detect any future catastrophes. Thus,
after a traumatic event, we can often find
ourselves jumpy, edgy, and nervous, and in a
constant state of overreacting.
Hypervigilance is a mindset that overestimates
the potential for danger at any given moment,
meaning that we have trouble differentiating
harmlessness with dangerousness. In one recent
study, exposure to conflict and violence in
the home correlated positively with children’s
trouble regulating their emotions in less risky
situations, such as in the classroom. Verbal and
physical aggression between parents from infancy through early childhood also significantly
predicted children’s inability to accurately identify emotions at 58 months of age, where the
higher exposure to physical aggression between
parents was associated with children’s lower
performance on a simple emotions labeling task
(Ravel et al., 2014). These findings were later
duplicated by a four-year study examining the
effect of hypervigilance across twelve different cultures. The result in every one of the 12
cultures was that when children believed an
act was the result of hostile intent, not only did
they misread emotions, but they were more
likely to react aggressively. In fact, on average, they were five times more likely to do so
compared to children who accepted the act as
non-hostile. And in an even more concerning
finding, children who had acquired a hostile
attributional bias were more likely than other
children to experience a growth in the rate and
severity of their aggressive behavior across the
four years of the study (Dodge, et al., 2015).
Kenneth A. Dodge, a director of the Center for
Child and Family Policy at Duke University
and the study’s lead author, concluded, “Our
study identifies a major psychological process
that leads a child to commit violence.”
This major psychological process—, i.e., an
exaggerated startle response—has even been
identified with stimuli as mild as a phone
ringing, a door opening, or a clock alarm. Not
surprisingly, the more stressed or anxious we
are, the more likely we are to develop a pattern of overreacting. And because overreacting
involves the parasympathetic nervous system,
restoring a state of calm can take some time—
probably longer than the typical 11 minutes
between interruptions—leaving us in a constant
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state of worry. The more familiar this pattern
is, the harder it can be for the body to let go of
it afterwards. For some people, this is habitual,
with them living in hypervigilance, with their
tense muscles echoing their previous responses
to an alarming situation (Jones, 1988).
Interestingly, the long-term result of over-exaggerating the potential for danger—what
psychologists call “attentional bias”—may have
another unexpected downside. In a 2010 study,
psychologists at the Tel-Aviv University found
that many subjects who had been exposed to
the acute stress of daily bombings had developed symptoms of post-trauma that was manifested as a dissociative state rather than one of
hypervigilance (Bar-Heim et al., 2010). This dissociative state—induced by fearful conditions—
was found in a separate study to not only affect
the responses to fearful stimuli, but also how
well we remember unrelated events when we are
in a fearful state. The study measured the electrodermal activity of 86 individuals in a fearful
context generated in the laboratory and in a
neutral context in which they had to learn a list
of words. One week and two weeks after the experiment, the subjects were tested to see which
words they remembered. While a “forgetting
curve” was identified in both groups (and is
considered normal), in the fearful context, the
rate of forgetting was much higher (Packard,
et al., 2014). It may be that this is the paradox
of constantly being on high alert: we are more
reactive to stimuli (even the non-threatening
kind), and yet less able to deal effectively with
it. Our ability to react is a finite resource, and
the more we expend on irrelevant interruptions,
the less there is available to deal with genuine
threats. Much like consuming large quantities
Transformation Specialist
of alcohol leads to muted effects—which we also
know as tolerance—chronic overreacting leads
to chronic underreacting.
Constantly being on high alert not only makes
us expect the worst, misread emotions, and
have trouble differentiating between harmless
and harmful stimuli, but, as you will see in the
next section, distraction comes with more than
a few hidden costs.
Powerpoint: Flow Power Up Four:
Immediate Feedback
Like clear goals, feedback is a barometer upon
which we can measure our progress. It is how we
determine if we are approaching our target, or if
we are simply shooting into the bleachers. Feedback is also how we orient ourselves toward our
goal. For example, if the goal is to master the task
of writing the perfect chapter for a book, sending
our material to an accomplished editor is likely
to let us know if we are on our way. Similarly, if
our goal is to walk one mile every day and we
find that we are more likely to do it if we walk
with a friend, this knowledge lets us know that
to be successful we may have to have a standing
appointment with a friend. Feedback—in the
form of knowledge that we are getting closer to
our goal—is also a fundamental part of mastery.
When we can see just what the results of our
efforts are, we can adjust our approach, try new
techniques and skills, and test them against the
feedback we receive. And when it’s immediate,
feedback sends mastery into overdrive. As Kotler
notes, “When feedback is immediate, the information we require is always close at hand. Attention doesn’t have to wander.” And because our
attention doesn’t have to wander, we don’t have
Flow and Experience Sampling | 213
to guess at how we are doing and our focus tightens, and absorption (a fundamental component
of flow) then begins to take place. And the more
immediate the feedback, the more we cut down
on the very distraction that interrupts the flow.
So how do we make feedback more immediate?
Take a look at the list of goals in the section
above. The first one—to be nicer—is one that
most of us probably don’t stop to think about
too frequently, if at all. Instead then, we could
use a daily reminder to ask ourselves how we are
doing. Or better yet, we could use three. On the
other hand, we can ask for feedback from some
else, like a daily report on how we are doing. If
our goal is to learn a new skill, we can video tape
our practice and ask for feedback on each practice session. If we want to be more productive at
work, we can ask for a daily progress report.
What immediate feedback does is pull us into
the experience. When we become absorbed in
what we are doing, and that absorption brings
us closer to our goal attainment, our motivation soars. And there is also a very powerful
neurochemical response that comes along with
getting closer to our goal: the closer we get, the
more we visualize ourselves reaching our goal,
and these visualized images of success create
the exact same neurochemical response in the
brain as actual ones. The result puts the reward
circuitry of the brain on high alert—letting it
know we are nearing our goal—and sends us
powerfully into flow.
The Hidden Costs of Distraction
When Michigan State University’s Mark Becker set out to study the association between
media multitasking and mental health, he
didn’t expect to find such a clear association.
And while Becker cautioned, “We don’t know
whether media multitasking is causing symptoms of depression and social anxiety, or if it’s
that people who are depressed and anxious
are turning to media multitasking as a form of
distraction from their problems,” what is clear
is that national rates of anxiety and overall
media use—as well as the amount of time spent
multitasking between media—have increased
concurrently, indeed 45 percent and 120 percent, respectively (Becker, 2012).
Interestingly, the emergence of anxiety seems to
peak between the ages of 18 and 25 years old—
the same time media multitasking also reaches
a peak. While it is presumptuous to draw a causality between multitasking and anxiety, we can
look at the effect another way. In examining the
question of whether increasing the focus—and
reducing distraction—leads to a reduction in
anxiety, one study asked anxious college students (with both high and low anxiety scores)
to complete a video game exercise designed to
increase attention and reduce distraction. Participants identified a specific shape in a series
of shapes (e.g., a red circle amid red squares,
diamonds, and triangles), followed by a separate task where the shapes were interspersed
with different shapes and colors. Being asked
to focus improved concentration and lessened
anxiety for the anxious participants in particular, even after performing the exercise designed
to distract them. The results of this study were
further supported by the work of Professor Michael Eysenck and Dr. Nazanin Derkshan, who
designed several experiments to explore the effects of anxiety on our ability to perform tasks,
such as avoiding distractions on a computer
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screen, when reading a story, or when solving
a series of simple mathematics problems. What
Eysenck and Derkshan found was that anxiety
had a greater effect on how much effort it took
to perform a task than on how well the task was
actually performed. Put another way, anxiety
comes with a lot of “hidden costs” that are not
often apparent in performance. According to
Professor Eysenck, these findings have clear
practical implications in the classroom:
“A lot of the negative effects of anxiety appear
to be caused by difficulties with controlling
attention. This suggests that training techniques
designed to enhance attentional control, such as
the ability to ignore distractions and to switch
attention from one task to another, could help
anxious students to achieve their academic
potential,” he explains.
Results like this might fly in the face of what
many of us think about multitasking, i.e., that it
makes us more efficient. The problem, however,
is that while we may think we are saving time by
sending emails, answering the phone, and ordering lunch all at the same time, time efficiency
is not a cognitive efficiency. The effort it takes
to harness attention toward avoiding common
attentional mistakes, such as sending the wrong
email, ordering a salad instead of a sandwich,
and forgetting to pick up the dry cleaning, may
outweigh the time we think we save. And, it may
also cause us to make impulse decisions.
Distraction Leads to Impulse
Decisions
To understand just how distraction leads to
impulse decisions, we first have to understand
Transformation Specialist
a little bit about neurophysiology—that is, how
actions, decisions, and impulses are stimulated.
Neuorphysiology tells us that in order to generate an action—known as a nerve action potential—three things are required: depolarization,
afterhyperpolarization, and refractory periods.
Beginning at a resting state, an organism is
stimulated—or depolarized—until reaching a
threshold potential, or the critical level of depolarization required to initiate an action potential. After the action occurs, there is a period
of “afterpolarization,” followed by a refractory
period, during which an organism returns to
the resting state and it is impossible to evoke
another action. Originally discovered by Alan
Lloyd Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley—and later
dubbed the “Hodgkin–Huxley Model”— the
threshold potential basically says that, in order
to respond to a stimulus, an organism must be
appropriately rested or depolarized. The model
states that when organisms are “hyperpolarized” or over-stimulated, the threshold potential cannot be reached (Burke et al., 2001).
Going further, the model explains that when
an organism is chronically hyperpolarized—
which is like being constantly distracted—the
result is several failed attempts at action. Like
trying to find your way in a crowded city with
the radio blasting, hyperpolarization puts
us in a state of paralysis. While in the Hodgkin–Huxley model the result may be failed
attempts at action, in our brains it may involve
missing the turn, yelling at our fellow passenger, or rear-ending the car in front of us—all
failed attempts at finding our way.
The reason why depolarization, after hyperpolarization, and refractory periods matter is that
Flow and Experience Sampling | 215
they explain how stimuli—and especially competing stimuli—affect our decisions. Because
action potentials are known as “all-or-none”
signals, increasing the amount, or strength, of
stimuli won’t increase the amplitude of the action generated. In other words, a child screaming, a phone ringing, and the car in front of us
slamming on the brakes don’t just distract us,
they compete for our attention, and the result of
our incomplete attention is we are more prone
to making impulse decisions.
Like the quote by Cousin’s at the beginning of
this section references, a loss of awareness is not
just the loss of genuine feeling and the ability
to feel pain and glory, but most profoundly, the
loss of what is possible. Particularly with hypervigilance, without first being able to identify that you are anxious—and perhaps more
importantly, being able to register a difference
between a feeling of calm and a feeling of anxiety—overcoming it becomes impossible. Yet
herein lies the tragedy of the distracted lives we
live: not only do we not recognize the hidden
costs of our failing awareness, but we also don’t
recognize that anything different is possible.
We now spend considerable amounts of time
and money on mindfulness-based programs
designed to improve our awareness and ability
to “live in the moment”, yet at the same time,
six out of ten people report searching for more
meaning and greater fulfillment in life.
It might be that mindfulness, for many people, misses the mark. Remember from section
one, optimal experience occurs when we are in
a “flow channel,” where the challenges of the
task almost perfectly align with our skills and
we are neither overwhelmed nor bored. Facing
challenges in the service of perfecting our skills
calls upon something most of us recognize on
a very primal level: the desire to recognize our
potential. The problem with mindfulness is not
so much that challenges are often unclear (if
identifiable at all) and hard to recognize, but that
the skills of mindfulness are often just as obscure—and perhaps more importantly, may not
play to our strengths. Unlike throwing a javelin,
hitting the perfect running stride, or becoming
immersed in creating a work of art, learning to
stay present in the moment is hard to quantify.
As evidenced by the fact that many people also
report feeling bored when trying to meditate, it
seems that facing challenges and harnessing our
strengths is part of our very nature. But more
importantly, it may be that challenges are a fundamental component of awareness.
Awareness: From a Bicameral
Perspective
There is perhaps no better place to understand
just how challenges develop awareness than in
the world of sports. By examining the effects
of performing athletics on cognitive ability,
researchers from the University of Montreal
worked with 102 professional English Premier
League soccer players, NHL hockey players,
France’s top 14 club rugby players, and 173 elite
amateur athletes recruited from the NCAA
American university sports program and a European Olympic training center, and 33 non-athlete university students. The participants undertook a “3D-MOT” task fifteen times to evaluate
several skills that are critical to visual perceptual
and cognitive abilities when viewing complex
scenes, including the distribution of attention
between a number of moving targets among
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distractions, a large field of vision, the maximum
speed of objects that one is able to follow, and the
ability to perceive depth. The scene that was used
was “neutral”, so that there was no sport-specific
familiarity to any of the participants, such as
play knowledge or experience, that could influence the score as the movements and interactions
were totally random. It was found that, not only
did the athletes outperform their non-athletic
counterparts, but they showed increased cortical
thickness in areas related to attention and focus.
Over the course of the study—which involved 15
training sessions—all three groups (professional athletes, amateur athletes, and non-athletes)
improved their scores; however, the professional
athletes were able to learn how to track fast moving objects at a much superior rate compared
to the other groups. Lead researcher Jocelyn
Faubert explains, “It would appear that athletes
are able to hyperfocus their attention to enhance
learning, which is key to their abilities.”
Hyperfocusing, which is the ability to direct and
shift attention between scenes, while also tuning
out irrelevant stimuli, is a critical component of
all sports, but as evidenced by the higher learning rate demonstrated by the athletes, it might
also be how we heighten awareness. In flow, we
learn to hyperfocus because the environment demands our attention. While it’s easy to imagine
letting your mind wander while cooking dinner, it’s not so easy to imagine drifting off when
playing a fast-paced game of racquetball. Because
optimal experience captures our attention in
this way, not just do we become immersed in the
experience, but as Csikszentmihalyi says, “We
are not able to think of anything else.” It is this
crucial element of challenge that defines the state
of flow, and determines the conditions under
which our awareness thrives.
Transformation Specialist
It is also in facing challenges that awareness
takes on a bicameral nature, that is, it comprises both physical (in the form of some physical
task) and cognitive (in the form of shifting and
directing attention) components. As Csikszentmihalyi explains, “Optimal experience, where
we feel a sense of exhilaration and a deep sense
of enjoyment that is long cherished does not
come through passive, receptive, relaxing times.
The best moments usually occur when a person’s body and mind are stretched to its limits
in a voluntary effort to accomplish something
difficult and worthwhile. Such experiences are
not necessarily pleasant at the time they occur. Yet in the long run, optimal experiences
add up to a sense of mastery, or better a sense
of participation in determining the content of
life.” Heightening awareness—and being fully
immersed cognitively—it seems, depends on
being fully immersed physically. Moreover, the
pursuit of a goal, as Cskiszentmihalyi explains,
“brings order in awareness” because we must
concentrate everything on the task at hand and
momentarily forget everything else. By transcending mindfulness, heightening awareness
through optimal experience is both a physical
and cognitive pursuit—and one where we must
become an active participant. Indeed, being
challenged and persevering despite setbacks
and obstacles is not just an admirable trait, it is
a key to enjoying life. Often, these very memories of overcoming challenges are what people
reflect upon as the most enjoyable times in their
lives. To be sure, it is impossible to separate
optimal experience—and the hyperfocus it cultivates—from the physical exaltation of taking
on and mastering challenges. And while the
practice of developing our skills and realizing
our potential is also the practice of heightening
Flow and Experience Sampling | 217
awareness, becoming fully engaged in an experience is also exactly what frees us from what so
frequently derails awareness: self-doubt.
Autonomy from Self-doubt
When coaches describe the skills behind mental
toughness one of the most common is the ability to focus—and more specifically, the ability to
tune out self-doubt. Studying the psychological
qualities that marked athletes for greatness,
sports scientists from the University of Lincoln,
UK, and Liverpool John Moores University
(LJMU), UK, interviewed academy coaches at
an unnamed English Football Premiership club.
While academy recruits were typically subjected to tough physical drills, high expectations,
and harsh criticism, one of the factors that
strongly separated the tough players from the
less tough ones, was a greater sense of independence. This independence was witnessed in the
ability to recover from criticism, as well as from
setbacks. While their more high maintenance
counterparts required more attention, support,
and supervision to overcome play errors, the
mentally tough players were able to tune out
criticism (or to use it to improve their performance) and appeared to take greater personal
responsibility over their development.
Tuning out self-doubt is not just a critical element of any sports performance, but is a requirement of heightening awareness. Because
self-doubt acts in direct opposition to performance, there is no greater threat to interrupting
attention to a task than doubting your ability to
perform it, which not only interrupts engagement, but also awareness. And this is one of the
most appealing components of flow, i.e., that it is
an experience free from self-doubt. Reports from
people after achieving an optimal experience
consistently reveal the same thing: an absence
of conscious thought, and more importantly,
absence of self-consciousness. For many, it is
this very loss of self-consciousness that leads to
self-transcendence. As the concept of who we
are—and the boundaries, limits, and constraints
that typically confine us—are temporarily forgotten, we expand upon our sense of self, and
quite often, overcome previously held limits.
The ability to do what was not thought possible before is a common occurrence of optimal
experience that happens when we suspend what
is typically encased in our self-doubt, namely
our fears, worries, anxieties, and self-criticisms.
In particular, letting go of our worries of losing
control, is not just tremendously enjoyable, but
also increases our feeling of being able to exercise control. Instead of worrying about dropping
the wine glass, we are able to concentrate on
just how to balance it. Further, instead of seeing
ourselves as a clumsy person who typically drops
wine glasses, we experience our ability to shift
seamlessly under its weight, as our actions seem
to occur without conscious prompting, and more
importantly, without self-doubt.
While diminished awareness impairs our ability
to differentiate between harmful and innocuous
stimuli, demands greater cognitive effort, and
leads to us making impulse decisions, perhaps
the greatest handicap is that it holds us hostage.
When we are blind to our faults, we are also
blind to the possibility that exists in overcoming
them—and consequently in realizing our greatest potential. And this is the door that optimal
experience opens: through heightening awareness, we become the best versions of ourselves.
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Here are the important points to take away:
1.
Constantly being on high alert not only
makes us expect the worst, it also leads to us
misreading emotions and having trouble differentiating between harmless and harmful
stimuli.
2.
Time efficiency is not cognitive efficiency,
while multitasking comes with several “hidden costs,” including increased anxiety.
3.
Environmental stimuli compete for our attention, and often cause us to make impulse
decisions.
4.
Being fully engaged in an experience not
only heightens our awareness, it also frees us
from self-doubt.
Powerpoint: Flow Power Up Five:
Enjoyment of the Activity
While we know from section one that in
order to send us into flow an activity has to
be rewarding, it is more important that it is
rewarding for the right reasons. Flow activities are autotelic in nature—meaning they
are intrinsically rewarding. While there is
nothing wrong with earning several awards
and medals for running marathons, it is not
likely to lead us to flow. Instead, we must put
in and enjoy the long hours on the road, the
early mornings, sore muscles, and the feeling of fatigue at the end of a long run. This
is the difference between outcome and process. The outcome is the accolades we get by
doing something; while the process is what
we do to earn those accolades. Activities that
lead to flow, therefore, are those where we are
not attached to any specific outcome—other
than enjoyment. We don’t do them because
we need to win, earn respect, or beat an
Transformation Specialist
opponent—although those things are nice—we
do them simply because we love doing them,
win or fail. The reason it is so important that
an activity be intrinsically rewarding to lead
to flow is that flow is a state that is dependent
on a sense of control and autonomy. If we are
doing something because we are dependent on
the outcome it brings, or we are forced to—or
even forcing ourselves to—we will have lost a
sense of autonomy, and a sense of control. In
order to find flow, we must feel free to choose
what we do, where we do it, and when we do
it. We must feel intrinsically pulled toward it
for our own reasons, not pushed toward it for
reasons that are external to us. In the end, we
must love to do it because it ignites a passion
deep inside us and makes us feel alive.
For most people, autotelic activities have their
roots in childhood play, e.g., inventors likely
took things apart as kids, skateboarders built
ramps in their backyards, and writers most
likely read. And the reason for this is, for kids,
the goal is to have fun. The outcome—winning
or losing—is often secondary, and not consciously considered. So how we find autotelic
activities as adults then often involves going
back to the things we enjoyed as kids. If you
recall playing for hours outside, try an activity
that takes you back into nature. If you enjoyed
spending time with animals, find something
you can do now that involves animals. If you
spent hours dressing up dolls, try designing
clothes. Mental detours back to childhood,
such as these, often come with numerous
positive memories, and also remind us of the
importance of doing something purely for the
joy of it; after all, it was there that we found
ourselves lost in what we were doing.
Flow and Experience Sampling | 219
Enjoyment is highly linked to absorption.
When we do something because the reward
is an intense sense of pleasure, the process of
self-evaluation shuts off. We stop thinking
about why we are doing it, if we are performing well, or what the outcome will be. And not
surprisingly, the more absorbed in an activity
we become, the more likely we are to find flow.
Section Three: The Gift of Stress:
How Flow Can Help Us Identify
Our Strengths
Stress does not come from doing too much; it
comes from doing too little of what makes us
~Alexander Den Heijer
come alive.
The interesting thing about flow is that it places stress on our system. As Csikszentmihalyi
explains, flow occurs when “we are pushed to the
limits of our physical and emotional strength.”
Stretching our capacities in this way, it seems, is
a tremendously enriching experience. It is here
that we come to uncover previously undiscovered skills, build psychological resources, and exercise our greatest strengths. In particular, facing
stress—whether it results from flow experience
or from life adversity—positions us to better face
future adversities. However, as you will see in the
next section, attempting to overmanage stress
keeps us from using it to our advantage.
The Problem of Stress
Management
While we saw in section one that overprotecting ourselves from risk—in the form of risk
management—often leads to psychic entropy
and ultimately undermines our ability to deal
with risk, it shouldn’t surprise us that we take
the same route when handling stress. And
when we do—just like when distraction leads
to impulse decisions and keeps us blind to our
faults—there are costs involved.
According to the American Psychological Association (APA), stress is a top health concern,
and many psychologists say that if we don’t learn
healthy ways to manage that stress now, it could
have serious long-term health implications. The
United Nations International Labor Organization seconds the APA, which now defines stress
as a “global epidemic.” Indeed, we now spend
more time than ever before trying to manage
what for many appears seemed unmanageable.
The problem is that stress, like risk, does not
follow any predictable pattern. Just as we cannot pinpoint exactly which factors will devalue
a stock, we can’t know when we will lose our
jobs, our spouses, or our health—all sizable
stresses. And while we may think that preparing for stress, or attempting to find ways to better manage it, will lower our stress, our efforts
themselves may be part of the problem.
A recent study asked participants to list tasks
that took a certain amount of time, and then
to envision themselves completing those tasks.
Participants were then asked to imagine tasks
that were in conflict with one another, with
some of the tasks actually competing for time
against each other, such as scheduling two
things in the same time slot, while others
were in competition for emotional or financial
reasons, such as saving for retirement or buying a nicer house now. It was found that when
the participants perceived activities as being in
conflict with them achieving their competitive
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goals, they experienced an increase in anxiety
and felt even more stressed (Etkin, et al., 2015).
These findings are supported by a survey completed for the U.S. Department of Labor, which
found that conflicts between the demands of the
workplace and of home life are an increasingly
common source of stress; whereby 10 percent of
people who are married or living with children
under 18 experience severe work–family conflict,
and an additional 25 percent report moderate
levels of conflict. Also, these competing demands
are not exclusive to the work–life balance. As
Robert Ostermann, professor of psychology at
FDU’s Teaneck-Hackensack Campus, observes,
“There is less stress in developing countries than
in developed countries.” In developing countries, Ostermann explains, “the value of family
and nation is much stronger than it is here in
the U.S.” Developed nations, on the other hand,
place greater emphasis on what is earned or how
much money is possessed, which is often fueled
by increased consumerism and the growing
influence of advertisers who “try to convince the
consuming public that a want is a need.”
And that is the problem that stress management
presents: We are trying to anticipate things that
cannot be anticipated, and in doing so, we are
wrestling with competing demands. Consider
the following: John is worried about losing his
job and imagines trying to find another, but
because John has not yet been laid off, he must
still focus on the daily demands on his position.
While wondering how long his savings will last,
whether or not he will be able to file for unemployment, and if he could possibly ask his brother for a loan, he is trying to finish his report, plan
for tomorrow’s meeting, and schedule incoming
Transformation Specialist
clients. Just as you saw in Section Two, shifting
our focus from one task to another comes at a
cost—one that often drains our energy.
But let’s consider the problem another way.
Just as we saw how a strategy of “risk utilization” could lead to antifragility, what if we
shifted our focus from stress management to
stress utilization?
In one recent study, researchers interviewed
2,000 adults about their lifetime experiences
with 37 specified different negative events, covering everything from natural disasters, serious
illness, divorce, death of a family member, and
abuse. Participants were then asked about their
current level of stress, functioning at work and
in relationships, any negative symptoms related
to stress, and overall life satisfaction. Participants were then followed for two years. What the
researchers uncovered was something unexpected: that patterns of stress are not linear. In other
words, the amount of stress a person experienced in early life did not produce an equitable
amount of negative symptoms—such as troubled
relationships, work distress, and symptoms of
post-traumatic stress—in later years. Even more
interesting was that lower levels of stress in early
life—such as fewer deaths, divorces, and losses—
produced worse outcomes than those who had
reported some prior adversity; while those with
too much stress and not enough recovery also
had more trouble in later years. What research
like this indicates is that, in many ways, too little
stress is just as bad as too much.
The results of this study were later replicated
when researchers examined people with chronic
back pain. Here again, those who had no previous adversity faired just as poorly as those who
Flow and Experience Sampling | 221
reported very high levels—and both groups did
worse than those who had experienced some life
stress. Having dealt with some previous adversity
or trauma thus appears to be a form of psychological strength building, and when adversity is
absent, so is psychological strength.
But it might also be the case that not facing
adversity causes us to make it worse when it does
happen. In another study, researchers asked participants to submerge one hand in a bucket of ice
water, and then asked them to report how much
pain they felt. Those who had previous exposure
to moderate levels of adverse experiences reported more accurate levels of pain, while those with
either no history of adversity or very high levels
of it tended to “catastrophize” the pain, reporting it as unbearable and overwhelming—and
associated it with more negative emotion. Here
it seems that thinking that pain would be worse
than it actually was—in other words, catastrophizing—made it feel more unbearable.
What studies like this seem to tell us is that
stress is an asset, and too little of it can actually be a problem. Without experiencing some
stress—e.g., in the form of prior adversity—we
seem wholly unprepared to handle it in the present. And if the conclusion that there is a sweet
spot to the amount of stress a person needs to
experience sounds familiar, it should. Remember
in section one, we explored how experiencing
flow also depends on finding the flow channel—
where just the right amount of arousal is present.
Experiencing some stress, like experiencing flow
on a regular basis, appears to pay psychological dividends—in the form of a psychological
strengths that we can draw upon in times of
need. On the other hand, detecting too little
stress might be just the same as detecting too
little flow—what we end up with is boredom.
The Diagnosis of Too Little Stress
(or the Wrong Kind of Stress)
To really understand just how too little stress
affects us, we need to look no further than
something universal to us all: boredom. Psychological scientist John Eastwood of York
University and colleagues at the University of
Guelph and the University of Waterloo (all Ontario, Canada) define boredom as “an aversive
state of wanting, but being unable, to engage in
satisfying activity,” which arises from failures
in one of the brain’s attention networks.
Eastwood expanded on the definition of boredom to include three specific factors:
1.
Difficulty paying attention to the internal
information (e.g., thoughts or feelings) or
external information (e.g., environmental
stimuli) required for participating in a satisfying activity.
2.
Awareness of the fact that we’re having difficulty paying attention.
3.
Belief that the environment is responsible for
our aversive state (e.g., “this task is boring,”
“there is nothing to do”).
While we may consider boredom an unpleasant
state, and whether we attribute it to the environment or not, what we often fail to consider is just why it happens. On a fundamental
level, “not having anything to do” is the same
as “not needing to do anything.” It is being
challenged—a pivotal aspect of flow—you will
remember, that captivates our attention. Having
to pay attention, it seems, happens because we
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have to—that is, because the stress of not paying attention is greater
than keeping our focus on the task at hand. To be sure, the result
of losing focus in a fast-paced game of racquetball might be a ball
to the head, while not paying attention to what you are cooking for
dinner might only lead to some burned meatloaf—considerably less
aversive.
But looking at boredom can teach us something else: that failure
to experience engagement can lead to serious long-term problems.
On a behavioral level, boredom has been linked to problems with
impulse control, leading to overeating and binge eating, drug and
alcohol abuse, and problem gambling. Boredom has even been associated with higher rates of mortality (Roberts, et al., 2015).
Even animals appear to be affected by boredom. One study separated captive mink into two groups: one in to small, bare cages, and the
others in to large “enriched” cages enhanced with water for wading,
passageways for running, objects to chew, and towers to climb. The
researchers then presented both groups with stimuli ranging from
appealing treats to neutral objects to undesirable things, such as
the leather gloves used to catch the animals. The results replicated
something we know intuitively: the mink in the confined, empty
spaces ate more treats, even when given as much food as the mink in
the enriched environments.
Real-time data: data
collected at the present time,
often on a daily basis.
Transformation Specialist
And while we may consider boredom relatively common—and therefore somewhat innocuous—research by Thomas Goetz and Anne
Frenzel, two researchers who specialize in boredom, uncovered a particularly pernicious type of boredom: apathetic boredom. Apathetic
boredom, unlike the four other subtypes of boredom (i.e., indifferent,
calibrating, searching, and reactant), resembles learned helplessness
or depression. Learned helplessness is a depression-like state that
occurs when people or animals fail to take opportunities to improve
their condition, even when they are readily available. Interestingly,
like not being in flow, it is associated with low levels of arousal, that
is, not being challenged. In attempting to understand just how apathetic boredom affects a person, Goetz, Frenzel, and a team of fellow
researchers followed 63 German university students and 80 German
high school learners for two weeks. In a real-time data collection
study, whereby participants had to complete digital questionnaires
Flow and Experience Sampling | 223
through the course of a day detailing their activities and experiences. While apathetic depression
was experienced at an alarming rate—36 percent
of the high school students sampled—it was also
found to be highly linked to the real-life situation
in which it was experienced.
Feeling apathetic, it seems, is not just about the
intensity of our feelings, but rather, also about
the intensity of our surroundings. Environments that don’t challenge us enough don’t just
leave us bored, they leave us feeling disinterested—and less likely to do something to change
them. But perhaps even more importantly, they
don’t lead to innovation—especially when it
comes to our strengths.
Powerpoint: Flow Power Up Six:
Activate Your Strengths
Flow is a state that is characterized by intrinsic
reward: we do it because it is enjoyable to us.
Much of the reason that flow is so rewarding is
that people generally feel their best when activating their strengths. Even further, when activating
our strengths in the service of something larger
than ourselves, flow becomes euphoric. Yet flow
doesn’t just help us activate our strengths, it
reveals strengths we never knew we had. Because
flow exists in the absence of self-doubt—a state
people rarely visit—it removes the very interference that undermines most peoples’ ability.
Without self-doubt we simply perform better—
and often in ways we never expected. Suddenly,
we can throw with incredible accuracy, paint
with unrivaled artistry, and sing notes we never could before. When it comes to finding and
activating your strengths, here is the recipe flow
offers: face challenges and do not doubt yourself.
An increased sense of strength isn’t only an
outcome of flow, it is a crucial element of coping
with life’s setbacks. When life’s circumstances
change suddenly and without warning (as they
often do with setbacks) we are left with a formidable amount of uncertainty and self-doubt.
We may second guess ourselves, those around
us, and even the future. And yet, how we face
this uncertainty and self-doubt is exactly the
same way we find flow: through activating our
strengths. And if we have spent some time in
flow, we should already know not just the recipe
for finding and fine-tuning our strengths, but
that when we activate our strengths both selfdoubt and uncertainty will begin to fade away.
Further, we also know when we feel the most
strong, where we don’t second guess ourselves,
and what gives us the most confidence. And
when faced with setbacks, we can draw upon
these experiences, not just as symbols of our
strengths, but as resources as those things that
return strength to us. We may find that when
coping with unexpected and painful life changes, we return to our strengths—and to flow—as
a way to recharge, regain our footing, and put
our life back into perspective. The takeaway—
and the lesson that flow offers—is that in activating our strengths, we regain our strength.
And in no time is this more important than
when facing setbacks.
The Age of Underutilization
While being bored decreases our engagement
and the likelihood that we will interact with
our environment, it might also lead to chronic
underutilization of our skills. Chronic underutilization—which manifests itself in feelings of boredom, disconnection, anger, and
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sadness—is like the Carnot cycle we explored in
section one, whereby the energy that escapes us
prevents us from reaching our maximal output. Instead of directing our strengths toward a
clear goal, with immediate feedback, we expend
energy trying to overcome our negative feelings.
According to Taleb, maladaptations can come
in many forms—such as obesity if we try to
avoid the stressor of hunger, anxiety if we try to
avoid our fears, and acting irritably when we are
bored—yet they all arise from the same general
condition: underutilization of our strengths.
Or we might be spending energy spreading our
negative energy toward others. One study asked
a sample of 160 hospital employees to rate their
reactions—positive or negative—to a series of
statements regarding envy, affinity with colleagues, and comfort with subversive acts. Eight
months later, participants were surveyed again,
this time about their actual undermining activities. When comparing the results of the two
surveys, researchers found that people who reported feelings of envy were significantly more
likely to report committing sabotage, especially
when feeling disengaged from their coworkers.
On the other hand, feelings of connection to
others seemed to be a buffer, such that when
workers reported feeling more engaged with
others they were less likely to sabotage them.
In a second study, these same researchers asked
247 business students to rate their level of envy,
connections with their group members, and
incidents of sabotage committed by themselves
and others. Here again, students who reported
feelings of envy and low levels of identification
with their workgroups were significantly more
likely to act against them, especially when they
reported high rates of sabotage as a whole.
The problem is underutilization—like trying to
overmanage stress—is exactly where most of us
find ourselves. And while there are examples
of underutilization everywhere—just consider
the six out of ten people that now report feeling
little to no sense of purpose in their lives—perhaps the best example is obesity. Obesity is the
physical manifestation of underutilization. Putting aside the argument that the majority of the
global population now depends on one or more
drugs to maintain health (which is a separate
discussion altogether), let’s just consider for a
moment what the physical body is for: physical
function. Carrying the groceries, running after
small children, moving the couch to search for
spare change, and perhaps defending oneself
from a potential attacker are all forms of physical function. But interestingly, how most of us
go about improving physical function bears no
resemblance to how we will actually use it. Lifting weights, going for a walk, and spending a
few hours climbing endless stairs on a machine
are all admirable, but not likely to help us much
in the event that we do get mugged. Sparring,
on the other hand, might.
Sabotaging others when we feel bored might be
one of the many “maladaptations” that Nicholas Nassim Taleb—whom we met in section
one—attributes to the condition of fragility: a
condition that arises when we avoid stressors.
Transformation Specialist
But the other argument we can make for sparring—or any environment that demands the
use of our strengths—is that we might discover
not just that we are better prepared, but we
might even discover skills we didn’t know we
had. Exposing ourselves to a challenge that is
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unpredictable in nature, such as anticipating
the movements of a sparring partner, which is
about as easy as anticipating those of an attacker, is the recipe for discovering and developing
strengths. While we may develop a nice set of
biceps in the gym, we are not likely to unveil
any unexpected strengths.
And this is perhaps the best argument we can
make for flow: that its challenges are not predictable. Being in flow, like being prepared for
life, depends on a constant refinement of skills.
In many ways, the upward helical growth that
characterizes flow is exactly what life demands
of us: more, better, and faster. And utilization
of our strengths against the dynamic interface
of life isn’t just a powerful antidote to maladaptation, it is how we discover new skills. As you
will see in the next section, a large part of this
discovery comes in the form of those events
that most fundamentally challenge us.
Give Me Challenges or Give Me
Death
In his fascinating book, The Rise of Superman:
Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance, Stephen Kottler, recounts the first
ever solo climb of Yosemite’s Half Dome by a
man named Alex Honnold: “I just came apart. I
froze. What the hell am I doing here, thoughts.
A full scale panic attack. It was really scary
and really surreal. The move is barely 200 feet
from the summit. There’s always a crowd on
top of Half Dome (you can hike up the other
side). I could hear people and laughing. I was
really glad they could see me.” Kotler further
relates a conflict Honnold found himself in: an
enormous oval carabineer hung inches away, if
Honnold had grabbed it, his solo attempt would
have been lost. On the other hand, if he didn’t,
he could lose his grip and fall 2,000 feet to his
death. In that moment, Honnold remembers
that downclimbing never occurred to him, he
was going up, or he was going to die trying.
It is just this kind of pressure—when we are up
against our biggest challenges—that not only
embodies flow, but also elevates our strengths to
their greatest capacities. Flow, as Kottler writes,
is “advanced technology”, meaning that putting
ourselves in flow is like adding fuel injectors
to a racecar. The result is the best version of
ourselves. And as Kottler puts it, “paddling fast
enough to catch a possibility of wave-like abundance (he is referencing the book he co-authored
called Abundance) means we’ll need the most
capable version of ourselves doing the paddling.”
Interestingly, challenges that threaten our very
survival, while they bring out our greatest
strengths, demonstrate something else very
fascinating: an inverse relationship with selfdoubt. That is, there is something about needing
our strengths for survival quiets the self-conscious. And this might just have something to
do with how our brains are wired. In a fascinating series of experiments, first using a primate
model at Washington University in St. Louis,
and later with human subjects at Columbia
University Medical Center (CUMC), researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to map brain activity. Subjects were
asked to first memorize a specific target object,
and then had to push a button when the target
object appeared on the screen while a distracting stream of images appeared on various parts
of the screen. The fMRI technology allowed
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the researchers to see when various parts of the
subjects’ brains were ‘switched on’ while the
subjects performed the task, and allowed the
researchers to uncover something surprising. In
the human brain there are two main attention
networks: the dorsal attention network (DAN),
which directs attention to specific things, and
the ventral attention network (VAN), which
is active when perceiving something new or
unique, and activation of one appears to switch
off the other creating an effective give-and-take,
yet the VAN had no equivalent in the primate
brain. In other words, the human brain has a
lot more crosstalk—and competition for attention—than the primate brain.
As the study author Dr. Patel explains, “These
findings suggest that at some point in our
evolutionary history, we evolved an additional
attention network—perhaps in order to better
process the world around us.”
It seems that the additional attention network
that makes our brain unique may help us better process the world around us, but we may
have to work a lot harder to do it. Having two
networks means that we have one primed for
focusing on the task at hand, and one uniquely
suited for noticing everything that interrupts
us. And this might explain just why for so many
people self-doubt is such a problem: we seem to
have an entire attention network devoted to it!
Self-doubt, as we explored in Section Two, acts
in direct contradiction to the task at hand, and
in doing so, it represents a novel interference
that often robs our attention. And while the
result is a lot of effort being expended to stay focused, interestingly, in recounting their experiences, people in the state of flow often describe
Transformation Specialist
feeling as if their actions (and their ability to
focus attention) are absent of effort.
Csikszentmihalyi recounted a climber describing his experience: “It’s a Zen feeling, like
meditation or concentration. One thing you’re
after is the one-pointedness of mind. You can
get your ego mixed up with climbing in all sorts
of ways and it isn’t necessarily enlightening.
But when things become automatic, it’s like an
egoless thing in a way. Somehow the right thing
is done without you ever thinking about it or
doing anything at all… it just happens. And yet
you are more concentrated.”
And the reason that flow is so effortless may
be that when events are experienced at a high
emotional level—like in high risk situations—
the memories associated with them are encoded
in the brain differently. Not only do we process
these memories with greater relevance, but
we also elaborate them much more, meaning
that flow offers a powerful cognitive cocktail
that puts learning on overdrive. Kotler quoted
noted high-performance sports psychologist
Michael Gervais: “As a result, athletes in flow
in death-facing situations likely gather more
relevant data and code it more efficiently.
Having these experiences could significantly
shorten the learning curve toward expertise.”
Kotler further went on to cite the United States
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA), who found that military snipers
trained in flow decreased the time it took to
acquire their targets by a factor of 2.3.
While learning is both enhanced and effortless
while in flow, Csikszentmihalyi attributed this
to people’s greatest strength: that they are in
control of their lives. It is through facing their
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greatest challenges and realizing that they can
and do rise to the challenge, that people also
realize that life events do not define them. What
does, is how they respond to such challenges.
And when this response bears the autotelic rewards of realizing and exercising out strengths
at their greatest capacity, it’s very powerful
medicine. Not only do we feel more in control
of our lives, but more in control of the best
parts of our lives.
Trying to overmanage stress, being bored,
and chronic underutilization of our strengths
all lead to the same thing: a host of maladaptations. Not only are we less prepared to face
stressors when we try to overprotect ourselves
from them, and fall prey to many of the impulsive behaviors that come with boredom, but
perhaps most distressingly, we are less prepared
for life. It is only when we face life head on,
directing our strengths toward the unpredictable—what optimal experience demands
of us—do we come to realize our greatest
potential.
Here are the important points to take away:
1.
Too little stress is as much of a problem as
too much stress—leaving us wholly unprepared to handle it in the present.
2.
Environments that don’t challenge us leave
us bored and distracted.
3.
Chronic underutilization of our
strengths leads to negative feelings and
maladaptations.
4.
Flow elevates our cognitive and physical
strengths to their highest levels, and the
results are those peak moments where we
recognize our greatest potential.
Powerpoint: Flow Power Up Seven:
The Right Amount of Challenge
Flow activities, by their very nature, must be
challenging. In order to exercise our skills,
expand our capacities, and surpass our limits,
we must face some degree of challenge. However, in order for flow to occur, the challenge
barometer must be set just right. (You will
remember from section one that they must fall
into the “Flow Channel.”) Things that are too
challenging will overwhelm us. On the other
hand, when the challenge is too low, we will become bored. Instead, the challenge must ever so
slightly exceed our skills. It must call upon our
highest skills, peak our interest, and spark our
motivation, but it must also be within the realm
of possible. According to most high-performance experts, the challenge should be about
4 percent greater than our skills (Kotler, 2015).
Here, 4 percent might not seem like a lot, and
so most people overshoot this number and set
the challenge too high. And the reason for this
is that most of us don’t spend much time assessing our skills. Getting the percentage right,
then, means first spending a significant amount
of time in an activity, and testing our capacities.
For instance, if we want to see if we can shoot
ten free throws in a row, we should make sure
we know we can shoot at least eight. Similarly,
we shouldn’t challenge ourselves to write 5000
words per day, if we are not already writing
several pages on a daily basis.
When we get the challenge right, however, we
should feel invigorated, excited, and eager to get
started. While we should be fairly sure we can
achieve the challenge we have set for ourselves,
it is still a journey into uncharted waters, being
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both novel and untested. Further, it represents
an essential component of flow—that is, to conquer the tasks we face, we must become the best
version of ourselves.
Section Four: Wired to
Transcend: How Flow
Transforms Us
Life and sport cannot be separated; they are one.
If we believe in our own self-transcendence task,
then there can be no unreachable goal.
~Unknown
While we saw in section three how adding a little stress (in some cases, more than a little) can
draw out and enhance our strengths, and how
avoiding stress actually makes us weaker, what
we explore here is just how optimal experience
can help us transcend our weaknesses. But first,
let’s take a look at the opposite of self-transcendence: self-absorption.
We Are All Becoming More
Narcissistic
Tracy Alloway and her research team recently
asked more than 400 individuals a question
many of us probably ask ourselves every time
we check our Facebook profile: Does this make
me more narcissistic? Using a survey of questions ranging from how many hours per day
they spent on Facebook, the number of times
they updated their status, and the look of their
profile picture, such as physically attractive,
cool, glamorous, and fashionable, researchers assessed just how participants acted on
Facebook. And then to assess how narcissistic
they were, participants were given a standard
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narcissism questionnaire, where they had to
choose between statements that best described
them, such as, “I like to be the center of attention” or “I prefer to blend in with the crowd.”
What Alloway and her team found was something we know intuitively about narcissism:
it makes us want to be admired. In Alloway’s
study, the more narcissistic a person was, the
more frequently they updated their profile picture. While males focused more on the ratings
of their profile picture, females tended to focus
on both their profile picture ratings and their
status updates to gain admiration.
As Alloway explained, “Every narcissist needs a
reflecting pool. Just as Narcissus gazed into the
pool to admire his beauty, social networking
sites, like Facebook, have become our modern-day pool.”
The problem is that this reflecting pool is now
getting much larger—and much more accessible.
Facebook itself says the average American now
spends 40 minutes a day checking a Facebook
feed, which is more time than most people spend
with their pets (39 minutes on average). While
we used to seek companionship in the form of
a furry friend, we are now seeking admiration
in the form of Facebook friends. And unlike the
good feelings that can come from the company
of a furry companion, an abundance of likes on
Facebook isn’t likely to make us feel much better.
Focusing on ourselves, after all, is a zero sum
game. When the idea is to gain admiration,
there is not a lot of interaction going on. Instead
of focusing on others’ interests, we are updating
our profiles, and then wondering why they don’t
measure up. One study showed that Facebook
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use often leads to envy, particularly when we
tend to be self-focused. Assessing the link
between Facebook use and depression among
college students, researcher Margaret Duffy
concluded, “We found that if Facebook users
experience envy of the activities and lifestyles of
their friends on Facebook, they are much more
likely to report feelings of depression.”
While Facebook can be a very positive resource for many people—as Duffy and her
team expressed as well—in many ways it is the
perfect vehicle for self-absorption. Facebook not
only allows us to craft the perfect image to be
admired—filtering out any undesirable images—but also allows us to compare that image to
those of our friends.
And this may be the slippery slope of self-absorption: spending more time thinking about
how we feel (and updating our profiles to make
ourselves feel better), actually makes us feel
worse.
While it may be easy to point the finger at
Facebook for what psychology professor and
narcissism expert Jean Twenge calls the “Narcissism Epidemic” (which is also the title of her
book), the data cannot be ignored: the rates of
self-absorption have risen in accordance with
Facebook’s popularity.
And self-absorption doesn’t just show up in our
Facebook habits, it also affects how we spend
money. Several studies have already indicated
that when we feel bad, we are prone to spend
more, presumably as a way to make ourselves feel
better. If you have ever found yourself browsing
online late at night only to realize in the morning that you just bought that new pair of shoes
(insert watch, shirt, antique, furniture…—the list
is endless) that you don’t really need, then you
have fallen victim to this effect. But a new study
done by a collaboration team of researchers from
Carnegie Mellon University, Stanford University, Harvard University, and the University of
Pittsburg uncovered just what drives the impact
of emotions on consumer behavior. Dividing
participants into two groups: those high in
self-focus and those low in self-focus, researchers
then asked participants to view either a sad video
clip or a neutral one (which was devoid of human emotion). Next, the participants were given
the option to purchase an ordinary commodity,
such as a water bottle, at different prices. Among
the participants primed to feel bad, those high
in self-focus paid more than those low in self-focus—by as much as 300%.
In an interesting side effect, those in the sadness condition, when asked what influenced
their willingness to pay more, denied that the
emotional content of the film affected their
spending.
Yet sadness and self-focus go hand in hand.
Feeling bad often makes us focus on feeling
bad, and when we do, we devalue our sense of
self, and our possessions. Under these conditions, it’s not hard to imagine that we would
pay more for the same bottle of water that we
would otherwise demand a fair price for—even
if we deny that our emotional state leads to our
irrational spending.
Interestingly, self-absorbed people also view
price increases as “less fair” than their nonself-absorbed counterparts, especially when the
brand is seen as non-humanized (Kwan, 2015).
Seeing things as “non-humanized” is a facet
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of self-absorption. When you spend most of
your time thinking about yourself—even if in
the service of making yourself feel better—you
don’t consider the perspectives of others much.
And failing to think about how others feel is a
recipe not just for making them seem less human, but for a host of other negative behaviors.
In his brilliant book, The Honest Truth about
Dishonesty, Dan Ariely explains just how feeling
less connected to those around us—and failing
to understand their perspectives—makes it
easier for us to lie (or cheat). Because we don’t
feel as if our behavior impacts others much,
we convince ourselves that what we are doing
doesn’t really hurt them. The evidence, Ariely
points to, namely the mortgage banking crisis,
underscores something that we all recognize:
while we wouldn’t steal from our grandparents,
we might steal from the supermarket.
And if you add envy to the mix, we might also
lash out in anger. One study surveyed nearly
200 undergraduate students and more than 150
adults to identify how often and how strongly
they felt envy, and found that those with higher envy scores were not only more depressed,
anxious, and distraught, but also more prone
to unexpected outbursts of aggression. As lead
researcher Zlatan Krizan explained, “These individuals still think they’re special, entitled, and
that they want to be great, but they just can’t do
it. As a result, they’re vulnerable, their self-esteem fluctuates a lot, they tend to be self-conscious and not very proactive, and at the same
time passive, shy, and introverted. It’s these
vulnerable individuals who are in some sense
more worrisome because they are quiet, sort of
festering in anger out there in a corner. And it’s
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just a matter of time before they get frustrated
and lash out and verbally assault somebody,
maybe even an innocent party, because of some
provocation that they felt.”
Krizan further pointed to the Columbine High
School shooting in 1999 as an example of just
how the combination of self-absorption and
envy can lead to violence: “If you look at the
evidence that is often left over, in Columbine for
example you had those videos, these shooting
escapades seem to be a kind of power grab by
these individuals. The tapes are also narratives,
in which they are the person taking control,
they’re the one in charge, and they will determine how things will go.”
While Columbine is a drastic example of narcissism gone awry, it makes a powerful point—
that the more we focus on ourselves, and the
less we consider the perspectives of others—the
more prone we are to act against them. But
perhaps the more important point is just what
self-absorption does to our feelings of happiness. As Victor Frankl, author of Man’s Search
for Meaning, and recognized as the father of
“logotherapy” (literally translated as “meaning
therapy”), explains, “Human existence—at least
as long as it has not been neurotically distorted—is always directed to something, or someone, other than itself, be it a meaning to fulfill
or another human being to encounter lovingly.” The point that Frankl makes is that when
our meaning comes only from satisfying our
own needs (and achieving no greater purpose),
we are prone to neurotic distortions, such as
anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsive
disorder. Further, when we derive our sense of
self from the admiration of others, not only do
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we invariably compare ourselves to them, but
we also feel significant amounts of envy should
we not measure up. And while depression and
narcissism seem like opposites, they share the
same root cause of too much looking in and not
enough looking out. Whether we are spending time trying to prove to others that we are
better, or focusing on the ways our life is worse
than those around us, the result is the same: we
are focused on our weaknesses. To transcend
them—as you will see in the next section—we
must transcend ourselves.
Powerpoint: Flow Power Up Eight:
Learn to Transcend
sense of faith—is the result of facing the seemingly impossible odds that exist in flow, or the
insurmountable odds that come with the kind
of trauma that activates post-traumatic growth.
This is what Steven Kottler describes as “listening to the voice”, and what those who report
post-traumatic growth recognize as “something larger than me (often described as Him,
Mother, or God) that got me through.” It is this
connection to something beyond ourselves—
whether we call it the voice, Him, or simply
faith—that provides the activation energy
needed to overcome self-doubt, surpass our old
notions of self, and become something that we
previously didn’t think was possible.
Flow involves a qualitative shift in the way we
see ourselves, what Csikszentmihalyi describes
as “becoming more complex”. If we look more
closely at just what is behind this qualitative
shift, we also see what propels self-transcendence. Self-transcendence is about moving
beyond our previous definitions, boundaries,
and limitations, and in doing so, recognizing
new possibilities that exist within ourselves. In
flow, not do we just become what Csikszentmihalyi describes as “boundaryless” but when
we achieve feats that we previously thought not
possible, we can see ourselves in a new light.
Similarly, those who report post-traumatic
growth recount “getting through” life tragedies that they would have never thought they
could, and coming out with an increased sense
of personal strength. In each case, self-transcendence involves recognizing new strengths,
capacities, and possibilities within oneself, but
also connecting to something larger than the
self to get there. This connection to something
larger than the self—what we can call having a
And connection with something larger than
ourselves also happens not just when we recognize that there is a power greater than ourselves
that enables us to overcome our limitations,
but when we contribute to this power to create
something larger than ourselves. In flow, this
is described as a shared mutual experience that
becomes more than the sum of its parts, such as
building a house together, flying in formation,
riding motorcycles in a group together, and
running or cycling in a group. In post-traumatic growth, this contribution to something larger
than the self is often witnessed in the accounts
of those who, after having survived a trauma,
turn toward helping others who have endured
similar life experiences. Whether we are describing flow or post-traumatic growth, it is
the connection to something larger than ourselves that expands our boundaries, and transcends our previous definitions of ourselves.
And self-transcendence is not only profoundly
rewarding—accounting for the euphoric quality of flow—but is also a tremendous asset in
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overcoming setbacks. Indeed, numerous accounts of post-traumatic growth report connection to something beyond themselves—whether
described as faith, God, or spirituality—as the
one factor that enabled them to get through
what seemed impossible at the time.
So how does flow help us learn to transcend
ourselves? For one thing, the very nature of the
challenges that flow requires—those that seem
just out of reach—require a bit of faith. When we
habitually take on these sorts of challenges (in
an effort to activate flow) we develop and build
our faith and connection to something beyond
ourselves. And faith is a tremendous asset when
coping with life’s setbacks: it is often the difference between being held hostage by doubt, and
moving forward despite doubt. But perhaps more
importantly, facing and overcoming challenges that cause us to question ourselves puts our
own lives in perspective. We recognize that we
are simply one part of a much larger whole and
suddenly what seemed like large worries are no
longer so important, and things that seemed
difficult now pale in comparison to what we have
accomplished. This is especially important when
it comes to facing setbacks, as a characteristic
quality of setbacks is that they feel overwhelming. And this is perhaps one of the most important lessons flow teaches us about setbacks: when
we connect to something larger than ourselves,
suddenly our own challenges become much
more manageable.
From Me to We: Why SelfTranscendence Matters
While the term transcendence describes experiences that are perceived to be set apart from the
Transformation Specialist
day-to-day, self-transcendence means that we
experience ourselves in a way that is also beyond
ordinary—often surpassing our own limits. Just
as boundlessness has to do with experiences that
are perceived as beyond the limit of ordinary
time and space, overcoming our own boundaries and perceived limitations allows us to see
ourselves in ways that exceed previously held
notions of ourselves. And transcending ourselves
in this way harnesses a powerful energy source:
the feelings of deep mutual understanding and
caring that come with interconnection. The
emotions that typically accompany self-transcendence are uplift, awe, humility, mystery, gratitude, joy, peace, and serenity.
According to Csikszentmihalyi, it is the
self-transcendent feature of optimal experience
that creates a more complex sense of self. When
we surpass previously held boundaries and
limitations not only do we see ourselves as more
expansive—more capable of change—but we also
feel more connected to the world around us.
And this effect shows up in many forms. One
study explored how “sacred moments” in therapy are transformational not just in how people
take on challenges, but as vital ingredients for
those grappling with adversity and distress.
Professor of psychology and lead study researcher Dr. Ken Pargament explained, “Clients
may find that they have been fundamentally
transformed by the sacred moments they have
experienced in treatment.”
Interestingly, sacred moments also appear to
be generative to therapists as well, providing
further evidence that self-transcendence is an
interdependent process. As Pargament explains,
“Moreover, these moments may be a resilience
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resource that supports and sustains mental
health providers through the significant challenges of mental health care.”
The results of this study are supported by
research on the neuroscience behind self-transcendence. One recent study involving people
with traumatic brain injury showed that participants with more significant injury in their
right parietal lobe—the area most associated
with self-orientation—showed an increased
feeling of closeness to a higher power. According to Brick Johnstone, who led the study,
“Neuropsychology researchers consistently
have shown that impairment on the right side
of the brain decreases one’s focus on the self.
Since our research shows that people with this
impairment are more spiritual, this suggests
spiritual experiences are associated with a decreased focus on the self. This is consistent with
many religious texts that suggest people should
concentrate on the well-being of others rather
than on themselves.”
These findings are consistent with research
done by Dr. Andrew Newberg, recognized as
an authority on neuroimaging research, who
found that mystical experiences are associated
with alterations in the brain areas related to
spatial boundaries. Studying the reports of 777
individuals who had had mystical experiences,
and using computational linguistic analysis,
Newberg and his team found that individuals
who had had mystical experiences, as defined
by the Death Transcendence Scale, used more
inclusive language, like “everything,” “with,”
and “one-ness.” The same group also used less
religious language, like “Christ,” “religious,”
“holy,” and “hell.”
It is not surprising that, when we consider
the perspectives of others and reduce focus
on ourselves— i.e., feeling more “at one” with
those around us— we also feel less friction
toward them. What might be surprising, however, is that this effect shows up even in political
orientations.
In three studies, researchers examined participants’ political views in relation to their
religiousness and spirituality. In the first study,
they asked 590 American participants whether
they identified as a Democrat or Republican.
In the second study, they measured 703 participants’ political orientations and support for the
major American and Canadian political parties.
To confirm that religiousness was associated
with political conservatism, while spirituality
was associated with political liberalism, researchers then recruited 317 participants from
the U.S. and asked half to complete a spiritual
exercise consisting of a guided meditation video. The researchers found that while meditating
led to increased feelings of spirituality, it also
led to more liberal political attitudes, including
reduced support for “tough on crime” policies
and a preference for liberal political candidates.
According to Jacob Hirsh, the study’s lead
author, “Spiritual experiences seem to make
people feel more of a connection with others.
The boundaries we normally maintain between
ourselves and the world tend to dissolve during
spiritual experiences. These feelings of self-transcendence make it easier to recognize that we
are all part of the same system, thus promoting
an inclusive and egalitarian mindset.”
And this blurring of the boundaries doesn’t
just enhance connection, it also improves
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performance. One study revealed that simply
changing “I” to “we” in self-talk motivational statements had a significant impact on an
individual’s—and thus a group’s—performance.
Eighty subjects were first randomly assigned to
three different groups and then asked to complete a team-based dart-throwing activity. One
group used self-talk statements focusing upon
one’s personal capabilities; another used statements emphasizing the group’s capabilities; and
the third was a control group, where neutral
statements were implemented. While previous
research on motivation and optimal performance has emphasized self-motivational statements—we have all been told to rehearse the
words, “I can do it” at some point—the results
of this study showed something different: the
individuals who performed the best were the
ones who focused on the group’s capabilities. By
putting the group as a whole before themselves,
these people outperformed their self-motivated
counterparts. In the words of Deborah Feltz,
chairperson of Michigan State University’s
Department of Kinesiology, “By focusing on the
team, you include yourself without putting the
focus or extra pressure on yourself.”
And while this study was focused on a sports
context, the results underscore something we
know intuitively: by working as a team, we get
more from ourselves. It shouldn’t surprise us
that connecting our own interests to those of
others would motivate us to work harder and
perform better, but perhaps what should surprise us is that self-transcendence shows up
not just in optimal performance, but also in
post-traumatic growth.
Steven Kotler, quotes Rob Schultheis, adventurer
Transformation Specialist
and author of Bone Games, describing a flow
state while mountaineering: “The person I became…was the best possible version of myself,
the person I should have been throughout my
life. No regrets, no hesitation, there were no false
moves left in me. I really believe I could have hit
a mosquito in the eye with a pine needle at thirty
paces; I couldn’t miss because there was no such
thing as a miss. It didn’t matter whether I fell or
not, because I couldn’t fall, any more than two
plus two can equal three.”
The transformational quality—moving from
the ordinary version to the extraordinary (or
best) version of ourselves—that Schultheis
describes can also be found in this account of a
trauma survivor describing their post-traumatic
growth: “I can handle things better. Things that
used to be big deals to me aren’t big deals anymore. Like big crisis problems, they will either
work out or they won’t. Whichever way it goes,
you have to deal with it.”
As Tedeschi and Calhoun explain, post-traumatic growth is characterized by a feeling of “if
I can handle this, then I can handle anything,”
but also a clear shift in the way we see ourselves.
Having faced tremendous challenge—and
endured them—it is impossible to remain the
same. The challenge of major life trauma, like
the challenge of scaling a ninety foot sheer rock
wall, transforms us.
But there is another element that ties optimal
experience and post-traumatic growth together: the element of possibility. Where facing our
biggest challenges—whether in the state of flow
or through post-traumatic growth—represents
the art of possibility, because making it through
always involves an outcome we previously did
Flow and Experience Sampling | 235
not think possible. In order to achieve our
greatest accomplishments, we must recognize
our greatest strengths—strengths we perhaps
did not realize we had, or did not think possible. But we must also see transformation, itself,
as a possibility.
In my first book, Leverage: The Science of Turning Setbacks into Springboards, I cited the work
of Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The New
Psychology of Success, on the growth mindset
as it evidenced the need to see intelligence and
ability as traits that are incremental in nature
(not fixed), and therefore can be improved (or
transformed) with effort in order to overcome
failures and setbacks. I believe Dweck’s work
applies here as well. In order to develop the
growth mindset that allows us to use challenges
as opportunities for growth, we also have to see
learning as an “active process,” and one where
we our abilities are not fixed—and neither is
our self-concept. While Dweck explains that a
big part of our success stems from our beliefs
about what leads to success, the transformational experience described in flow and post-traumatic growth stems from our beliefs about
ourselves. When we see ourselves as able to be
transformed by what challenges us the most, we
open ourselves to our greatest possibility: the
best possible version of ourselves.
While Tedeschi and Calhoun might call it
an increased sense of personal strength, and
Csikszentmihalyi might call it self-transcendence, the result is the same: a change in the
way we see ourselves. We often recount the
well-known maxim, “If you keep doing the
same thing, you will get the same results,”
when referring to what we do, or perhaps when
speaking about self-transcendence, the appropriate saying would be, “If you keep being the
same self, you will get the same results.”
Here are the important points to take away:
1.
Narcissism—as defined by too much self-focus—is associated with an increased risk of
anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, as well as an exaggerated focus
on one’s weaknesses.
2.
Self-transcendence—as defined by experiencing ourselves in a way that is also beyond
ordinary—doesn’t just help us surpass our
own limits, but allows us to see challenges
in a new light as essential components of
growth.
3.
Through self-transcendence, we can also
come to see our abilities as malleable, and
not fixed, and therefore they are able to be
improved through hard work and practice—
what is known as a growth mindset.
Powerpoint: Flow Power Up Nine:
Immersion in the Activity
One of the defining characteristics of flow is the
feeling of absolute absorption. Becoming lost in
what we are doing, a sense of time dilation, and
complete and total focus are all common in the
descriptions of people after optimal experience.
And flow is also an experience that captivates
our senses: many people report feeling, hearing, seeing, and experiencing proprioception
(the sense of body parts in space) with greater
intensity. For that same reason, flow is often
compared to intense forms of meditation where
awareness and what Peter Levine, author of
Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma, calls “felt
sense” are heightened. This awareness of just
how things feel—the motion of our arm as
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it swings the tennis racket, the feeling of our
fingers as they fly across the keyboard and the
words spill out effortlessly, and the smell of the
paint as it sets on the canvas in front of us—is
what attracts and holds our interest, making
immersion (and flow) more likely. When we
experience things in this way—with the entirety
of our senses—we are also much less likely to
become distracted, and to interrupt the state
of flow. Further, the experience itself becomes
richer the more fully we experience it, and in a
sort of upward cycle, the richer the experience,
the more likely we are to do it again.
So how do we become more fully immersed in
something? The easiest way is to adopt a state
of mindfulness. Pay attention to the way you
experience things on a sensory level. Feel your
hands as they tighten on the reins of the horse.
Take in the feel of the water against your skin
as you dive into the ocean. Pay attention to the
way your feet feel as they hit the ground and
propel you across the ground. Visualize the
picture you are trying to create with your words
as you write. Activating your senses in this way
not only deepens your experience, it pulls you
more fully into it. And the deeper we go into an
experience, the greater the possibility we will
find flow.
Section Five: Turning Trials into
Triumphs: How Flow Helps Us
Face Setbacks
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he
stands in moments of comfort and convenience,
but where he stands at times of challenge and
controversy. ~Martin Luther King Jr.
Transformation Specialist
“At the time it happened, I thought it was the
worst thing. I mean everything was gone in a
matter of minutes. My house was destroyed,
my business was lost, and I lost the one thing
that mattered more than anything else, my
fiancé. I didn’t think there was any way I could
get through something like that, and even now
when I look back, I still don’t know how I did
it. But I do know that it made me stronger. In
many ways, it made me realize how strong I
really was. But it also made me realize what
really mattered. The house, my business, all
that material stuff didn’t really mean anything
to me. What really mattered was the people
around me. And I’m grateful for that, because
now I live my life differently.”
The quote above is from a man who, in a matter
of hours had lost his fiancé, house, and business in a natural disaster. And while we would
normally think such a constellation of tragedies
would leave us worse off after, he is describing
being “made stronger” by them. His response
is characteristic of something we now know as
post-traumatic growth. As you will remember
from section one, post-traumatic growth is “the
experience of positive change that occurs as a
result of the struggle with a highly challenging
life crisis,” (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004, p. 1).
And while we may be surprised to hear such an
account, perhaps we shouldn’t be. The idea that
adversity can lead to growth, after all, has deep
historical roots. As Neitzsche famously reminded
us, “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.”
Tedeschi and Calhoun, who first described
post-traumatic growth in 2004 in their seminal
paper, Post-Traumatic Growth Conceptual Foundations and Clinical Implications, however, go
Flow and Experience Sampling | 237
much further than just to say that adversity leads
to growth. They describe post-traumatic growth
as characterized by five separate domains:
1.
A greater sense of appreciation for life in
general and the smaller aspects of it, along
with a changed sense of what is important
(often described as appreciating the “small
moments” in life much more). This domain
also manifests as a major change in our sense
of priorities and how we conduct our daily
lives.
2.
Closer, more intimate, and meaningful relationships as embodied through an increased
sense of connection and compassion—especially for others’ who have faced similar fates.
3.
An increased sense of personal strength
or recognition of previously undiscovered
strengths, along with the feelings that “if I
can handle this, then I can handle anything.”
4.
An openness to new possibilities and the
awareness that new and different life paths
are possible.
5.
A greater connection and engagement with
spiritual and existential matters, as described
as feeling more connected to “something
larger” than the self.
And post-traumatic growth does not mean
simply putting on rose-colored glasses—Tedeschi and Calhoun call this “illusory growth”—as
those who report it often also relate having
distress symptoms along with feeling stronger.
Well aware of the downside of the struggles,
such as the losses endured and the pain life
can inject, these people embody the paradoxical nature that Tedeschi and Calhoun explain
characterizes each domain of post-traumatic
growth. While a person may say that they feel
stronger, they may also say that, at times, they
feel more vulnerable than ever before, or that
while they appreciate life more now, they also
realize now, more than ever, how fragile it is.
This paradoxical quality causes the very shift in
thinking—the ability to see things from multiple perspectives—that leads to growth. It is
when we can see that nothing is ever black and
white that somehow we can find the good in
what seems like a total loss. But Tedeschi and
Calhoun also report something very interesting
about post-traumatic growth, and it’s something that, if we consider what we know about
flow we might guess: the hardest challenges lead
to the greatest gains in growth. It is when our
physical and emotional capacities are stretched
to the maximum that our greatest strengths are
realized. Like pulling back the draw on a bow, if
we want the arrow to go as far as it can, we have
to draw the bow back as far as possible.
Just as we saw in section four that it is when we
are up against our biggest challenges that our
greatest strengths are realized, it is also through
flow that we fortify the strengths that catalyze
the very growth Tedeschi and Calhoun describe: growth through adversity.
Powerpoint: Flow Power Up
Ten: Be Willing to Adapt Your
Approach
Flow is a state that depends on immediacy, both
in feedback and responses. When we receive
split-second information about how we are
doing, we know instantly just how we need to
adjust our approach. The closer we are to success—e.g., in hitting the ball over the net ten
times in a row, writing the perfect essay, or creating our finest artistic masterpiece—the more
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flow fans the flames of mastery. And mastery is
the lifeblood of motivation. When we feel that
we are getting better, surpassing limitations that
previously held us back, the urge to continue
becomes almost compulsive. And if we want to
learn how to master things, there is no better
place to look than flow. In many ways, flow is
the roadmap to mastery. In flow, we have all of
the crucial elements of mastery: a challenge that
is just above our skill level, immediate feedback,
and the ability to adapt our approach. If we
remove any of these—the challenge is too high
or too low, feedback is delayed, or we refuse to
adapt our approach—mastery and flow will both
take a nosedive. But perhaps one of the most
compelling things about flow—and what this has
to do with facing setbacks—is that the feedback
we receive is not just immediate, it is unpredictable. We don’t know exactly which serve will
go over the net, where our writing will take us,
or what movement of the brush will create the
painting we want, yet how we deal with this lack
of predictability is key to finding flow and dealing with setbacks. Flow is an interactive and fluid
state, and part of what makes flow so attractive
is its novelty—we are kept on our toes when we
don’t know what to expect. And because we don’t
know what to expect, we must learn to adapt our
approach to whatever feedback we receive. The
ball may fly high into the air, the novel may take
on a life of its own, and the wind may blow the
sails wildly and send us off course—all things
we just have to adapt to. Exposure to unpredictability like this is how we get better at adapting.
As opposed to trying to foresee and avoid uncertainty, we learn to adjust our approach, but more
importantly, because adjusting our approach is
what keeps us in flow, we learn that there is a
Transformation Specialist
powerful link between adapting and happiness.
And because setbacks are characterized by their
unpredictable nature and bring with them tremendous uncertainty, here is the lesson we can
learn: When we adapt, as opposed to trying to
control that which is unpredictable in nature, we
are much happier.
Advanced Technology: What Flow
Offers
To better understand just how flow positions us
to face adversity, and as Nietzsche says, “be made
stronger,” we first have to understand a little
about what is called epigenetics. Epigenetics is
the study of cellular and physiologic phenotypic
trait variations in the way genes are expressed.
While the DNA structure of genes doesn’t
change, environmental factors—hence the prefix
“epi”, which means outside of—can cause genes
to either by switched on or switched off. These
environmental factors affect how cells read
genes, and thus the transcriptional potential of
a cell. If DNA is the hardware of the cell, epigenetics is the software. And this software—like
in any computer—affects what appears on the
screen. For example, in one study, researchers
found that by feeding mice a cocktail of vitamins they could change the color of their coats.
Further evidence for epigenetics can be found
through the Singleton twin studies. Through
comparing monozygotic twins from different
environmental conditions, researchers have been
able to separate out the effects of environmental factors. While identical twins with different
environmental exposures were epigenetically
indistinguishable during their early years, in
later years, they showed remarkable differences
Flow and Experience Sampling | 239
in the overall content and genomic distribution
of 5-methylcytosine DNA and histone acetylation—two of the most common markers of
epigenetic change (Moore, 2015). On the other
hand, twin pairs who had spent less of their
lifetime together and/or who had greater differences in their medical histories were those who
showed the largest differences in their levels of
5-methylcytosine DNA and in the acetylation
of histones H3 and H (Fraga et al., 2005). While
these twins might have shared exactly the same
DNA, the phenotypic expression of their genes
was dramatically different. And these differences
in phenotypic expression can have far reaching
implications. In one of the largest multidisciplinary studies of brain and brain function,
the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research
(CIFAR) collected 25 papers from areas such as
molecular genetics, evolutionary biology, and
neuroscience to social and behavioral science,
epidemiology, and social policy, to better understand the interaction between experience and
environment. What emerged from this study
was not just clear evidence that factors such as
socioeconomic status affect the development
and function of brain regions that are critical for
attention, learning, and memory, but that parental influences affect the chemical, or ‘epigenetic’,
signals that control the activity of genes related
to factors like learning and memory. For example, adult animals that were licked more frequently by their mothers had epigenetic signals
that enhanced the activity of genes associated
with learning and memory. According to CIFAR
President Dr. Alan Bernstein, “This research is
providing the scientific basis for public policy
concerning the critical window to provide the
optimal conditions that will enable our children
to grow up to be well-adjusted, well-educated,
and productive individuals.”
The optimal conditions Dr. Bernstein describes
aren’t confined to the environment we find
ourselves in either. Instead, optimal conditions
are highly related to the actions we take. For
example, in one study, participants were asked
to perform a one-legged cycling exercise for
45 minutes four times per week. After a three
month period, researchers then measured
methylation (the marker of epigenetic change)
in 480,000 sites in the genome, along with
markers for skeletal muscle metabolism, and
the activity of over 20,000 genes. The results
showed an epigenetic change in genes associated with metabolism, skeletal muscle adaptation,
carbohydrate metabolism, and even inflammation (which showed a decreased amount of
methylation). It’s not surprising that exercising
will make us stronger, improve our metabolism,
and decrease inflammation, but what is surprising is that this happens at the gene level. Far
from the temporary changes we associate with
activities that improve our well-being, epigenetic changes have long-lasting effects. And while
physical exercise may be one way to combat a
diagnosis of underutilization—and avoid many
of the “maladaptations” that Talleb describes—
the effects are far beyond just physical.
One of the earliest and most recognized depictions of optimal experience is what we all
know as the “runner’s high.” While for many
years the term had little scientific backing–the
most popular theory was the “Endorphin Hypothesis”—recently scientists from the fields of
nuclear medicine, neurology, and anesthesia at
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240 | Unit 6
the Technische Universität München (TUM)
and the University of Bonn, both in Germany,
looked more closely at just what happens in our
brains during optimal experience. A group of
athletes first had their brain scanned using an
imaging technique called positron emission
tomography (PET), and were then asked to run
for two hours, and then afterward they had their
brains rescanned. To detect endorphin response,
scientists used a radioactive substance called 18F
FDPN that binds to opiate receptors and competes with endorphins. The idea is that the more
endorphins a person produces, the less binding
to opiate receptors will occur because the opiate
receptors compete with endorphins. A high level
of endorphin released in the brain means there
will be less opiate receptors available, and thus
less binding occurs. By comparing the brain
images before and after the two hours of running, the scientists were able to demonstrate a
significant increase in endorphins (as measured
through decreased opiate binding) after running.
In the words of Professor Henning Boecker, who
coordinated the research at TUM and who is
now in charge of the Functional Neuroimaging
Group at the Dept. of Radiology, University Hospital Bonn, “We could validate for the first time
an endorphin-driven runner’s high and identify
the affected brain areas. It’s interesting to see
that the affected brain areas were preferentially
located in the prefrontal and limbic brain regions
which are known to play a key role in emotional
processing. Moreover, we observed a significant
increase in the euphoria and happiness ratings
compared to the ratings before the running
exercise.” And these happiness and euphoria
ratings were witnessed with lower levels of opiate
binding. Professor Thomas Tölle, who heads a
Transformation Specialist
research group called Functional Imaging of
Pain at TU Munich, adds: “Our evaluations show
that the more intensively the high is experienced,
the lower the binding of 18F FDPN was in the
PET scan. And this means that the ratings of
euphoria and happiness correlated directly with
the release of the endorphins.” Also, the powerful endorphin high we feel when running isn’t
simply a short-term response. Several studies
have now validated the connection between
long-term aerobic exercise and persistent beneficial epigenetic changes, such as improved stress
coping, cognitive function, and neuronal activity
(Denham et al., 2014; Ehlert et al., 2013). Specifically changes in the dentate gyrus, the brain
region associated with learning and coping with
stressful and traumatic events, has shown that
exercise doesn’t just give us a high, it gives us an
incredible adaptive advantage—especially when
it comes to handling adversity.
Perhaps the most fascinating thing about epigenetic changes is that they don’t just affect the
way our genes express themselves, they affect
what we do. Acting as a form of feedback loop,
the epigenetic changes that come as a result of
challenges lead us to subsequently choose more
challenging environments. Several studies have
noted that people with higher levels of cognitive functioning tend to choose environments
that also increase brain size. Similarly, people
who feel an endorphin response from running
are more likely to choose to go running again,
thereby further increasing the epigenetic changes. Another interesting finding showed that
healthier women have an increased chance of
delivering twins—considerably more challenging than raising a single child—and when they
Flow and Experience Sampling | 241
do, they live longer than their equally healthy
counterparts (Robson et al., 2011).
Just as we saw in section three that experiencing
adversity leads to psychological resources with
which to deal with future adversity, such as
reducing the tendency to catastrophize negative
events, the effect of flow on our brains is like
an “epigenetic upgrade” that improves the very
mechanisms we need to respond to adversity.
When we enter the flow state, operating at the
peak of our physical and emotional limits, we
develop the most powerful skill we have: the
ability to face challenges. As we rise to the challenge, sharpen our focus, cultivate and refine
our strengths, and transcend our weaknesses,
we come to see challenges just as they are: an
opportunity for growth. But even more importantly, facing and mastering challenges acts like
a motivational magnet, attracting us to future
challenges, where we might again test ourselves
and realize our strengths. Testing and expanding our capacities in this way creates a clear and
formidable neurochemical response that isn’t
just rewarding—it’s adaptive.
And yet when challenges come in the version
that we don’t choose—the unexpected and traumatic kind—flow offers a potent resource there
as well. As you will see in the next section, the
state of flow can move us from helplessness to
empowerment.
Powerpoint: Flow Power
Up Eleven: Use Dialectical
(Paradoxical) Thinking
Dialectical thinking, also known as paradoxical thinking, is the ability to see things from
multiple perspectives. Dialectical thinking
counters rigid thinking and allows us to see that
nothing is ever black and white, but rather, every
situation can be examined from multiple angles.
This sort of dimensional thinking also gives way
to the very process orientation that learning—
and the state of flow—demand. It is the ability to
interpret setbacks, mistakes, and missteps not as
endpoints, but rather as part of the larger process of skill acquisition and refinement. Instead
of construing setbacks as demarcations of our
character—that result in self-criticism, frustration, and self-doubt—dialectical thinking helps
us recraft them in less negative and more neutral
ways. We are no longer held hostage by setbacks,
rather, we are informed and motivated by them,
as they represent vital information about where
our skills lie and where practice is needed. Dialectical thinking also helps us develop the very
cognitive flexibility needed in novel situations.
Releasing us from trying tired approaches, seeing
things from multiple perspectives helps us adapt
to changing circumstances that require different thinking, and different action (perhaps even
opposite of what we were doing).
The reason dialectical thinking matters when
trying to find flow is that it improves our ability
to approach situations that might lead to flow.
These situations—ripe with challenges—often
cast a glow of self-doubt upon us. We may make
a mistake, we may embarrass ourselves, and
ultimately we may not succeed. Yet it is through
dialectical thinking that we are able to put any
potential setbacks—and any resulting self-doubt
that occurs—into perspective and to try anyway.
Not surprisingly, then, it is also dialectical thinking that keeps us trying. It is through finding the
small successes that represent the incremental
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nature of learning that we are motivated to
continue trying. And it is also through dialectical thinking that we come to understand that
improving our skills—just like growth—consists
of both positives and negatives. While we may
be improving one skill, another may be suffering. However, it is through perseverance in the
process that we not only improve our skills, but
we move closer to the state of flow.
So how do we develop dialectical thinking? The
best way is to practice seeing things from multiple perspectives. Take a look at every situation
in your life that you would consider negative
for you and find something positive about it.
Ask yourself: What can I learn from this situation? What strength or skill could I improve
that would help me here? What can I learn to
appreciate as a result of this? You can also practice seeing people as both positive and negative.
With very few exceptions, every person has
both good and bad qualities. For each person
that gets under your skin, ask yourself: What is
a positive about this person? What is one quality I can find about them? When you can learn
to see things from multiple perspectives, not
only does your thinking become much more
flexible (which is crucial for adapting to changing circumstances and setbacks), but you can
learn to persevere through any setbacks long
enough to find one particular gem that flow
offers: that you might just overcome what you
didn’t realize you could.
From Helplessness to
Empowerment
When Martin Seligman, now recognized as
the father of positive psychology, first began
Transformation Specialist
experimenting, he was hoping to uncover the
then elusive etiology of depression. By placing
dogs in a condition similar to what a depressed
person might feel—to replicate this, they were
placed in harnesses and then delivered an inescapable shock—and then placing the same dogs
in a situation where escape was possible, Seligman hoped to be able to better understand why
some depressed people seemed to resist efforts
to get better—even when the solution is right in
front of them. As a control, Seligman put some
dogs in the harnesses, and then delivered no
shock, these comprised Group One. Group Two
dogs were placed in the harnesses and delivered
a shock which they could escape by placing a
lever. Group Three dogs, however, were yoked
to Group Two dogs, and when a Group Two dog
got a shock, so did a Group Three dog. The only
difference was that Group Three dogs’ lever
didn’t stop the shock. For these dogs, the shocks
seemed to both occur at random and cease at
random, and nothing they did had any bearing
on control over the situation. For Group Three
dogs, the shock was thus “inescapable.”
The second part of Seligman’s experiment
revealed something that continues to shape our
understanding of psychology today. After placing all three groups of dogs in the harnesses,
Seligman then placed them in what is known as
a shuttle box—a cage separated by a barrier that
the dogs could jump over. While the floor of the
cage delivered a powerful shock to the dogs, they
could quickly jump over the barrier to escape it
should they choose to do so. However, what Seligman found was that not all of the dogs chose
the escape. The dogs in Group Three—who had
experienced the inescapable shock condition—
urinated, whined, and lay down. Immobilized
Flow and Experience Sampling | 243
in the face of the shock, these dogs choose not to
even attempt to escape it.
Seligman went on to develop the theory further, ultimately calling it “learned helplessness,”
which he described as a psychological condition in which a human being or an animal has
learned to act or behave helplessly in a particular situation—usually after experiencing
some inability to avoid an adverse situation,
even when it actually has the power to change
its unpleasant or even harmful circumstance.
Seligman’s experiments were later replicated
in several studies—with different animals, and
with similar results. And in every single case, the
strongest predictor of a depressive response was a
lack of control over the aversive stimulus.
If this sounds familiar, it should. As you will
remember from section three—it is through
flow that we learn to feel in control of our lives.
People describing flow consistently report the
feeling of complete control over their actions.
They describe their actions as effortless and
seeming to occur in perfect harmony. And yet
they are facing tremendous challenge at the
time—in fact, their strengths and skills are
stretched to their capacities. But their strengths
also perfectly align with the challenge in front
of them—you will remember that this is called
the “flow channel”—and as they meet the challenge, what they learn is that their actions affect
the outcome. And connecting effort to outcome,
you will remember from section four, is the
cornerstone of developing a “growth mindset”:
one that tries harder after setbacks.
And yet, people in flow also report something
that smacks of the paradoxical nature seen in
each of the domains of post-traumatic growth.
While feeling in control, people in flow also recognize their complete lack of control over everything around them. Interestingly, gains in flow
come just like gains in post-traumatic growth:
they are paradoxical in nature. By letting go of
the attempt to control the environment, we can
gain greater control over our own actions, by
facing our greatest risks, we realize our greatest
strengths, and time seems to both expand (going
on forever) and contract (standing still).
By realizing the paradoxical nature of growth,
we also come to realize something that is a
tremendous asset in the face of setbacks: dialectical thinking. Described as the ability to
see things from multiple perspectives, dialectical thinking is how we find opportunities
for growth amidst what seems like a hopeless
situation. It is how we see the possibility disguised in every adversity, and it is how we find
the creativity necessary for the novel solutions
that adversity demands. But perhaps most importantly, dialectical thinking is how we resolve
the many contradictions that setbacks face
us with. Especially when setbacks shatter our
very reality, we are confronted with one very
powerful contradiction: they aren’t supposed to
happen. We don’t ever plan on discovering our
spouse has been having an affair, or on losing
loved ones, or having a horrible car accident,
but when these things happen, we must face
them, and more importantly, we must face the
reality, that what we believed—that people are
supposed to be honest, that loved ones should
not perish before their time, and that driving
on the freeway is safe—is no longer true.
And how we resolve these contradictions
is through seeing things from multiple
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perspectives. The world is safe and unsafe, life
is precious and fleeting, and all people have
good and bad qualities. But what we also come
to see is that, when what we believed no longer
applies, or when what we were doing no longer
works, the only thing to do is to adapt our
response. Tim Harford, the author of Adapt:
Why Success Always Starts With Failure, draws
on historical data from successful businesses
to make the point that success in business is
like success in evolution: it follows no pattern.
What does determine success though is the
ability to adapt to a changing and unpredictable environment. As Harford points out,
some of the greatest innovations come from
what Taleb calls “positive black swans.” While
these innovation projects, Harford argues, do
not have a known payoff or a fixed probability—in fact, no one ever really knows what
ideas will work or even why—they cannot be
predicted or planned. For this reason, their
very existence depends upon our ability to
vary our approach, even trying the opposite of
what we might think will work, in the service
of research and development. By being able
to see things from multiple perspectives, we
become open to trying new approaches, which
is a fundamental component of post-traumatic growth. In fact the trait of openness along
with extraversion are the two traits most closely associated with post-traumatic growth.
In flow and in adversity, we face our greatest
challenges. Challenges that come with all of the
possibility of high risk and complete failure. But
it is these challenges that require our absolute
all that also pay dividends unlike any other.
Not just do we come to realize the very control
Transformation Specialist
that allows us to escape learned helplessness
in the face of what seems like insurmountable
odds, but we also come to realize that growth
depends on one sole factor: our ability to try
harder, even when success seems impossible.
Here are the important points to take away:
1.
Flow and post-traumatic growth share a
common domain: growth through adversity.
2.
Flow is associated with positive epigenetic
changes: persistent changes in the way our
genes express themselves, such as such as
improved stress coping, cognitive function,
and neuronal activity.
3.
Epigenetic changes exist in a positive feedback loop, meaning that the more we
overcome challenges, the more we seek out
those environments that offer us challenge.
4.
While people in flow report increased feelings of control over their lives, growth is also
experienced as paradoxical—that is, through
letting go of the attempt to control the environment, we gain greater control over our
own actions, and by facing our greatest risks,
we realize our greatest strengths, and time
seems to both expand (going on forever)
and contract (standing still).
Powerpoint: Flow Power Up
Twelve: A Sense of Control
A sense of control is not just one of the six
factors that define flow, but is also a crucial part
of coping with setbacks. When control levels
are high, we feel a sense of personal agency—a
belief in our ability to impact the world around
us—and we no longer feel at the mercy of the
events around us, but instead, we experience
outcome as directly dependent on our actions.
Flow and Experience Sampling | 245
Empowerment—as opposed to helplessness—
and flow are both characterized by a sense of
control. And this is important information
because flow comes with challenge. If we feel
helpless in the face of challenges, we will never
set the meter high enough to find flow, and more
importantly, to experience its benefits. As you
will remember from section three, one outcome
of flow is an increased sense of control, but to get
there, we must first have enough sense of control
to take on the challenges that flow requires.
So how do we increase our sense of control?
The answer is to focus on what you have
control over: your actions, your effort, your
responses, and to let go of what you have no
control over: the environment, other people,
and external factors. Pay attention to what you
do in response to the things around you, and
what happens to you. Ask yourself: What skills
do I have and how am I applying them? What
are my strengths and how are they being used?
Am I trying as hard as I can or can I try harder? Am I focusing 100 percent on what is in
my control and truly letting go of any attempt
to control anything but myself? Tuning in to
yourself and how you respond not only makes
you more aware of what you are doing, but
helps you better gauge your skills and estimate
the types of challenges you should be taking
on. Getting the flow equation right, after all, is
all about getting the challenge ratio right, i.e.,
just slightly over your skill level. To get there,
you not only have to know your skills, but you
also have to know just what you have control
over, and what you don’t. And this is the paradox of flow: by letting go of what you don’t
control, you gain control of what you do.
Section Six: A New Normal:
How Optimal Experience
Transforms Our Lives
Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes
you come alive. Because what the world needs
most is people who have come alive. ~Howard
Thurman
Flow transforms ordinary into optimal in
ways that many have never before imagined.
As awareness becomes finely tuned to avoid
external distractions and internal criticisms,
strengths are refined and mastered, and weaknesses are transcended, and performance soars
to epic levels. Setbacks become challenges
uniquely presented to invite growth and to further refine skills. No longer is life something to
be endured, rather, it is something to be experienced—at the highest levels.
Flow is the Basis of Extraordinary
Feats
In his book Flow, Csikszentmihalyi writes,
“However unimportant an athletic goal may
appear to the outsider, it becomes a serious
affair when performed with the intent of
demonstrating perfection of a skill.” Flow asks
us to rise to the challenge of recognizing our
greatest capacities, be they athletic, artistic, or
scholarly in nature. And the true joy of flow lies
in surpassing our limits. We don’t have to be
imbued with Olympian talents or skills either.
We simply have to set a goal where our perception of our abilities meets our perception of the
challenge, find ways to measure our progress,
then immerse ourselves in the task, and raise
the stakes if we become bored. An activity as
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simple as cleaning the garage can be turned
into an extraordinary feat if we are so inclined.
Because unlike other tasks that require our
skills, flow is a precipice state: one where the
tenuous balance depends on the refinement of
our skills. If we fall below the level of challenge
required, we become bored, and if we set the
challenge meter too high, we are overwhelmed.
It is the relationship to challenge that creates
the extraordinary.
In the state of flow, we don’t just recognize and
meet challenges, we develop a fascination with
them. People in flow consistently report being so
enthralled in the challenge that it leads to a state
of euphoria, much like religious ecstasy. Kotler
recounts the experience of Danny Way, considered by many to be the greatest skateboarder
of all time, and the first man to jump the Great
Wall of China on a skateboard: “Skateboarding is
a game of failure. That’s what makes this sport so
different. Skaters are willing to take a great deal
of physical punishment. We’ll try something
endlessly, weeks on end, painful failure after
painful failure. But for me, when it finally snaps
together, when I’m really pushing the edge and
skating beyond my abilities, there’s a zone I get
into. Everything goes silent. Time slows down.
My peripheral vision fades away. It’s the most
peaceful state of mind I’ve ever known. I’ll take
all the failures. As long as I know that feeling is
coming, that’s enough to keep going.”
It is only by pushing through our failures that
we also push through our limits. And in the
state of flow—when we are enthralled with the
expectation that we can reach levels of performance not achieved before—then pushing
oneself becomes automatic. Dr. Jean Hamilton,
Transformation Specialist
who began her research on visual perception
and cortical activation patterns, demonstrated
support for this. Dr. Hamilton asked subjects
who did and did not report high levels of flow
experiences to pay attention to flashes of lights
or tones, while she measured their cortical
activation in response to the stimuli. Whereas
cortical activation of the subjects who reported
lower levels of flow increased when responding
to the stimuli as expected, cortical activation of
the subjects who reported higher levels of flow
decreased when concentrating on the stimuli.
While concentrating usually demands more of
our energy, when in flow, the opposite is true: it
takes less effort to pay attention.
This effortless, euphoric state is consistently reported when two very important factors
coalesce: when we recognize our limits and
when we face challenges that demand that we
surpass them. This state, according to Csikszentmihalyi, is so intoxicating because it is the
highest form of mastery, namely, mastery over
the self. This is also what philosophers Heidegger, Satre, and Merleau-Ponty called the project,
which is the term for goal-directed actions that
provide shape and meaning to our lives. We
are, in many ways, our own project, and gaining control of our inner experience in this way
means that we are no longer a bystander to our
experience but are an active participant, determining the content of our own lives. And it is
here that we become mesmerized not just with
the challenges we face, but the possibility they
offer, i.e., the chance to achieve something we
never before thought possible.
Realizing you can jump the Great Wall on
a skateboard is quite likely to get your heart
Flow and Experience Sampling | 247
beating, yet there is a very compelling neurophysiological explanation for just why the state
of flow makes us feel so good. In a randomized,
controlled study of 6,807 subjects, researchers
from the University of Georgia demonstrated
that, after performing an exercise program that
challenged them, marked increases in the levels
of energy-promoting and mood-enhancing
neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, were found in the
brains of the test subjects. And this is a very
consistent effect—as one researcher noted, “It
has been demonstrated in more than ninety
percent of similar studies”—with a very powerful outcome: reduced fatigue. The act of developing and cultivating our skills to overcome
challenges, in fact, was demonstrated to be a
stronger deterrent of fatigue than the narcolepsy drug modafinil (O’Connor, et al., 2006).
While many have compared the euphoric state
we feel when in flow with a drug high, it may
be even more powerful. Multiple studies have
shown that both running and drug use activate the brain’s reward system, yet a 2013 study
demonstrated that rats given access to running
wheels showed a reduction in drug-seeking
behavior, meaning that they were less likely
to press a lever to request a dose of methamphetamine after the drug had been withdrawn
(Boeker et al., 2008). Looking further into
just why running—which results in muscle
fatigue (and arguably pain induced by muscle
fatigue)—would be preferable to a drug that
could produce just the opposite—a pain-free
state—researchers found their answer in the
neurons of the brain. The periaqueductal gray
(PAG) is a small area of the brain associated
with pain sensing, and when we feel pain, it is
the first area of the brain to become activated.
However, activation of the PAG also depends
on the number of dopamine neurons the PAG
has—the less dopamine neurons are available
to detect pain, the less pain we feel. And when
we run, the number of dopamine neurons in
the periaqueductal gray (PAG) decreases, which
might explain why running makes us feel so
good, namely because we feel less pain.
If this sounds like an epigenetic effect, it should.
(Remember from section five that epigenetic
changes lead to phenotypic changes in the way
genes are expressed.) The difference between a
drug-induced euphoria and the one we feel when
in the state of flow is that a drug high is temporary, and often with a nasty comedown. Flow, on
the other hand, causes long-lasting neurological
changes that lead to enduring changes in our
mood, perception of pain, concentration, focus,
and mastery. It is this upward spiral (which is
also known as helical growth) that flow enables
to put our mastery into overdrive. And the
potent euphoric cocktail that flow offers is the
recipe for realizing our greatest potential.
It has been said many times that it is better to
teach a man how to fish than to give him a fish.
Flow teaches us how to fish. And when it comes
to extraordinary feats, flow teaches us that we
just might catch some pretty big fish.
Powerpoint: Flow Power Up
Thirteen: Focus On the Process
Not the Outcome
While many things in our society are focused on the outcome—salaries, promotions,
competitions, sales figures to name just a few
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examples—flow is not one of them. Flow is a
state that depends on immersion in the process of taking on challenges, testing our skills
against them, and ultimately discovering new
capacities and unlocking new talents. If we
become too focused on the outcome of winning or losing, not only do we suffocate the
process of immersion—and flow—but we also
open the door for self-criticism. Instead, it is
better to focus on the process, which means
doing something with the purpose of learning. As we read the plays, we can test our skills
against them, adapting where necessary and
using the results—whether they come as smalls
wins or failures—as information that helps us
better understand the process. For those with
a process orientation, winning or losing is
secondary to learning. On the other hand, for
those with an outcome orientation, the focus
is on the outcome of winning (or getting the
promotion, raise, etc.), and instead of using any
setbacks as information, they become fodder for
self-criticism, doubt, and anxiety. As you will
remember from section one, flow is a state that
utilizes a balance of right- and left-brain activity to take in information, create visual pictures,
and process responses. Conversely, an outcome
orientation is highly left-brain dominant, ripe
with anticipation, performance anxiety, and
self-criticism. And as flow is a state where the
self-conscious is quiet, too much left-brain
dominance—and the resulting self-criticism—
immediately pulls us out of flow. Further, it
interrupts our progress.
So how do we adopt a process orientation? The
best way I have found is to begin with a goal of
learning and in doing so, to study what we are
doing. If you are learning how to play tennis,
Transformation Specialist
for example, pay close attention to how the
ball flies when you hit it, how you are holding
the racket and the effect it has on your swing,
your footwork as you run across court. Then,
pay attention to how your opponent uses their
racket, the types of balls they are likely to hit,
and the small nuances in their play that help
you decipher their game. Studying what we are
doing also draws us into the process, making
immersion more likely. Further, as we let go
of any attachment to an outcome, we are free
to play without fear of making errors, taking
a risk, or making mistakes. Our play becomes
more automatic and less cognitive, which you
might remember from section one is a hallmark
of flow, where the cognitive mind (prefrontal
cortex) is surprisingly quiet.
Flow is a Neurochemical Vitamin
You don’t have to jump a skateboard over the
Great Wall of China, surf a wave the size of a
three story house, or climb Half Dome without
a rope to realize flow’s benefits. While flow is
the gateway to extraordinary feats such as these
(Kotler describes many more), we can all experience flow by challenging ourselves to push
our limits—in whatever form they arise. And
when we do, the neurochemical dividends are
bountiful.
Flow Boosts Immunity
When Martin Seligman first discovered learned
helplessness, he unveiled something that lies at
the core of well-being: a sense of control over
your fate. When we are exposed to stress, it is
not the type or even the intensity of the stress
that matters, it is our ability (or perception
Flow and Experience Sampling | 249
of our ability) to do something about it that
determines how we respond. What Seligman
didn’t expect to find was that a sense of control—which is a characterological feature of
the state of flow—has powerful immune benefits. When many of the animals in his original
learned helplessness study that had been in the
“inescapable” condition developed mysterious illnesses, with some even refusing to eat,
Seligman became curious as to why. Later, he
designed an experiment to see just how powerful the connection between mastery and physical health is, whereby he implanted a tumor
with a fifty percent lethality rate into mice and
then divided them into one of three groups.
The first group were exposed to shock, but
were able to escape the shock (escapable), the
second group was yoked to the first, meaning
they experienced the same shocks as the first
group but escape came at random (inescapable),
and the third group had no shock (control).
Then, Seligman waited to see which groups of
mice survived. As expected, fifty percent of the
control group mice died. But for the mice in the
inescapable and escapable groups, the numbers
were dramatically different: three-quarters of
the mice in the inescapable group died, but only
twenty-five percent of the mice in the escapable
group died. Clearly, having a sense of control
matters, and comes with dramatic immune
benefits. And the reason it does might have
something to do with dopamine.
produced in the immune cells, it appears to act
on its own receptors in those same cells. Thus,
not only do immune cells produce dopamine
when it is needed to fight off infection, but the
dopamine then acts to preserve the cells themselves. Istvan Berczi and Toshihiko Katafuchi,
Editors-in-Chief of Advances in Neuroimmune
Biology, suggest that the reason why a central
nervous system mediator, such as dopamine,
would be produced locally (i.e., by the immune
cells themselves) is to maintain tissue viability in
emergency situations. Dopamine, according to
Berczi and Katafuchi, is “the key to healing and
recovery.” And surprisingly, dopamine might
also be the key to resurrection. The science of
cryobiology, which deals with the medical application of hypothermia and freezing as a ways of
preserving cells, owe its existence to dopamine’s
ability to preserve tissue viability and reactivity
beyond clinical death or under proper culture
conditions (Berczi & Katafuchi, 2012).
A recent study performed at the Hungarian
Academy of Science demonstrated that dopamine can be synthesized not only in neurons,
but also in immune cells that respond to infection or malignancy. Even more fascinating was
that researchers found that when dopamine is
If we want to understand just how the brain’s
reward system works—and how dopamine
affects us—there is no better place to look than
to addictions. All addictions are driven by a
neurochemical reward. Eating chocolate cake,
working out, having sex, and winning money are
Having a sense of control matters, not just
because it is a central feature of optimal experience, but because it is laden with powerful
immune benefits. Dopamine produced in the
state of flow is more than just psychologically
rewarding, it is the cornerstone of physical healing and recovery.
Optimal Experience Reduces
Addictions
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all ways we can stimulate our reward circuitry in
the brain. And the reason these things (among
many others) can become addictive is that when
the pleasurable effects of a reward are associated
with an activity, we want to do it more.
The problem with drug-induced rewards is that
they don’t just link a reward to a behavior, they
change the way our brain processes the reward.
While previous research has shown that dopamine cells in the reward system send signals in
cooperation with glutamate—called co-signaling—researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden recently demonstrated that mice who had
become addicted to sugar and cocaine not only
showed lower levels of co-signaling, but also
lower levels of dopamine. And these changes in
genetic expressions in the reward system came
with detrimental effects: when dopamine levels
dropped, the mice consumed more cocaine, and
they also showed dramatic improvements in the
memory of environments associated with their
ingestion of drugs. In a sort of downward spiral, when we try to induce the feel good rewards
associated with dopamine artificially, not only
do we shut off the body’s natural production
(and signaling) of it, but the less dopamine we
produce, and the more we depend on drugs to
create the same euphoric high.
This is another example of epigenetic changes—
only this time with a negative outcome. While
the short-term effect of alcohol is an increase in
dopamine, creating a pleasant euphoric sensation, the more alcohol we drink, the more
the reward system becomes desensitized, and
the less dopamine is released. One study of
rats published in the scientific journal Addiction Biology showed that rats that voluntarily
Transformation Specialist
consumed alcohol for almost a year had lower
levels of dopamine in their brain reward system
than rats that had never consumed alcohol. But
the problem is, when dopamine levels are low,
we get the opposite of euphoria, i.e., malaise
and depression. And as many alcoholics would
attest, feeling blue is a great reason to pick up
the bottle. The problem is, once we start picking
up the bottle, more alcohol is needed each time
to get the same reward, and eventually, to attain
a state of physical and emotional normality,
addiction sets in.
But lower levels of dopamine also affect something else that many believe lies at the heart of
addiction: the ability to control impulses. And
yet the process can be turned around in exactly
the same way it starts: by producing more dopamine. Researchers from the Karolinska Institute
separated alcohol-addicted participants into two
groups and then gave one group OSU6162 (a
chemical suspected to raise dopamine levels) and
the other group a placebo for one week. Then,
both groups were exposed to situations associated with a craving for alcohol. They fund that not
only did the OSU6162 group report less craving
for alcohol after drinking one glass of an alcoholic beverage, but also reported enjoying the first
sip of alcohol less. The most interesting finding,
however, was that those with the poorest impulse control were those with the most dramatic
response to OSU6162. Pia Steensland, Ph.D.,
associate professor at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, who led the study concluded,
“We think that OSU6162 can reduce the alcohol
craving in dependent people by returning the
downregulated levels of dopamine in their brain
reward system to normal.”
Flow and Experience Sampling | 251
The results of this study were supported by the
work of researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in Texas who studied mice that were administered nicotine for several weeks. The researchers then withheld the nicotine and measured the
subsequent alterations in dopamine signaling
during the withdrawal period. What they found
was that withdrawal from nicotine produced
a deficit in the baseline levels of dopamine—
known as the tonic dopamine concentration—
which was disproportionately lower than dopamine levels after exposure to nicotine—known as
the phasic release of dopamine. While nicotine
ingestion heightened dopamine concentration
in the moment, the long-term effect was a lower
baseline level of dopamine. Dr. John Krystal, editor of Biological Psychiatry, commented on the
study, “This study is an elegant example of yet
another way that addiction ‘hijacks’ the reward
system. This disturbance of dopamine function
would, conceivably, make it that much harder to
avoid seeking drugs of abuse.”
What studies like this should tell us is that
there is no way to hack flow. We cannot replace
the euphoric high that we get by calling upon
our strengths in the service of realizing our
potential and arriving at our best version of
ourselves. And when we try to, what we get is
the opposite of the epigenetic changes we see
in flow, namely a downward spiral fueled by a
downregulated dopamine system.
Optimal Experience Staves Off
Obesity
If optimal experience can help avert drug addictions, it shouldn’t be surprising that it can
also have a very powerful effect against obesity.
Obesity has been demonstrated to act on the
same brain reward system as drugs, and some
studies have shown that sugar is just as addictive as cocaine. And while previous research
has focused on the metabolic impact of certain
foods—exploring the difference between eating fats, proteins, or carbohydrates—looking
at obesity as an addictive problem means not
just that the foods we eat may have a different
metabolic impact, but that they have a different
reward value. Just as we don’t associate mopping the kitchen floor with a reward, we don’t
consider eating broccoli particularly rewarding. The problem is that the dopamine reward
system is a very powerful motivator of behavior,
especially when it comes to what we eat.
One study conducted by the Department of
Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
at Tufts University School of Medicine and the
Tufts Center for Neuroscience Research (CNR)
measured electrically evoked dopamine synthesis and release obesity-prone— i.e., those
that consumed more food and were 20 percent
heavier than normal—and obesity-resistant
rats. What the researchers found was that the
heavier rats had dopamine levels a whopping 50
percent lower than their normal weight counterparts, and these effects were immediately
evident after birth.
Studies like this give us a window into just what
happens with obesity: If some people suffer
from chronic low levels of dopamine, eating,
which raises dopamine levels, may simply be a
compensatory attempt to raise the baseline dopamine levels to normal. But the problem might
be even more complicated. Decreased food
intake, even when we are at normal weight,
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leads to decreased dopamine levels. And when
dopamine levels get really low, food cravings go
through the roof. For the person who already
has a low baseline level of dopamine, trying to
go on a diet may only make that chocolate cake
all the more appealing.
But the problem gets even worse. Obese people
may not just have less dopamine, but also less
receptors for dopamine, meaning they get less
bang for their buck. So even when they do eat
that chocolate cake, the reward may not be as
great as for someone with a normal level of dopamine receptors, and further they may not feel
the same level of satiation. And the reason they
have less dopamine receptors may have something to do with epigenetics. As Brenda Geiger,
author and graduate student in the Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics department
at TUSM, explained “Our molecular analysis
suggests that the central dopamine deficits are
most likely caused by a reduced expression of
the genes encoding two proteins, one that is
involved in dopamine synthesis, and another
that is a transporter responsible for packaging
dopamine into vesicles from which it is later
released upon stimulation.”
Just as drinking more causes a temporary rise
in dopamine but lower baseline levels, eating
to obesity may make us feel better in the moment, but the effect has diminishing rewards,
and long-lasting detrimental effects. When we
are obese, we have to eat more to get the same
pleasurable reward from food, and obesity itself
changes the way our brain processes dopamine—putting us in a state of chronic dopamine deficiency.
But we can also look at the problem another
Transformation Specialist
way. It may not be just that obese people start
with lower levels of dopamine, but their eating a
high fat diet may artificially lower them. By examining the “real-time” changes in dopamine
levels after rats consumed a high fat diet for
either 2 or 6 weeks, researchers from the University of Illinois found that, compared to rats
consuming a standard low-fat diet, high-fat-diet
rats exhibited reduced dopamine release and
also a reduced reuptake by dopamine transporters within the brain.
Whether we start with lower levels of dopamine, or we cause dopamine levels to drop
by eating high-fat food, the conclusion is the
same: low levels of dopamine are a major risk
factor for obesity. And it is here that flow may
hold the most promise. Because, unlike eating
a chocolate bar which makes us feel good in the
moment, flow raises the baseline levels of dopamine, which is one of the most powerful ways
to stop cravings. When life experiences bring
us rewards we desire in the form of optimal
experiences, we no longer look for them in the
foods we eat.
Powerpoint: Flow Power Up
Fourteen: Be Willing to Adapt
Your Approach
Flow is a state that depends on immediacy, both
in feedback and responses. When we receive
split-second information about how we are
doing, we know instantly just how we need to
adjust our approach. The closer we are to success—in hitting the ball over the net ten times
in a row, writing the perfect essay, or creating
our finest artistic masterpiece—the more flow
fans the flames of mastery. And mastery, as
Flow and Experience Sampling | 253
we know, is the lifeblood of motivation. When
we feel that we are getting better, surpassing
limitations that previously held us back, the
urge to continue becomes almost compulsive.
And if we want to learn how to master things,
there is no better place to look than flow. In
many ways, flow is the roadmap to mastery.
In flow, we have all of the crucial elements of
mastery: a challenge that is just above our skill
level, immediate feedback, and the ability to
adapt our approach. If we remove any of these,
or the challenge is too high or too low, feedback
is delayed, or we refuse to adapt our approach,
mastery and flow will both take a nosedive.
But perhaps one of the most compelling things
about flow—and what it has to do with facing
setbacks—is that the feedback we receive is not
just immediate, it is unpredictable. We don’t
know exactly which serve will go over the net,
where our writing muse will lie, or what movement of the brush will create the painting we
want, yet how we deal with this lack of predictability is a key to finding flow and dealing with
setbacks. Flow is an interactive and fluid state,
and part of what makes flow so attractive is its
novelty: we are kept on our toes when we don’t
know what to expect. And because we don’t
know what to expect, we must learn to adapt
our approach to whatever feedback we receive.
The ball may fly high into the air, the novel
may take on a life of its own, and the wind may
blow the sails wildly and send us off course: all
things we will have to adapt to. Exposure to
unpredictability like this is how we get better
at adapting. As opposed to trying to foresee
and avoid uncertainty, we learn to adjust our
approach, but more importantly, because adjusting our approach is what keeps us in flow,
we learn that there is a powerful link between
adapting and happiness. And because setbacks
are characterized by their unpredictable nature
and bring with them tremendous uncertainty,
here is the lesson we can learn: When we adapt,
as opposed to trying to control that which is
unpredictable in nature, we are much happier.
Flow Offsets ADHD
While we know flow harnesses our attention,
it shouldn’t be surprising that when we don’t
spend enough time there, we are prone to
attentional disorders, like ADHD. ADHD is
commonly understood as a difficulty sustaining
attention, disregarding irrelevant stimuli, organizing information toward goal-directed behavior, and in many cases, reduced motivation.
Looking to understand just how dopamine affects ADHD, Nora Volkow, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and Gene-Jack
Wang, Brookhaven’s medical department chair,
used positron emission tomography (PET) to
measure two markers of the dopamine system:
dopamine receptors, to which the chemical
messenger binds to propagate the “reward”
signal, and dopamine transporters, which take
up and recycle excess dopamine after the signal
is sent, in 53 adult ADHD patients who had
never received treatment and 44 healthy control
subjects who had been carefully screened to
eliminate potentially confounding variables.
The results showed something interesting: it
wasn’t just that ADHD patients had lower levels
of dopamine receptors and transporters, it was
that they showed up in the accumbens and
midbrain: two key regions of the brain directly
involved in processing motivation and reward.
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And when these deficits showed up, participants
exhibited all of the classic symptoms of ADHD.
According to Nora Volkow, “These deficits in
the brain’s reward system may help explain
the clinical symptoms of ADHD, including
inattention and reduced motivation, as well as
the propensity for complications, such as drug
abuse and obesity among ADHD patients. Our
findings imply that deficits in the dopamine
reward pathway play a role in the symptoms of
inattention in ADHD and could underlie these
patients’ abnormal responses to reward.”
“Abnormal responses to reward” here represents a clinical term for poor attention, impulse control problems, addictions, and probably obesity. Or simply a form of compensation.
As Wang says: “Patients who abuse drugs or
overeat may be unconsciously attempting to
compensate for a deficient reward system by
boosting their dopamine levels.”
This is also why stimulant medications, the
most common pharmacological treatment for
ADHD, are effective as they elevate the brain’s
levels of dopamine. Whether there was another
way to elevate dopamine may not have been a
question that Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi had in
mind when he began his studies into optimal
experience, but in the outcomes he found his
answer: after studying the percentage of time
that children spend in flow, he found a direct
correlation between how much flow a person
experiences and their life-long likelihood of
drug abuse, obesity, and ADHD. The kids who
reported more frequent optimal experience
were as much as twenty percent less likely to
experience addiction to drugs or food, and as
much as forty percent less likely to be put on
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medication for ADHD. As adults, these same
children reported higher levels of life satisfaction, enjoyed their work more, and had better
relationships. At this point, the reason should
be obvious: optimal experience is not only a
gateway to a better life, but is the most powerful
protection we have against the many factors
that hinder it.
Flow Enhances Motivation
Whether we are looking to hike Mt. Everest,
surf a twenty foot wave, hit a Megaramp on a
skateboard—all admirable feats—or simply to
avoid addiction, what we need is motivation.
And when it comes to action, dopamine is a
premium fuel. Not only does dopamine fuel our
reward system, but it may also give us the edge
we need to overcome our fears.
In a first-of-its-kind study on humans, researchers from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging in London divided 39 healthy people
into three groups: One group was given levodopa, a drug that increases dopamine levels in the
brain, another took haloperidol, a dopamine
receptor blocker, and the third was given a placebo. Then, the researchers showed each group
symbols associated with winning or losing different amounts of money. To “win” more money,
participants had to learn through trial and error
which symbols resulted in which outcomes.
The results showed something fascinating:
while the levodopa group were 95 percent more
likely to choose symbols associated with higher
monetary gains than those who took haloperidol—therefore winning more money—they did
not lose less money along the way. While their
Flow and Experience Sampling | 255
dopamine-depleted counterparts shied away
from trying again after a few losses, those with
higher levels of dopamine seemed to try even
harder, even after losses. In the words of study
author, Mathias Pessiglion, Ph.D., “The results
show dopamine drives us to get what we want,
but not to avoid what we fear.”
But the relationship between dopamine and
motivation doesn’t end there. Dopamine may
also provide the activation energy needed to get
us moving.
In a review of data from several investigations,
including those conducted over the past two
decades by the Castellón group in collaboration
with John Salamone of the University of Connecticut (USA), on the role of dopamine in the
motivated behavior of animals, Mercè Correa,
who conducted the review, concluded, “It was
believed that dopamine regulated pleasure and
reward and that we release it when we obtain
something that satisfies us, but in fact the latest
scientific evidence shows that this neurotransmitter acts before that, it actually encourages
us to act. In other words, dopamine is released
in order to achieve something good or to avoid
something evil.”
If this sounds like a paradigm shift, it should.
Because it may not be that dopamine is just
an outcome of optimal experience—it may
be that it is actually a precursor to going after
what we want. And yet perhaps we shouldn’t
be surprised. What research like this tells us is
that flow isn’t just intrinsically motivating, it’s
biologically motivating. In the words of Steven
Kotler, “When doing what we love transforms
us into the best possible version of ourselves
and that version hints at even greater future
possibilities, the urge to explore those possibilities becomes a feverish compulsion.” If flow
really is the doorway not just to extraordinary
feats, but to a life imbued with meaning fulfillment and joy—and free from addictions, obesity, and attentional disorders—it’s no wonder
that it also exists in a feedback loop: the more
we are in flow, the more we seek flow.
Here are the important points to take away:
1.
People in flow consistently report being so
enthralled in the midst of a challenge that it
leads to a state of euphoria, much like religious ecstasy.
2.
Flow is so intoxicating because it is the highest form of mastery: mastery over the self.
3.
Dopamine produced in the state of flow is
more than just psychologically rewarding, it
is a fundamental part of physical healing and
recovery.
4.
Flow is associated with less risk of addiction,
lower levels of obesity, improved attention
and lower levels of ADHD, and improved
motivation.
Before we move on to the next section, where
we explore the method used to find flow, measure it, and expand upon it, let’s summarize
what we know so far about flow:
•
The state of flow is similar to a self-transcendent experience in that one feels completely
immersed in the activity and experiences a
feeling of oneness and a loss of awareness of
time.
•
The conditions of flow include a clear set of
goals, immediate feedback, and the perception that there is a good balance between
one’s skills and the challenges of the task.
•
Flow is characterized by the following factors:
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Novelty
attention to is more likely to immerse us and
ultimately lead to flow. But novel situations are
flow inducing for another reason too. Anything
that is unfamiliar engages our automatic (and
unconscious) tendency to try to better understand it. When we don’t know why the ball flies
off the tee in the direction that it does, why the
horse is spooked around us, or why the clay
molding forms in the way it does, our need to
understand drives our curiosity, and ultimately,
our immersion in the experience. For this reason, many people can recount past experiences
of “spending hours trying to figure something
out,” which were most likely states of flow. This
is also why learning experiences are so conducive to flow. The act of trying to understand
something, and then aiming to better integrate
this understanding into our memory is naturally immersive. Learning how to throw a fastball,
scale a tough rock wall, ride a difficult horse,
sing on key, or dance to the rhythm are all
things that take enormous amounts of practice.
And if we are to learn them, we must devote
the entirety of our attention to the task (just ask
anybody who has tried to learn to ride a horse
while not paying attention)—which thereby
almost automatically puts us into flow.
As novel situations tend to peak curiosity, they
are also natural gateways into flow. The different sights, sounds, smells, and movements—especially when they are unexpected—that new
situations offer demand our attention because
they are something that is unfamiliar to us.
As we try to categorize what we are exposed
to—e.g., as we try to figure out just what that
smell, place, or person reminds us of—we pay
more attention to it. And what we devote more
So how do we use novelty to drive flow? One
obvious way is to try learning something new,
or by adding a new dimension to something
you already know how to do. If you don’t know
how to surf, for example, you can try learning.
On the other hand, if you already know how to
surf, trying surfing a new spot, new board, or
a different type of wave. Similarly, you can try
learning how to sing if you don’t already know
how. And if you do know how to sing, you can
intense and focused concentration, a merging
of action and awareness, a loss of reflective
self-consciousness, a sense of personal control
over the situation, a distortion of temporal
awareness, and experiencing the activity as
autotelic.
•
The experience of flow correlates positively
with life satisfaction, affective states, creativity, learning, sports performance, and
self-esteem.
Powerpoint: Three Flow Tools
Flow can be a very elusive state, and for that
reason, it can be hard to tap into. Just how do
we become immersed in an experience? How
do we quiet the self-conscious? How do we quell
distraction and allow time to dilate? Even if we
follow the conditions of flow, such as setting
clear goals, receiving immediate feedback, and
taking on a challenge that is just slightly higher
than our ability level, flow may not occur. Flow
is a highly individual state and what works for
one person may not work for another. However,
there are certain elements that are known to
assist the state of flow—what I call “flow tools.”
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Flow and Experience Sampling | 257
try learning a different style. However, you
can also use novelty in less direct ways. Simply
getting into a different environment, such as a
hike you’ve never attempted, walking in a park
you haven’t visited, or even driving a new route
to work, can all open a door to flow. As you
become immersed in the experience and pursue
a clear goal—such as making it to the top of
the hike, navigating the park, and then arriving at work—receive immediate feedback, and
when the challenge matches, and even slightly
exceeds, your ability level, you have all of the
three integral conditions of flow.
The Outdoors
Most people can relate to feeling better when
spending time outside. Being in nature is
naturally calming and tends to make us feel
more connected, while also de-activating stress
responses. Much of the reason for this is the
same reason that the outdoors is also conducive to flow: it activates out senses. As we take
in the smells, sights, and sounds of our natural
environment, our experience broadens. When
we become immersed in the world around us,
we often leave our worries behind us and then
flow becomes much more likely. Runners, for
example, often relate a much greater possibility
of experiencing a “runners high” when running
outside vs. running on a treadmill. Similarly,
rock climbers often relate feeling “at one” with
the world around them when outside on the
rock vs. when inside on a manufactured climbing wall. Accounts such as these remind us of
the importance of connecting with the world
around us—which becomes much easier to do
when we feel immersed in our experience.
But nature also offers an essential key to promoting flow—that is, the self-transcendent
experience. When we connect with things that
are larger and more powerful than we are—as
nature tends to be—we also see our own experience in perspective. We are no longer a
sole survivor, but rather, an important part of
a vast system. And connection tends to have a
palliative effect on our own problems, making
them pale in comparison to the larger goal of
connecting with something beyond ourselves.
Further, connecting with something larger than
ourselves also expands our sense of self—a core
characteristic of flow—as well as our possibilities. Through the help of something more
sovereign than ourselves, we may accomplish
more than possible when relying on our own
power. And when self-transcendence hints at
unrealized potential, it’s a pretty compelling
flow inducer.
So how do we utilize nature to induce flow? We
begin by interacting with the world around us
in any way that challenges us. Try taking a hike
on a new and difficult trail. Go for a run on a
trail that forces you to watch your step. Take a
bike ride on a twisty and technical trail. Swim
in the ocean. Try surfing. Ski down a run that
challenges you. Go for a horseback ride. By utilizing the three conditions of flow: clear goals,
immediate feedbacks, and a challenge slightly
higher than your ability level, almost any experience in nature can promote flow.
Animals
The therapeutic value of animals has been well
documented for a long time, yet, in many ways,
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they are natural flow inducers. For one thing,
animals use a much broader sensory system
to communicate. While humans rely almost
predominantly on verbal messages to communicate, animals incorporate a sense of smell,
sight, sound, and proprioception to read one
another and relay information. And when they
interact with humans, animals utilize the same
system. While another person may not notice,
or not comment on the color of a shirt you
wear, a horse will frequently spook immediately at a bright or contrasting color. Similarly,
a person is not likely to react if our posture or
mannerisms appear aggressive; however, a dog
will often cower immediately if we approach too
aggressively. It is responses such as these that
make the interactions we have with animals
such a rich sensory experience. And incorporating multiple senses is one way to make things
more immersive—which is a condition of flow.
The feedback we get from animals is also
instantaneous, which, you will remember, is
another condition of flow. Because animals rely
on their present awareness for their survival—it
is not helpful for their survival to have a delayed
response to a charging predator, or conversely,
to be late to respond to an available prey in the
brush—there is no time delay in the responses
they give to one another or to us. And when
you combine immediate feedback with a vast
sensory experience, you have one pretty immersive experience.
Interactions with animals also remove many
of the factors that typically interrupt flow. For
one thing, animals do not tolerate the same
level of distraction that humans do. While most
of us have become accustomed to carrying on
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a conversation while texting, driving, typing,
or cooking dinner, these types of distracted
interactions will result in an immediate response from an animal. As any animal owner
will attest, the minute you fail to pay attention
to an animal, they will find a way to regain your
attention. Keeping our attention is one very
powerful way to induce flow, but animals also
eliminate another flow barrier: simply being in
the vicinity of an animal lowers cortisol levels
and reduces anxiety, which both intercede flow.
Because we don’t feel judged, criticized, or the
need to measure up or compare ourselves to
animals, the experience is much less self-conscious than human–human interactions. Numerous studies have indicated that people feel
much more free when interacting with animals,
and their lower levels of self-conscious is the
reason why. In this respect, interactions with
animals tend to mimic states of flow, where
self-consciousness is quietened.
Animals also offer endless challenges. Even
better, challenges that typically involve multiple
senses. For example, try putting the halter on
an anxious horse without first checking your
own posture. If you move too fast, use jerky or
rigid movements, or a harsh tone of voice, the
horse is likely to shy away. Similarly, try teaching a puppy to sit while texting on the phone.
Without effectively combining eye contact, posture, and vocal inflection, the puppy is likely to
stare off into space, or become distracted itself.
Responses such as these not only provide immediate feedback, but open the door to further
challenges (e.g., once we halter the horse, we
can try leading it; once we teach the puppy to
sit, we can try teaching it to fetch). This ability
Flow and Experience Sampling | 259
to challenge ourselves in a progressive way—
and with global feedback—is one of the most
powerful flow inducers we have.
So how do you use interactions with animals to
induce flow? Well, almost any interaction will
do. Simply walking a dog could become a flow
experience if you pay attention to the interaction with the dog, incorporating as many senses
as possible, and choose a goal, such as keeping
the dog at your shoulder. You could attempt
to teach your pet a new trick, such as fetching,
flying to your shoulder, or sitting on command.
You could also choose less direct goals, such
as interacting with your animal in a way that
produces a desired response. For example, you
could try to calm a nervous horse by stroking
it softly. Similarly, you could try to use your
posture and mannerisms to teach your dog to
pay attention and avoid becoming distracted
by other dogs. When it comes to inducing flow
through interactions with animals, the possibilities are endless. What we must keep in mind
though are the three conditions of flow: immediate feedback, clear goals, and a challenge that
is just slightly above our skill level.
PowerPoint: Three Flow Exercises
Many people associate the state of flow with extreme athletic feats—we might think of Michael
Jordan dunking a basketball from the top of the
key, Laird Hamilton surfing a monstrous wave,
or Evil Knievel flying across the Grand Canyon
on a motorcycle—and yet flow is something
that is available to us all. By applying the three
conditions it requires—clear goals, immediate
feedback, and a challenge just slightly more
than we are capable of—almost any activity
can promote flow. So to help engage your “flow
muscles,” here are three flow exercises that can
be performed by anyone.
Beat the Clock
By capitalizing on the three conditions of
flow—immediate feedback, clear goals, and a
challenge just above our capacity level—activities can be made to become much more flow
inducing. One exercise I call Beat the Clock
utilizes a form of feedback that is universal to
us all—the element of time—it can turn almost
anything we do into a flow conductor. To begin,
choose any activity that you have to do, such
as mopping the floor, folding laundry, writing
reports for work, washing the car, shopping for
groceries, or taking a shower. Then, take the
amount of time that it normally takes you to
do that activity, and then set a goal to shorten
the time by 10 percent. For example, let’s say
that, on average, it takes you 20 minutes to mop
the floors in your house. Shortening the time
by ten percent, try and see if you can mop the
floors in 18 minutes. Or, let’s say that you can
typically write reports (or complete any other
job requirement) in 40 minutes. See if you can
get it done in 36 minutes. Once you have your
goal, attempt the activity, paying close attention
to how you perform what you are doing and
the time it takes you. Pay attention to how you
move your body as you mop the floor, fold the
laundry, or wash the car. Pay attention to the
way you navigate the grocery store as you assess
if it is faster to start with the outside aisles and
work your way in, or the other way around. Pay
attention to the style in which you write your
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reports for work, noticing any techniques that
seem to speed things up or slow them down.
Then, once you have your feedback, adjust your
approach, and then see if you can improve your
time. If you meet your goal, shorten the time
again by 10 percent and see if you can go even
faster. Be careful, however, not to sacrifice standards or the quality of your work as this would
make the challenge less difficult and the results
less satisfactory. You might also find that you
discover new skills, techniques, or abilities that
raise your ability level, and even hint at future
potential. And as you already know, discovering
new skills peaks our curiosity and draws us into
the experience, both things that promote flow.
Learn Something New
As we already know, learning something new,
because it involves exposure to a novel situation, and immersion in that experience is a
natural flow enhancer. And using learning to
induce flow is as easy as just choosing what
we want to learn. Most activities have built-in
goals—such as learning to hit the tennis ball
over the net, learning how to turn, stop, and
move the horse forward, or learning how to use
a narrative description to create a scene—that
are natural learning goals. Further, because
learning involves measuring progress, the goals
are usually naturally clear. (It doesn’t help us
learn tennis if the goal is just to “hit better”.)
Immediate feedback is also a fundamental
part of learning as, in order to assimilate and
integrate the new learned information—, i.e.,
arriving at new understandings—we must have
feedback on our progress. To use learning to
promote flow, simply choose something new
to learn. Or, if you are already proficient at
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something, challenge yourself to learn a new
component of that skill. For example, if you
already play tennis, try learning a new serve,
return, or volley shot. Similarly, if you run
every day, try learning a technique to improve
your running form. Then, make sure you incorporate the remaining two conditions of flow:
immediate feedback (either through a qualified
professional or self-monitoring device) and a
challenge just above your capacity. Learning
is not just a way to introduce ourselves to new
activities that we didn’t realize we would enjoy,
but it also makes activities that we already do
much more rewarding. And doing something
for its own reward (such as the joy we feel in
achieving a long sought after goal) is a pivotal
characteristic of flow.
Burn Those Calories
Exercise, for many people, is a dreaded activity.
Especially when the focus is on completing a
certain amount of miles in a set time, lifting
so many sets of heavy weights, or riding a bike
for a prescribed amount of time, exercise can
feel like a dreaded chore. And yet, exercise is a
natural flow enhancer. There is a challenge (we
can choose to try running faster or farther, lift
more weight, or ride the bike longer), instant
feedback (we can use a treadmill to determine
our running speed, the amount of weight we lift
to determine strength, and/or a GPS device to
determine the distance we pedal on a bike), and
clear goals (we can set any goals for ourselves
that we like). In the exercise I call Burn Those
Calories, we change the game of exercise to
make if more flow inducing. Here are the rules:
choose the amount of calories you would like to
burn in a day: you can choose any number you
Flow and Experience Sampling | 261
want, but typically a good starting point is between 2500 and 3500; use a heart rate monitor
with a calorie function; wear the watch for 24
hours (even when you sleep); perform an activity (or exercise) you like to burn the calories.
For example, let’s say your goal is to burn 2500
calories per day; beginning at 7 am (or any time
you like), start your watch, and go about your
day, adding in as much activity, movement,
and exercise as possible. As you glance at your
watch periodically, you will know where you
stand in relation to your goal. If you find you
are low in caloric expenditure (e.g., at 3 PM you
have only burned 1000 calories), you can move
or exercise more. You could also try different
forms of movement: gardening, housecleaning,
chasing the dog, as well as different forms of exercise—you may find that lifting lighter weights
faster burns more calories, or the other way
around. As you pay attention to which activities
and exercises burn the most calories, and move
closer to your goal, the act of burning calories—
which for many of us is a very large reason for
exercise—becomes much less like a chore, and
much more like a gateway into flow.
Powerpoint: Three Steps to Help
Your Client Find Flow
Find Activities That Have Clear Goals
Flow depends on knowing just what is expected, and having clear goals that can be attained,
as complete absorption in a task depends on
hyperfocus on a set goal. While there are many
activities to choose from, you can help your
client find flow by focusing on those that have
clear goals and expectations—or find ways to
incorporate these into an existing task.
Find Activities That Provide Immediate
Feedback
In order for action and awareness to merge
(which characterizes flow), we must be able to
identify the impact of our actions, adjust our
approach, and receive feedback on the results.
It is through this immediate feedback that we
become absorbed in the challenge and fixated
on mastering the task. To help your clients find
flow draw their attention to activities that offer
this immediate feedback, or look for ways to
build feedback into an existing activity that
they enjoy.
Ensure That Your Clients Perceptions of
Their Skills Matches Their Perceptions of
the Demands of the Task
One of the most critical elements of flow is that
a person’s perception of their skills is distinctly
matched to their perception of the demands
of the task. When the task is too demanding,
anxiety ensues, and when the challenge is not
high enough, the result is boredom. You can
help your clients find the right task for them,
by asking when they feels that their skills and
strengths are most uniquely aligned with the
task at hand, when they feel most confident
in their abilities, or when they feel that they
no longer question themselves. Drawing their
attention to activities such as these will not only
provide a window into your clients’ distinct
skills and strengths, but also the activities that
will be useful to help them find more flow.
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Section Seven: The Experience Sampling
Method
Experience sampling
method (ESM): a research
method designed to gather
real-time data of people in
their natural environments.
The experience sampling method (ESM) is a research method
designed to gather real-time data of people of their natural environments. The method consists of wearing a device—such as a beeper, cell phone, or Apple watch—and being prompted throughout
the day to respond to some sort of assessment questionnaire. For
example, we could wear a beeper that is programmed to go off at
random intervals four times throughout the day. When signaled,
we must respond—say within thirty minutes—to a predesigned set
of questions. The assessment questions typically target mood, who
we are with, and a short description of the activities we are doing
at the time we are signaled. While early historical accounts of the
ESM, such as daily diary, thought recording, and daily mood studies
can be found going back to as early as 1925, the ESM is most commonly credited to the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, whom you
met in the section on positive psychology. While Csikszentmihalyi
originally used the ESM to study adolescents in their natural environments, what distinguished Csikszentmihalyi’s methods—and
the reason they are so prolific—is that Csikszentmihalyi designed
an ESM approach that used random sampling. Instead of relying
on preprogrammed assessments that participants could quickly
become accustomed to, Csikszentmihalyi signaled his adolescents
at random times throughout the day, which allowed him to get a
much less contaminated picture of how their feelings correlated with
their daily experience. While studies like Csikszentmihalyi’s were
later replicated to investigate mood across a variety of situations as
well as intrapsychic phenomena (such as by Diener & Larson, 1984;
Brandstaetter, 1983), it was Csikszentmihalyi who first identified
the state of flow through the ESM method. While Csikszentmihalyi
applied the ESM to explore exceptional performers—such as gifted athletes, dancers, and artists—during their daily lives, what he
eventually isolated, through the use of random sampling, was what
he called “optimal experience”—or what we now know as flow.
Today, the ESM has effectively been used in a variety of situations
to identify moods and how they correlate to activities, flow states,
and even to identify situations that may trigger addictive conditions,
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Flow and Experience Sampling | 263
such as drinking (Bos et al., 2015). Also, with
the advance of wearable devices, such as smartphones, watches, and palm pilots, the development of different models of the ESM has
overcome many of the difficulties in the early
research models— such as participants having
to write down the answers to the questions,
carry notepads, and remember to respond at
predetermined times, etc.—and have become
one of the most promising ways to study happiness. In the words of ESM researcher Cristine
Scollon, “Clearly, the main strength of experience sampling lies in its ability to provide
fine-grained, detailed pictures of human experience” (Scollon, 2014). Because the ESM offers
this granular look at the daily lives of people, it
is not subject to the typical problems associated
with studying subjective experience, which is
that people don’t always remember accurately.
And when combined with other methods of assessing well-being, the ESM is particularly useful (Kahneman, 1999). For example, the ESM
could be used alongside an objective measure—
such as pounds lost—when assessing progress
in a weight loss program to provide not only a
subjective measure of how the person felt while
doing the activities that led to weight loss, but
which specific activities were linked with the
highest levels of happiness. It is in this way that
the ESM bridges the gap between interventions
that work and a person’s attitude toward those
interventions. (As you will recall from the section on commitment strategy skills, a person’s
interest in an activity is one of the strongest
predictors of continued involvement.)
While the applications of the ESM are extremely wide-ranging, there are three main types
of experience sampling that can be classified
under the term experience sampling method
(ESM). 1. Sampling can be interval-contingent,
where signals are received at preset intervals—
such as 9 AM; 12 PM; 3 PM; and 6 PM—and
participants then complete self-reports at each
interval. Examples of interval-contingent sampling include hourly reports and daily reports
of mood, thoughts, and activities (Reis & Gable,
2000; Wheeler & Reis, 1991). 2. Event-contingent sampling, which links self-reports to
a predetermined event, such as every time a
person overeats, or every time a person has a
social interaction (Cote & Moskowitz, 1998). 3.
Signal-contingent sampling, which is the most
widely used form of ESM. Here, participants
complete self-reports only when prompted by a
signal that occurs at random intervals.
Among the broad categories of the ESM, there
are also variations in what sort of information the questions are designed to generate.
Thought-sampling, for example, focuses primarily on a person’s inner experience, and
pays little attention to external events (Hulbert,
1997). Another form of ESM assessment is the
descriptive-experience sampling method, which
seeks to gather qualitative information about
a person’s experience through their subjective
description of it. Here, participants are asked
to describe their experience both internally and externally, so that correlations can be
drawn between external events and subjective
feelings. Ecological momentary assessments,
on the other hand, are interested in a person’s
momentary experiences as well as the ecological environments in which they occur. Here,
instead of being asked to describe the environment through their perception of it—as is the
case with descriptive-experience sampling—a
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person would be asked to simply state the
objective external conditions along with their
subjective feelings and thoughts in the moment
(Stone et al., 1999). However, it is important to
note that most researchers do not distinguish
much between these variations.
In terms of identifying flow, the methods that
Csikszentmihalyi used separated questions into
two dimensions: cognitive and affective.
Students reported on the cognitive dimensions
of their subjective experience by rating (on a
4-point scale):
1.
the challenge of the activity they were engaged in;
2.
their skill in meeting these challenges;
3.
the degree of control they felt;
4.
the degree of choice they felt in how activities were done;
5.
their levels of concentration at the moment
they were signaled.
Similarly, students also rated the affective dimensions of their experience based on:
1.
enjoyment of the activity;
2.
interest in the activity;
3.
anxiety;
4.
anger.
Along with these two dimensions, Csikszentmihalyi also asked participants to give a short
description of the activities they were doing in
the moment (Hektnor, Schmidt, & Csikszentmihalyi, 2007). By simplifying the dimensions to
ratings, Csikszentmihalyi was able to shorten the
Transformation Specialist
time required for participants to complete the
questions, and thus he could gather more data,
and with less inconvenience for those involved.
Whether used to identify flow or to link moods
to external events, the ESM holds tremendous
promise for behavior change. Unlike other
methods of assessing change, the ESM links
our affective and cognitive experience to the
methods of change used. The use of the ESM
also takes the study of behavioral change out of
the laboratory—where it is subject to a host of
presumptions that may not apply in practice to
real life—and look at what methods are actually
effective in our daily experience. Information
collection through the ESM also provides a
granular look at the subtle nuances of behavior
change, which may not be revealed through
other assessment methods. For example, while
we may forecast higher levels of enjoyment
while exercising in the morning, the ESM may
show that we are actually happier exercising in
the evening. Similarly, while we may predict an
ease in ordering healthy food at a restaurant,
the ESM may reveal our high levels of anxiety
and anger when eating out. As we know from
the section on commitment strategies, when
it comes to predicting how we will respond in
the future, we usually make several errors. It is
in this way that the ESM is an invaluable tool
to decipher the link between how we think we
will act and feel, and how we actually do. Much
in the same way that interventions designed for
the self in the long run may look good on paper
and fail in daily practice, any intervention without the use of real-time data will overlook the
most influential part of behavior change—that
is, our daily experience of the change itself.
Flow and Experience Sampling | 265
Let’s take a look at an example of an ESM approach in practice:
Type: Signal-contingent (random intervals)
Information assessed: How daily mood is
linked to eating behavior.
Questions used:
Cognitive: (Rate 0–4)
•
Degree of control you feel
•
Degree of choice you feel about what you are
doing
•
Level of concentration
Affective: (Rate 0–4)
•
Degree of connection you feel
•
Degree of loneliness you feel
•
Degree of calmness you feel
•
Degree of anxiety you feel
•
Degree of satisfaction you feel
•
Degree of anger you feel
Description of experience: (In one statement
describe what you are doing)
Rationale: Because the participant was suspected to have greater levels of difficulty in managing eating when experiencing one of three
moods: loneliness, anxiety, or anger, affective
assessment questions were created to measure
these three moods in two ways: questions first
asked about the presence of opposing affective
conditions (e.g., it is difficult to say one is feeling
connected and lonely at the same time), and then
asked directly about targeted affective states, to
increase reporting accuracy. Cognitive assessments were centered around thoughts that were
suspected to influence these affective states, such
as thinking one doesn’t have enough control,
choice, or is bored. Lastly, the description of
the experience did not ask directly about eating
behavior, but rather asked the participants to
describe their experiences in their own words.
This achieved two things: first, the participants
were not subjected to becoming reactive by being
asked directly about their eating (we will explore
the concept of reactivity more in the section on
ESM skills), and second, any activities that might
correspond to overeating could be identified
(such as overeating when watching TV, on the
internet, or when lying in bed).
In the section on ESM skills, we discuss the
steps to design and use an ESM approach for
behavior change, including administering the
ESM and choosing the survey questions and
intervals as well as how to measure change and
use information gathered to motivate a qualitative shift in behavior.
Here are the important points to take away:
1.
The ESM is a research method that uses
prompts throughout the day where people respond to a set of questions to gather
real-time information about people’s daily
experiences.
2.
The three types of ESM approaches are:
interval-contingent, event-contingent, and
signal-contingent.
3.
While there are variations in the types of
information gathered through the different
ESM approaches, most questions assess a
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person’s subjective experience through their
thoughts, feelings, and a description of their
activities.
4.
The ESM is one of the most promising methods for studying happiness and behavior
change.
5.
The ESM bridges the gap between interventions that work and a person’s attitude
toward those interventions.
Changing behavior depends not only on finding
interventions that work (and an effective way to
measure the results of those interventions), but
also our attitude toward the experience itself. It
is in this way that the ESM can enable an inside
look into just what behavior change is, and
how we experience it. In the next section, we
explore the benefits and applications of using a
real-time ESM to motivate behavior change.
Powerpoint: Three Ways to Use
the ESM to Change Behavior
Connect Mood States with Behavior
Because the ESM can be used to ask questions
about both mood and experience (behavior), it
can be very helpful for drawing awareness to
the effect our actions have on the way we feel.
When you use the ESM in this way to connect
your clients’ mood to their resulting behavior,
you not only provide them with valuable data
on their experience, but also a very persuasive
motivator for change.
Connect Thoughts to Mood
ESM questions can be designed to assess
Transformation Specialist
thoughts as well as mood and behavior, and in
this way they can provide further information
about the way thoughts affect mood. Through
asking your clients about their thoughts in a
signal-contingent interval, not only do you
increase their awareness of their thoughts, but
also the way their thoughts influence their
mood—which can often acts as a very potent
inspiration for change.
Identify Experiences That Bring
Engagement
As the ESM was originally developed to identify
peak experiences, it is a very effective way to help
uncover the activities that bring us the greatest
level of engagement (and fulfillment). When you
can draw your clients’ attention to the things that
bring them the greatest satisfaction, you provide
a very convincing motivation for change.
The Benefits of Real-Time Data
As you know from the discussion above, the use
of the ESM avoids many of the typical problems
associated with measuring behavior change.
Instead, the ESM can enable an exhaustive look
at our experience of behavior change, while also
isolating the nuances of the change, which allows
for a much more adaptive and flexible approach
toward changing behavior. (Once a link between
an external event and behavioral response is
noted, interventions can be designed to reduce
this connection, while continuing to assess the
efficacy of the interventions.) However, beyond
the ways in which the ESM offers a clearer way
of assessing subjective levels of well-being and
behavior change, it offers significant benefits in
assisting the process of change itself. Let’s now
Flow and Experience Sampling | 267
take a look at the ways in which the ESM can be
an effective tool in changing behavior.
Reduction in Memory Bias
For those who work in behavior, as well as researchers who seek to measure it, the problem
with asking participants to recall experiences
(whether they pertain to thoughts or feelings)
is that most people do not recall accurately.
This is known as memory bias, whereby, when
we are asked to recall events, which can then
be compared to actual experience, there is a
consistent disconnect. We either tend to remember events as we would like to remember
them (confirmation bias), in a way that supports our affective state (affective bias), or in a
way that supports the information available at
the time (availability bias). (There are several
other biases that most likely apply here.) For
example, when asking people to recall events
in global self-reports, several biases emerge
in retrospective recall (Cutler et al., 1996;
Redelmeier & Kahneman, 1996; Ross, 1989),
autobiographical memory (Han et al., 1998;
Henry et al., 1994; Wang, 2001), and the use
of heuristics in response patterns (Robinson &
Clore, in press; Schwarz 1994, 1999; Tversky &
Kahneman, 1973). Additionally, discrepancies
between online and global self-report measures have been demonstrated in a variety of
research areas, such as coping and emotion,
with correlation levels as low as 0.58 (Ptacek et
al., 1994). In another study, cognitive coping
was underreported, while behavioral coping
was overreported (Stone, 1998). One consistency was that retrospective measures overlapped
considerably with individuals’ self-beliefs, and
this was consistent across various cultures.
That is to say, not just do we remember information inaccurately, but also we remember it
in ways that support our self-beliefs.
What you should remember from the discussion
on commitment strategies about biases is that
not only do they misinterpret data, but they don’t
assist in behavior change. Any measurement
or intervention that doesn’t overcome biases
will struggle to be effective. It is in this way that
the ESM offers a unique opportunity. With the
ESM, no room for recall bias exists between the
signal and the response because of the shortness of the time-lag between the signal and the
response. Because of the accuracy of responses,
the ESM provides a much clearer picture of how
we actually feel about events in our lives, which
is especially important with behavior change. As
you know, what determines the continued involvement in an activity is our attitude toward it,
which is uniquely captured through the real-time
approach that the ESM uses.
Behavioral and Emotional
Contingencies Can Be Noted
Behavioral change approaches and behavioral
research have historically suffered from problems of application. That is, what we say when
being assessed or researched is not always
what pans out in real life. Much of the reason
for this is that the typical assessment methods
(whether a behavioral change questionnaire or
a research study) offer only a miniscule picture
of the complexity of possibilities that can occur
on a daily basis. It would simply be impossible
to ask someone about all of the interactions
(whether between people or events) that could
occur throughout a day or week. As one of
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the most crucial elements of behavior change
is linking events to behavior, this is a major
constriction. It is here that the ESM offers a
profound advantage: because the ESM uses
random sampling across a length of time, it is
possible to capture a variety of situations that a
person may find themselves in, and can allow
beginning to decipher just which events lead to
what feelings and behavioral responses. This
has been one of the strongest benefits of the
ESM: it allows for the investigation of complex
questions about the contingencies of behaviors.
For example, ESM studies can be designed to
investigate contingencies such as isolation and
overeating, feelings of productivity and increased time spent exercising, and greater time
spent in social activities and enhanced levels
of happiness (Diener et al., 1984; Pavot et al.,
1990). Even further, the ESM could be used to
explore the momentary effects of activities such
as spending time with friends, exercising, and
eating certain foods in a way that typical behavioral assessments cannot. Here again, the use of
the ESM has proven to be a much more effective way for identifying correlations between
feelings (such as pleasant effects) and behavior
(such as future social activity) than self-reporting, even after controlling for previous social
activity (Lucas, 2000). The ESM has also been
useful for drawing connections between certain
types of interactions (such as with one’s spouse,
boss, children, or friends) and resultant behavior. One study demonstrated that the types of
interactions people had correlated with their
personalities, and that their emotional responses were dependent upon both their personalities and the situational variables (Brandstatter,
1983). Other studies have connected situational
Transformation Specialist
interactions with a person’s gender (Larson
et al., 1994) and culture (Oishi et al., 2002).
Unlike the typical methods of understanding
behavior—which often look to draw connections between known variables, such as gender
and affect or personality and behavior—the use
of the ESM allows the emergence of unknown
correlations to be identified. That is to say, that,
while we may believe (and report) that a client’s overeating is due to a “lack of time in food
preparation,” the ESM may reveal no connection between the amount of time they have and
their eating behavior. Even further, the ESM
might identify that, in fact, boredom (presumably an abundance of time) preceded their overeating. It is in this way that the use of the ESM
provides an “unfiltered look” at our behavior
that goes beyond self-reports and demographics
to identify the causal mechanisms of behavior
(Diener & Biswas-Diener, 2000).
Retrospective Data is a Powerful
Motivator
Interestingly, the ability of the ESM to allow
looking back (what is known as retrospective
data) over past behavior might have a significant advantage in the field of behavior change.
When comparing people’s reports on how they
have been feeling, to how they feel at the moment, or how they think they will feel in the
future, past reports appear to be much more
predictive of future behavior. In one study,
researchers asked vacationing students to complete self-reports measuring their expectations
of pleasure for their vacation, online reports of
pleasure during the experience, and a retrospective recall of pleasure. The results indicated that
only the recalled effect, not online experience
Flow and Experience Sampling | 269
or future expectation, directly and strongly predicted the desire to
take a similar vacation in the future. In another study, retrospective
reports of their experiences with their partners, as opposed to daily
reports, were the strongest predictor of enduring romantic relationships (Oishi, 2002). What studies like this tell us is that what we
have done in the past is a very strong predictor of what we will do in
the future. In considering the amount of retrospective data that the
ESM offers, it’s easy to see how this can not only provide a window
into how we will behave, but also provide a very strong motivation
for change. Essentially, it’s the difference between being told how
we will feel (weight loss will make you feel healthier) and being told
how we did feel (when you went on your daily walks, your mood
was better). Instead of using external information (such as statistics)
or the predictive assumptions of others about how we will feel, the
ESM uses our own information as a motivational tool.
Self-Monitoring is a Powerful Behavioral Modification
Device
Because the ESM asks a person to report how they feel at different
intervals throughout the day, people tend to engage in greater levels of
self-monitoring. That is, as we report on how we feel and what we are
doing, we also become increasingly aware of the aspects we report on
ourselves. For example, using survey questions that ask about happiness levels and exercise amounts are likely to increase our awareness
of these things. The tendency toward increased self-monitoring has
resulted in the use of the ESM as a tool for behavior modification
(Wheeler and Reis, 1991). In one study, alcoholics said that reporting
their drinking made them more aware of their drinking (Litt et al.,
1998). Much in the same way that gratitude lists orient the brain to
notice more positives, the ESM questions increase our awareness of
the feelings and behavior we are reporting on. And becoming more
aware of not just what behaviors we are engaging in, but the specific
way in which these behaviors may correspond with our feelings and
situations offers a powerful tool toward behavioral change. Additionally, because the ESM overcomes biases that typically collude self-reports, insights that would not otherwise be available now become
possible. It is in this way that the much more accurate picture that the
Retrospective data: data
collected from previous
experience.
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ESM can provide often acts as an “eye-opener”
that ignites a strong desire for change.
The use of real-time data takes the study of
behavior change out of the lab (where it is prone
to biases) and into the field (where it actually
applies). Because of this, the ESM offers tremendous benefits in identifying, monitoring, and
ultimately changing behavior.
Here are the important points to take away:
1.
The ESM can provide a much more accurate
picture of behavior free from memory bias.
2.
Because the ESM uses real-time data, behavioral contingencies (especially of unknown
factors) can be identified.
3.
The retrospective data that the ESM provides
is not only a strong predictor of future behavior, but a very powerful tool for motivating behavior change.
4.
The use of the ESM increases self-monitoring and often the results can act as a strong
“eye-opener” that ignites change.
While the ESM represent a unique approach
with extraordinary potential for behavior
change, it is not without limitations. We explore
these limitations in the next section.
Powerpoint: Three Things You Can
Learn from Real-Time Data
Unexpected Connections Between
Behavior and Mood
Because the ESM asks about both behavior
and mood, quite often unexpected connections
can be identified. For example, a client might
find that every time they clean the house, their
mood improves, while every time they have to
Transformation Specialist
speak with their boss, they experience anger and
frustration. Connections such as this can be very
information in terms of how to design experiences to have the best outcomes on the way we feel.
Unexpected Enjoyable Experiences
As the ESM involves random sampling
throughout the day, we often find that some
activities may hold unexpected benefits in the
way we feel. For example, we may find that
while we might not have thought that our mood
was positive while on our daily walk, that turns
out to be, in fact, one of the highest points of
our day. When we can identify these optimal
experiences (or peak moments) in the day, we
have valuable information that can dramatically
improve our happiness.
Unexpected Aversive Experiences
In the same way that the ESM helps us uncover
peak experiences, it also helps us become more
aware of those experiences that have a negative
effect on our mood. For example, we may find
that while we thought we enjoyed spending
time with a particular friend, actually, our
mood was quite low during that time. It is in
this way that the ESM can provide invaluable
data—as knowing just what experiences do not
bring us joy can be just as important as knowing what does.
Limitations of Experience
Sampling
The ESM can provide a unique opportunity for
those who work in behavioral change to measure and explore behavior in a real-time setting,
Flow and Experience Sampling | 271
but because it captures “field data,” there are three main limitations
with its usage. Let’s take a look at these now.
Compliance
Asking people to wear a device throughout the day can, in many
ways, be experienced as a hindrance. For example, signals may occur at inconvenient times, such as during work meetings, while with
family, or while showering. Additionally, many of the earlier wearable devices were not easy to carry around in places, like at the gym,
or in inclement weather. For these reasons, the ESM sometimes
suffers from a lack of compliance as people can simply get tired of
wearing a device and responding to questions, and so they may
fail to respond to signals. Similarly, some people are inconsistent
in remembering to wear the device at all times. As the value of the
ESM depends on a complete collection of data, compliance can be a
major hindrance in using this method. However, as wearable devices
have advanced in technology, they are now much smaller and easier
to wear. In fact, the use of smartphones apps as ESM devices has
significantly improved compliance, and made the use of the ESM a
much more seamless process. Additionally, when participants are
motivated toward their behavior change, naturally their compliance
increases. (We will discuss specific ways to address compliance in
the next section.)
Observer Effect
The observer effect describes the effect that observing a behavior
has on the behavior itself. Because the ESM involves measuring—
and thereby observing behavior over time—there is a possibility
that the behavior that is being observed can change as a result.
For example, asking a person to report on their levels of happiness
throughout the day might make them more aware of their mood
(and perhaps negative moods that are aversive to them) and result
in them increasing their participation in activities associated with
happiness (such as spending time with friends, etc.) When this
happens, it is impossible to decipher between the intervention and
the observer effect in influencing the change. That is to say, did the
person’s mood improve simply because they were observing it, or
Observer effect: describes
the effect that observing a
behavior has on the behavior
itself.
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did another factor boost their mood? To be
sure, in the case of behaviors that we want to
increase (such as healthy eating and exercising),
the observer effect does provide a significant
advantage. On the other hand, if we were asked
questions about overeating, which then made
us more focused on food, we actually might be
more prone to overeat. Reactivity to the behavior being measured (or the observer effect)
is a problem for any investigations of human
behavior, but it can be especially problematic
for the ESM because it involves so many repeated assessments, which may lead people to pay
unusual attention to their internal states and
own behavior (Wheeler et al., 1991).
doing. To be sure, there are many times when
a person may not want to be signaled. People
have also reported feeling that the ESM can
interrupt other enjoyable activities, such as
watching a movie, playing with kids, or when
socializing with friends. While the intent of
the ESM is to capture as broad a range of daily
experience as possible—and the best way to do
this is through random sampling—its use does
require a person’s willingness to be signaled
at any time. Typically when used in behavior
change—especially when participants are motivated toward improved behavior—their willingness increases. In the next section, we discuss
specific ways to improve willingness.
With non-random sampling techniques (such
as event-contingent or interval-contingent sampling), people might look for events or anticipate behaviors or situations (Hormuth, 1986).
However, with a careful construction of questions, much of the problem of reactivity can
be avoided. By asking people questions related
to behaviors we would like to amplify, and by
avoiding direct questions about behaviors we
would like to reduce, the observer effect can be
used in an effective way. In the next section, we
discuss specific ways to design questions to best
support behavioral change.
Here are the important points to take away:
Some Participants Feel the ESM is
Invasive
While the ESM enables capturing an inside
look at behavior, some people feel it can be too
invasive. Because devices can go off randomly,
there is no boundary between when a person
can be signaled and the activity that they are
Transformation Specialist
1.
Compliance can be a problem for the ESM
as it involves wearing a signaling device
throughout the day.
2.
Because the ESM involves repeated measurement of behavior, it is prone to the observer
effect, which means that questions must be
carefully constructed to avoid unduly influencing behavior.
3.
The use of the ESM can sometimes be felt to
be too invasive by participants as devices are
worn at all times and the signals can go off
randomly.
While every research method and behavioral
intervention has its own limitations, what is
important to remember is that many of the limitations of the ESM can be overcome through
proper administration and conscientious question design. In the next section, we discuss just
how to use the ESM as a powerful behavioral
modification device.
Flow and Experience Sampling | 273
Powerpoint: Three Ways to Make
the ESM Work for Your Clients
Experience Sampling Skills for
Personal Trainers
Familiarize Your Client with the ESM
Now that you are familiar with the experience
sampling model, the ways it can be used to
facilitate behavior change, and the limitations
in its usage, we will explore the skills needed to
use the ESM effectively. These include administering the ESM, choosing the survey questions,
assigning intervals, and measuring change.
Lastly, we will explore ESM maintenance strategies, and take a look at a few examples of the
ESM as a behavior change tool in practice.
Because the use of the ESM is a very new and
very innovative approach, in order for it to
be effective, you must first familiarize your
clients with the ESM. This means educating
them about how the ESM works, what they can
expect, what will be expected of them, and what
the ESM has to offer. Making sure your clients
are comfortable with the ESM in this way not
only reduces any anxiety or doubt they may
have about the ESM, but will also improve their
compliance and the eventual ESM outcomes.
Limit the Amount of Questions
As the ESM is sometimes felt to be invasive by
clients, it is important to limit the number of
questions asked. As a general rule of thumb,
the questions should take no more than two
minutes to complete. By reducing the amount
that the ESM interferes with your clients lives,
not only will you improve their compliance, but
also their attitudes toward the ESM method.
Explain the Benefits of Real-Time Data
Understanding the ways in which the ESM can
help them is an important part of your clients’
decision to participate in the ESM study, and
also an important component of their attitude
toward the approach. By educating your clients
about the ways in which the ESM can benefit
them (offering as many examples as possible)
you can dramatically increase their motivation
and desire to participate.
How to Administer the ESM
Similar to using commitment strategies (or any
other method that is unfamiliar to your clients)
as a method of behavioral change, the efficacy
of this method is dependent upon the steps
taken to administer it. In order to use the ESM
effectively with your clients, you will first need
to familiarize your clients with the ESM, gain
their trust and ensure their motivation, limit
the number of signals and questions they will
be asked in the ESM, explain the importance of
responding immediately and consistently, and
use bi-weekly data collection. We now discuss
each of these steps.
Familiarize Your Clients
Not just because the ESM is unfamiliar to your
client, but also because it can be felt as being
invasive, it is especially important to ensure that
your clients understand what the ESM is, how it
works, what the benefits and drawbacks are, and
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what they should expect. To do this, it can be helpful to refer to the
following definition of the ESM:
“The experience sampling method (ESM) is a research method designed to gather real-time data of people and their natural environments. The method consists of wearing a device—such as a beeper,
cell phone, or Apple watch—and being prompted throughout the
day to respond to some sort of assessment questionnaire.”
You will need to explain to your clients that they will be wearing a
device 24 hours a day that will signal them at random intervals to
prompt them to answer questions. They will also need to understand
that accurate data collection depends on them responding within
thirty minutes of receiving the signal. Here, it is helpful to give your
clients an example of some typical survey questions, and inform
them that the questions are designed to measure their thoughts,
feelings, and activities in order to gain an understanding of the external events that may influence their behavior change process.
Here is a list of typical survey questions:
Cognative: Relating
to mental processes of
perception, memory,
judgment, and reasoning
Affective: Relating to
emotion or feeling
Rate each of the following cognitive dimensions of your subjective
experience (on a 4-point scale):
1.
the challenge of the activity engaged in;
2.
your skill in meeting these challenges;
3.
the degree of control felt;
4.
the degree of choice felt in how the activities were done;
5.
your level of concentration at the moment you were signaled.
Rate each of the following affective dimensions of your experience
(on a 4-point scale):
1.
enjoyment of the activity;
2.
interest in the activity;
3.
anxiety;
4.
anger.
In one sentence, describe what you are doing at the moment (who
you are with, where you are, and what you are doing).
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Flow and Experience Sampling | 275
Next, you should explain to your clients that the
use of the ESM is a very effective tool for behavior change, and they can expect the following
benefits:
•
To identify connections between external
events and their behavior (both desired and
undesired behavior).
•
To uncover any unknown variables that may
be influencing their behavior.
•
To gather a large amount of retrospective
data that will help them better understand
their behavior, and to be better informed as to
which events, situations, and feelings lead to
which behavioral responses.
•
To become more aware of their thoughts,
feelings and behavior as well as their attitude
toward the process of change.
Once your clients understand the benefits of the
ESM, they will need to be aware of the following drawbacks:
•
Wearing a signaling device at all times can be
inconvenient.
•
The signal may go off at undesirable times
and responding to it may be difficult.
•
The efficacy of the ESM depends on consistently responding to the signal within thirty
minutes.
•
Being signaled at any time can feel invasive.
Lastly, it is important to explain to your clients
what they can expect from using the ESM as a
behavior change device. As you know from the
discussion above, the ESM can provide an inside
look at a person’s behavior, which overcomes
many of the typical methods of assessing or
facilitating behavioral change. What your clients can expect then is to gain a unique view of
their behavior that is absent of cognitive biases,
self-beliefs about themselves, or predications
about change. Instead, what the ESM can provide your clients is an extremely accurate picture
of themselves, including their thoughts, feelings,
and behavior. Often through the ESM unexpected connections between external events and
resulting behavior, unanticipated feelings about
activities, and unidentified feelings about change
processes can be uncovered. In the process of
gaining your clients trust—which we discuss
more in the next step—it is helpful to also
inform your clients that how they choose to use
the data collected through the ESM is completely
up to them, and that the purpose of the ESM is
simply to give them a more accurate and more
complete picture of themselves.
Gain Trust
As you can imagine, any study method is prone
to a lack of participant compliance, and possibly more so with the ESM due to the extensive
nature of the data collection. For this reason,
many researchers have suggested that it is particularly important to gain people’s trust and
to establish what Csikszentmihalyi and Larson
(1987) called a “viable research alliance” in order to ensure participation. What this means is
that your clients need to fully understand how
the ESM works, what is expected of them, what
the benefits and drawbacks are, and the importance of them responding to the signals consistently (even if they forget to wear the device for
one or two days) (Stone et al., 1991). In terms
of assessing if your clients have any hesitation
about the usage of the ESM, it is also helpful to
ask the following questions:
•
Are there any reasons you may not want to
use the ESM as a behavior change tool?
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•
Can you foresee any difficulties in responding to the signal within
thirty minutes?
•
Is there anything about the ESM that you are not comfortable with
or do not understand?
Ensure Motivation
Motivation toward change is an important part of any change
intervention, and as you know from the discussion on commitment
strategies, it is quite predictive of future participation. Similarly, research shows that motivation plays a significant role in determining
whether a participant will successfully complete an ESM study (Wilson et al., 1992). In order to ensure your clients’ motivation then, it
is helpful to begin with a rating question:
Memory biases: the
disconnect common when
we are asked to recall events.
•
On a scale of 0–10, how motivated are you to change your
behavior?
•
On a scale of 0–10, how motivated are you to use the ESM as a
behavioral change device?
To use the ESM effectively, the answers to both of these questions
above should be no less than 7. If you find a client answers with a
number less than 7, it is likely that the inconvenience of wearing the
signaling device and responding immediately will deter their participation or provide a limited and inaccurate picture of their behavior. Further, just as with any training approach, when clients are
not cooperative and invested in the methods used, efficacy suffers.
Therefore, when a client’s motivation ratings are less than 7, the use
of the ESM is not advised.
Limit the Number of Signals and Questions
Because the ESM can be somewhat burdensome, limiting the number
of questions and signals can make the process more inviting to your
clients and reduce the possibility of non-compliance. As a general rule
of thumb: the more signals per day, the shorter the form should be.
While limiting questions can in some ways reduce the reliability of information, keep in mind that the aggregation of the data collected will
provide increased reliability, and a broad look at a person’s behavior
across a range of situations (Csikszentmihalyi and Larson, 1987). For
Transformation Specialist
Flow and Experience Sampling | 277
the purposes of behavior change, it is suggested
to use 4–6 signals per day, with no more than 8
rating questions (these can be completed more
quickly) and 1 one-sentence descriptive question.
Explain the Importance of Responding
Immediately and Consistently
As you know, the quality of ESM data depends on your clients’ immediate and consistent response. However, there is an important
trade-off in that potentially more responses
will be gained if clients are allowed to respond
to signals at a later or more convenient time.
However, as you already know, a greater timelag can lead to increased memory biases that
can contaminate reports, and thus defeat the
purpose of experience sampling. Therefore, it
is best to restrict responses, to no more than
thirty minutes after receiving the signal (Cerin
et al., 2001; Diener and Larsen, 1984; but twenty
minutes in Csikszentmihalyi and Larson, 1987;
Stone et al., 1998), and to explain to your clients
that responding within thirty minutes is essential to make the ESM more effective.
Collect Data on a Bi-weekly Basis for No
More Than Four Weeks
One consistency that has been identified with
the ESM is that the quality of data appears to
decline after 2–4 weeks of data collection (Stone
et al., 1991). Here, it may be that once participants become aware of what is being collected,
it is much easier for them to fabricate answers,
or to complete the forms all at one sitting (as
opposed to responding to the signal every time).
This problem has been shown to be overcome
by requiring participants to turn in their
completed forms on a daily basis, and so you
should ask that your clients return their survey
forms to you on a bi-weekly basis. Further, to
avoid habituation to the questions, which has
been shown to occur with the use of the ESM
(Hormuth, 1986), you should collect data for no
more than four weeks at a time.
Now that your clients are familiar with the
ESM, we will turn our attention to the next
steps of using the ESM with your clients. These
are: choosing the survey questions, assigning
the intervals, and measuring change.
Choosing the Survey Questions
While there are a myriad of questions that can
be used with the ESM, you also know that more
extensive questions could potentially lead to
decreased participation. Further, as we discussed
in the section above, questions that ask directly
about a behavior have the potential to amplify
the behavior (through increased self-monitoring
and the observer effect), while questions that ask
about feelings and thoughts that are presumed
to be associated with the behavior will help to
uncover any behavioral contingencies. In terms
of designing the ESM survey questions that will
best promote behavior change in your client,
it is best to begin with a list of three behaviors
you would like to increase, and three behaviors
you would like to decrease. For example, you
may wish to increase your client’s feelings of
happiness, their energy level, and their feelings
of control, while decreasing their feelings of
isolation, overeating, and avoidance of exercise.
However, these behavioral goals should not be
shared with your client as the validity of the ESM
(like any research intervention) depends on your
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client being unaware of what is being assessed. Once you have a list of
desirable and undesirable behaviors, there are four things to keep in
mind when designing the ESM questions.
Ask Direct Questions to Amplify Behaviors
For any behavior that you are seeking to increase (such as exercising,
eating healthy, or sleeping), it is best to use direct questions, such as,
“On a scale of 0–4, how healthy do you feel?” or “On a scale of 0–4,
how happy do you feel?” or “On a scale of 0–4, how physically fit do
you feel?” Questions such as these draw your clients’ awareness to
the behavior the question is asking about, and therefore can act as a
behavioral priming device, whereby they will begin to think more
about how healthy, fit, and happy they feel. Thinking about this may
not only increase their awareness of the times they do not feel this
way, but will also motivate them to participate in activities that promote these feelings (such as exercising, spending time with friends,
and eating healthy).
Avoid Direct Questions About Behaviors to Be Reduced
For the same reason that asking directly about a desired behavior
can increase its occurrence, asking about an undesired behavior
may also lead to its increase. Much in the same way that asking
alcoholics if they felt like drinking draws their attention to drinking
(and possibly makes them want to drink) asking clients about the
times they feel like eating poorly or skipping exercise may increase
their focus on (and potential participation in) these things. For this
reason, survey questions should avoid asking direct questions—such
as, “On a scale of 0–4, rate, how much you felt like overeating?” or
“On a scale of 0–4, rate how well you did at controlling your sugar
intake today?”—about any undesirable behaviors.
Behavioral and
emotional contingencies:
behavioral and emotional
connections, such as
isolation and overeating.
Transformation Specialist
Ask Questions About Events and Feelings Possibly
Correlated With Behaviors to Be Increased or Reduced
Because one of the benefits of the ESM is that it helps to uncover
behavioral and emotional contingencies, questions can be designed to ask about conditions that are hypothesized to be linked
Flow and Experience Sampling | 279
to behavioral states that you wish to enhance
or reduce. For example, if feelings of a lack of
control are thought to precede overeating, a
question that asks clients to rate their level of
control, alongside a question that asks them to
describe what they are doing will reveal (or not)
this connection. Similarly, if increased feelings
of productivity are presumed to coincide with
increased time spent exercising, a question that
asks your clients to rate their level of productivity along with a descriptive question about their
experience would explore this connection. Other examples of questions include: “On a scale of
0–4, how happy are you with your marriage?”
and “On a scale of 0–4, how happy are you with
your work?” Again, while there is a wide range
of questions you could design, they should
be presented in a rating form, and accompany a question about your clients descriptive
experiences.
to provide information that is not only more
accurate, but easier for clients to complete.
Ask for a One-sentence Description
of Situations Alongside the Measured
Behaviors
While there are numerous ways to measure
change both objectively (pounds lost, strength
and endurance gains, and changes in body
composition) and subjectively (self-reports of
subjective well-being), for the purpose of behavior change, the ESM offers three primary ways
to measure change:
While a descriptive question is an essential
component of an ESM survey design, it should
be limited to one sentence. This accomplishes
two things: it reduces the burdensome nature
of describing an experience multiple times
throughout the day, and it focuses on providing information in the present tense. Because
the ESM works through real-time data, when
the descriptive experience includes information about what a person did in the past, or is
thinking about doing in the future, it is subject
to memory biases, and miscalculations in predictive behavior—for this reason, limiting the
experience description to one sentence is a way
Assigning the Intervals
From the discussion above, you know that
there are three types of ESM intervals to choose
from. While each of these types has specific
purposes (interval-contingent signals eliminate
the need for wearable devices, while event-contingent intervals isolate specific events and their
resultant behavioral and emotional responses),
it should also be clear that signal-contingent
intervals (also known as random sampling)
are the type of ESM used most consistency
and with most efficacy in the field of behavioral change. Therefore for the purpose of this
course, we use the signal-contingent types of
ESM.
Measuring Change
Reductions in Undesirable Behavior
While the ESM provides a way to identify
behavioral and emotional contingencies, which
may uncover which events and situations
appear to precede which behaviors, they also
provide a very accurate way to measure the extent to which undesirable behaviors occur. For
example, let’s say that the initial data collected
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through the ESM reveals that a client is overeating four times per week; it would be possible
to measure if this behavior decreases over the
course of the four weeks through which data
was collected with the ESM.
measure improvements in their attitude toward
change. And as you know from the discussion on
commitment strategies, a client’s attitude toward
change is the strongest predicator of continued
involvement.
Increases in Desirable Behavior
Using Experience Sampling to
Maintain Change
In the same way that reductions in undesirable behavior can be identified through the
use of the ESM, behaviors that you would like
your client to increase can also be measured.
For example, while initial data collection may
expose that your client eats vegetables only two
times per week, through collecting data for four
weeks, it would be possible to measure if they
begin to eat vegetables more frequently.
Improvements in Attitude Toward
Change
Perhaps one of the most exciting advantages of
the ESM is the ability to measure subtle shifts in
a client’s attitude toward elements of the change
process. For example, while the initial data
collection may expose that your client reports
low levels of happiness while exercising, over
the course of collecting data for four weeks, you
may see that your client’s attitude toward exercise shifts, and they begin to associate more
positive feelings with exercise. Similarly, you
may uncover that in the first week of using the
ESM, your client reported feeling overwhelmed
when trying to order healthy food at a restaurant, yet over the course of the four weeks, they
reported lower levels of anxiety associated with
eating out. It is in this way that the ESM not
only provides an inside look at just the way your
client experiences change, but offers a way to
Transformation Specialist
Because the ESM offer the opportunity for such
a rich collection of data, the opportunities to
promote change extend beyond what typical
behavioral assessments would allow, and also
provide a vast opportunity to maintain change
long after the ESM study. However, maintaining
this change depends upon making the information obtained through the ESM accessible and
easy to apply. Because the ESM provides such
a broad based assessment of a person (and the
many behavioral nuances that may exist), it can
be helpful to organize the results of an ESM
study in the following two ways:
Make a List of the Emotions,
Thoughts, and Situations That Precede
Undesirable Behaviors
Frequently, ESM studies will elucidate connections between undesirable behaviors and
external events that your clients may not have
known existed. For example, they may not have
known that every time they felt frustrated at
work, they were less likely to go to the gym,
or that overeating often coincided with being
frustrated with their partner. Through making
a list of all of the external events that precede
undesirable behaviors, your clients will become
much more aware of the connections that lead
to the behaviors they are trying to change, and
Flow and Experience Sampling | 281
will have a powerful tool in making and maintaining change.
Make a List of Emotions, Thoughts,
and Situations That Correspond With
Desirable Behaviors
Just as with undesirable behaviors, most likely
there will be several external events that correspond with desirable behaviors that your clients
are unaware of. For example, before doing the
ESM study, they may not be aware that their
mood is better while exercising in the evening
versus exercising in the morning, or that their
higher levels of concentration correspond with
better food choices. It is connections such as
these that will allow your clients to make pivotal shifts in their behavior, and through making
a list of the emotions, thoughts, and situations
that correspond with their desirable behaviors,
they will be able to refer back to this list as a
way to maintain behavioral change.
Experience Sampling Examples of
Change
Now that you are familiar with the ESM and
the ways in which it can be a potent resource in
promoting behavioral change, let’s take a look
at a few case studies.
Joy
Joy was a 39-year-old woman who had been
active most of her life. However, Joy began to
experience insomnia late in to her thirties and
developed a habit of waking in the middle of
the night and eating. In an attempt to control this behavior, Joy had tried many things,
including, supplements to improve her sleep,
eating more protein at night, and self-motivational strategies to curb her behavior. However,
while Joy could abstain from eating at night for
a few nights, she always regressed and found
herself again at the refrigerator in the middle of
the night. To uncover if there were any correlations between Joy’s eating at night and other
behaviors, situations, and events, I chose for her
an ESM approach with survey questions that
targeted her feelings of anxiety and control, as
well as any situations that involved her addressing her financial situation. After the first week,
what emerged was that any time Joy had to pay
bills, or address her finances in any way, her insomnia (and eating at night) were exacerbated.
Additionally, when Joy had planned a long run
the next day, she also ate more at night. In reviewing the results from the four weeks of data
collection we found two important connections: Joy’s feelings of anxiety precipitated her
insomnia and eating at night, and Joy’s anxiety
was highly connected to her increased running
mileage (especially long runs in the morning) and worries about her finances. Once Joy
became aware of these connections, something
interesting happened: her eating at night decreased. In Joy’s words, “Just knowing what was
going on, made conquering it so much easier.”
On her own, Joy decided to make her running
schedule more flexible, incorporating shorter
runs done more frequently, and took steps to
address her finances. Through taking these two
small steps, Joy was able to make significant
reductions in her nighttime eating.
Rebecca
Rebecca was 25-year-old woman who had a
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history of inconsistency in her fitness routine.
While at times she would work out every day,
eat healthy, and could lose as much as thirty
pounds, at other times, she lost motivation,
completely went off her eating routine, and
didn’t work out at all. In Rebecca’s description,
“I never know why I can’t seem to stay motivated; I can get there, but I know I will always fall
off the wagon at some point.” Because I suspected that Rebecca’s behavioral lability might be
reflective of an underlying emotion, I designed
the ESM survey questions in such a way as
to assess her feelings of control, anxiety, and
competence, to hopefully identify any correlations between these feelings and her exercise
behavior. After four weeks, when Rebecca and
I reviewed the data, what emerged was a strong
connection between her feelings of control
and competence and her tendency to exercise.
Stated precisely, when she felt like she had little
control, or even felt incompetent, she avoided
exercise. Conversely, it was only when she felt
competent and in control that she engaged in
exercise. Interestingly, what these findings also
revealed was that it was through exercise that
she felt much more in control and competent.
That is to say that her reports of control and
competence were higher after exercising than
before. In uncovering this connection, Rebecca
was able to see that, while she often avoided
exercise when she felt out of control and not
competent, it was exactly these times when
exercising might help her the most. In becoming aware of this, Rebecca shifted her view of
exercising from one of an “unenjoyable duty” to
one of a “mental booster.” In seeing exercise in
this way, Rebecca was able to maintain a consistency in her exercise behavior, avoiding the past
highs and lows.
Transformation Specialist
Shane
Shane was a 35-year-old man who had a history of troubled weight loss. While he could
lose weight without much difficulty, he always
regained it—and sometimes more. However, his
eating habits seemed to follow a strong polarity:
he either was on a strict diet, or he ate whatever
he wanted. For Shane there appeared to be no
middle ground. In order to attempt to uncover any emotional contingencies that might be
influencing his behavior, I designed the survey
questions in such a way as to assess his feelings
of anger, deprivation, and control. At the time
of the ESM inception, Shane had just begun to
try to eat healthy, which as he said, was always
the time that he either, “decided to go for it, or
give up.” Upon beginning the ESM, I told Shane
to simply continue eating and exercising (or
not) as he normally would, as I wanted to gain
an accurate picture of his behavior as well as
any correlations that may be affecting it. After
looking at the results of the data, Shane and I
found an interesting connection: any time his
feelings of deprivation heightened, he went off
his diet and binged on all of his desired foods.
Additionally, Shane’s feelings of deprivation
seemed to correspond to his feelings of a lack
of control. That is, when he felt he had little
control in his life, he wanted more control over
what he ate. When Shane was able to see that
his eating behavior was reflecting his feelings of
control and deprivation, he made the decision
to adopt a less stringent approach to eating,
allowing more desirable foods along with his
healthy choices. Not only did this allow him to
avoid the cycle of restrict and binge, but also
allowed him to feel less deprived and more positive toward the process of losing weight.
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Summary
The state of flow is similar to a self-transcendent
experience in that one feels completely immersed in the activity and experiences a feeling of oneness and a loss of awareness of time.
Characterized by the following factors: intense
and focused concentration, merging of action
and awareness, a loss of reflective self-consciousness, a sense of personal control over the
situation, a distortion of temporal awareness,
and the experience of the activity as autotelic,
flow comes with some serious psychological
benefits, from improved awareness and heightened strengths to improved life satisfaction,
creativity, affective states, sports performance
and self-esteem. To get into flow, the following
three conditions must be met: a clear set of
goals, immediate feedback, and the perception
that there is a good balance between our skills
and the challenges of the task.
Trainers can be very effective at helping their
clients facilitate flow states when they utilize
activities that have clear goals, offer immediate
feedback, and a challenge level that meets the client’s perception of their skills. One way trainers
can also be effective at helping clients identify
states in which they may be experiencing flow
is through the use of an experience sampling
method (ESM). The ESM uses signaling devices
that prompt clients to answer questions about the
activities they are doing and their feelings about
them to uncover connections between activities
and resulting emotions—some of which may be
optimal experiences. Through first familiarizing
the client with the ESM approach, then designing a study that utilizes short answer questions,
with no more than four to six signals per day,
trainers can help clients identify those states that
are most pleasurable and those that are undesirable, as well as their attitude toward change. Often what is revealed for clients is that some states
they may not have anticipated are more enjoyable
than at first thought, while others that they may
have predicated to have minimal impact on their
feelings actually have a profound effect on them.
Using this technique, the trainer becomes a
pivotal force in helping the client reach optimal
experience, and helping them ultimately create
the lifestyle that offers the most enjoyment.
International Sports Sciences Association
APPENDIX
The Complete Change Workbook
The Complete Change Workbook | 285
Appendix Outline
1.
Self-Motivation Booster: At Home Exercises to
Supercharge Motivation
3. Change Methods That Work: The Complete
Commitment Strategy Guide
a.
4. Am I Getting Better? How to Use Experience
Sampling to Propel Change
Mastery
b. Autonomy
c.
Purpose
2. Get Positive: Positive Psychology Skills to Create a Winning Mindset
a.
a.
Design the Study
b. Inspiring Change
Optimisim
b. Gratitude
c.
Meaning
d. Achievement
Changing behavior is not easy. It involves perseverance, consistent effort, a willingness to continue trying (even after failure), and a stealthy
amount of motivation. However, changing
behavior is much easier when you have the right
tools. In this guide, you will learn how to ignite
the flame of motivation, think in optimistic
ways, adopt a growth mindset, find meaning
and engagement in life, develop deeper, more
meaningful relationships, use small gains to
reach larger goals, find a sense of flow, use powerful commitment devices to propel change,
and utilize the experience sampling method to
create a more meaningful, fulfilled, and happy
life. So let’s get started!
Self-Motivation Booster:
At Home Exercises to
Supercharge Motivation
There are many ways we try to motivate ourselves. We add incentives, promise ourselves
rewards, and sometimes even use positive
self-statements. But when it comes to motivation, there are really only three things we have
to keep in mind: mastery, autonomy, and purpose. I call this the MAP of motivation. Without these three core components, any attempt
to change our behavior is usually short lived.
So let’s take a look at how you can use MAP to
supercharge your motivation.
Mastery
Anytime you are trying to change your behavior, there is always a new behavior to be learned,
assimilated, and integrated into your life. However, one thing that makes integrating a new
behavior difficult is when we don’t understand
it, or don’t feel confident doing it. Changing
behavior is highly linked to self-confidence and
self-efficacy (the degree to which we feel we
are capable of change). And not surprisingly,
the more capable we feel—and the greater our
feelings of mastery—the better our motivation
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toward the change becomes. In order to build a
sense of mastery into a new behavior, there are
a few things we can do.
Learn Something
Let’s say you are trying to lose weight. How
could you incorporate something to learn that
will help you with this goal? Perhaps you could
educate yourself about the role of macronutrients (carbohydrates, proteins, and fats) in
energy metabolism, and practice altering your
diet until your energy is at a peak. Or maybe you could learn about how to use strength
training to build muscle and lose fat, and design
a program for yourself that utilizes what you
have learned. You could also use goals as learning incentives. For example, you could enter
a running race (a 10K race, half marathon, or
marathon) and then devote yourself to learning
how to train for the race. All of these are effective ways to turn the task of losing weight into
an opportunity to learn something new, and to
ignite your motivation in the process.
Create a Challenge
Challenges are fantastic ways to draw upon our
innate desire for mastery. That is, when in a
competitive environment (even if we are competing with ourselves), we are naturally compelled to engage, perfect, and use our strengths
to meet the challenge. Using the weight loss example from above, we could create a challenge
to run (or walk) ten miles in one week. Or if
you are already running (or walking) ten miles,
you could increase the challenge to fifteen
miles in one week. Similarly, you could create
a challenge to add “double days”, where you go
Transformation Specialist
to the gym twice in one day for one week. You
could also use challenges to change your eating behavior. For example, you could make it a
competition with yourself to see if you can eat
no later than 6 PM all week, or if you can eat
200 less calories every day of the week for one
week. Challenges like this turn the often dreary
task of changing behavior into a fun game with
challenges to be mastered.
Reach a Goal
Mastery is highly linked to setting, pursuing,
and reaching goals. And goals themselves, are
powerful motivators when they are used in
concert with mastery. For example, choosing
the goal of running a marathon (or 10K) that
also involves learning how to train for the race
not only ignites the desire to reach the goal, but
also the innate desire to grow and master new
skills. Some other goals that incorporate learning include signing up for a tennis tournament
and learning how to perfect your tennis game,
entering a bike tour and learning how to train
for the event, and signing up for a vacation that
involves riding horses and taking riding lessons
to prepare. Adding goals such as these shifts the
focus from how best to change behavior to how
best to reach the goal—which does much more
for our motivation.
Autonomy
Making important decisions—especially those
that involve making a change—for many reasons
is highly linked to a sense of autonomy. For one
thing, people are much more likely to follow
their own intentions than those of other people.
Additionally, a sense of control over the decisions
The Complete Change Workbook | 287
(and the process of change) is a crucial component of motivation. When we feel like the choices
we make are in our control, and serve our own
interests (as opposed to trying to appease someone else), not only do we feel a sense of ownership over them, but we are also much more
motivated to do them. Here are a few ways we
could incorporate a sense of autonomy when we
want to adopt a new behavior:
Choose Your Own Goals
Especially when you are trying to do something
that you haven’t done before, it’s so easy to allow
another person to choose goals for you. In some
ways, it’s easier on you too—you don’t have to
think about it. But autonomy depends on you
making the decisions about what you want. And
it starts with your goals. So let’s say you are trying to lose weight. Ask yourself where you want
to be next week, next month, in six months, and
in one year, and then set these goals for yourself.
If others tell you your goals are unreasonable,
that’s fine, they are not their goals, they are your
goals. If you fail to reach them, you can look
back, ask what you can learn and what you need
to do differently, and then start again. The process is yours and when you take ownership over
it, your motivation soars.
Choose Your Own Approach
Like goals, the methods we use to reach them are
so easily influenced by others. Especially when
you are trying to do something you haven’t done
before, its easy for others to tell you how to do it.
But when you follow other people’s methods—
just like goals—they become theirs, not yours.
That is not to say that you can’t take instruction
or advice—you certainly can—but ultimately,
you must choose how you use that advice. For
example, while you may seek the help of a personal trainer to lose weight, and this trainer will
teach you the important parts of strength training and nutrition, you should not rely solely on
this advice. Instead, continue to educate yourself,
incorporating useful aspects from everything
you learn into something that uniquely suits you.
Choosing your own approach in this way is a
powerful way to take ownership over your goals,
and to ignite your motivation.
Choose Your Own Trajectory
Once you have met your goals, where you go
from there is up to you. While others may tell
you that the next best thing for you to do is to
compete in a race, become a fitness instructor,
or a weight loss counselor, the life path you
follow (your trajectory) is yours to choose. Ask
yourself what is most important to you, what
brings you the greatest sense of achievement,
satisfaction, and joy. And go after it. If others
tell you it is not right for you, or not possible,
that’s fine. Maybe it’s not right for them. But
this is your life, and your path to follow. And
when you follow it, so does your motivation.
Purpose
Having a sense of purpose lies at the heart of
everything we do. Purpose not only connects us
to something larger than ourselves, it also helps
us to attach our efforts to those around us, and
in a way that makes what we do a contribution
to the greater community around us. When
we find a meaning beyond ourselves, one that
transcends our self-interests, it gives what we do
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tremendous impact—not just for others, but for
ourselves too. Not surprisingly, people are much
more motivated when they feel their efforts help
others. Here are a few ways we can use a sense
of purpose to help shift behavior:
Ask Yourself Why What You Do
Matters
Anytime we change a behavior or start something new, there are always questions, self-doubt,
and ambivalence. What we are doing is new,
and we are not yet sure it is right for us (or that
we will be able to accomplish it). It is when we
ask questions like these that we most need to be
aware of why what we are doing matters. Ask
yourself, what will be different for those around
you if you make a change, or what contribution
could you make to the lives of those around
you through this change. If your goal is to lose
weight for example, maybe the perception of
your children will be radically shifted when they
see you work hard and accomplish something
that is very challenging. Or perhaps, when you
are able to finish your master’s degree you will
be able to work in a field where others’ lives will
be changed through your efforts. Understanding
deeper reasons such as these can help you see
that what you do has a unique and specific purpose—which also does wonders for motivation.
Ask Who You Can Help
Knowing that others are affected by our efforts
is a huge component of motivation. Especially
when we see just the ways in which what we do
can change the lives of those around us. It ignites
an innate drive within us to continue what we
are doing. And this can be extremely useful
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when starting a new behavior (or anytime when
your motivation wanes). So ask yourself, who
can you help, or who are you best and uniquely
equipped to advise, inspire, or counsel. Maybe
through becoming fit, for example, you will feel
distinctly suited to advise other people who face
challenges like yours. Or perhaps, becoming fit
will connect you with your talent for motivation
and you will start groups to help others reach
their goals. When you can attach your efforts to
helping others, not only are their lives improved,
but so is your motivation.
Ask What You Can Help Others Do
The more specifically we understand the ways
in which what we do matters to those around
us, and the more uniquely we can bridge our
efforts to the goals of others, the greater our
motivation becomes. Especially when we see that
our contributions have helped others to reach
their goals, we feel driven to continue helping.
To identify just what you can help others do, ask
yourself, what goals can you help those around
you reach, what can you help people accomplish,
or in what ways can you help improve the lives
of others. Understanding just what you can help
people accomplish not only connects you to their
accomplishments, but also, very powerfully, to
your own motivation too.
Get Positive: Positive
Psychology Skills to
Create a Winning
Mindset
Creating a winning mindset consists of many
factors. We have to learn to think optimistically,
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cultivate gratitude, find meaning, experience
achievement, develop trusting relationships and
find engagement in what we do. In this guide,
you will find several exercises that will help you
with each of these things. Keep in mind that
developing mental strength is a process, and like
developing physical strength, one that depends
on consistent practice.
Optimism
When it comes to optimism, much of it is
related to how we think—especially about bad
events. When bad things happen, thinking in
permanent and pervasive ways not only makes
the negative feelings associated with the event
last longer, but also paralyzes our resources
to respond adaptively. For pessimists, the real
problem is them thinking in too rigid, inflexible
ways. Because pessimists categorize adversity
in a formulaic way, their responses also tend to
follow a pattern—that is, to be immobilized by
adversity. On the flip side of things, when positive things happen, pessimists also use pattern
explanations that fail to identify the unique outcomes that successes represent for them. Much
in the same way an optimist will quickly brush
off a bad event and carry forward with their
sunny nature, a pessimist will quickly brush
off a good event and continue seeing the glass
as half empty. Becoming more optimistic takes
practice. Here are a few exercises that will boost
your optimism:
Finding Unique Outcomes
As you know, the pessimist sees things in
predictable and rigid ways, which unfortunately tends toward patterned gloomy outcomes.
And the more a pessimist adopts this way of
thinking, the less likely they are to see the times
when things go well. Much in the same way that
doing a daily gratitude list primes the brain to
find the positive things around us, using pessimistic attributions primes the brain to find
pessimistic explanations—even when things go
well. To overcome this then, we have to learn to
find unique outcomes. That is, the times when
the outcomes are positive.
To help you begin to find unique outcomes,
then, consider the following prompts:
•
Describe a time when you thought things
were going to go poorly, and instead they
worked out well.
•
Describe a time when something bad happened, yet you learned a valuable lesson.
•
Describe a time when something positive
unexpectedly happened.
•
Tell me about a time when you were pleasantly surprised.
•
Tell me about a time when someone exceeded your expectations.
•
Describe a time when your expectations
about a situation were exceeded.
The goal of these prompts is to help you see past
rigid thinking and patterned explanations, and
begin to question the permanent ways in which
you might typically describe things. In identifying these unique outcomes, you will also become
more open to an optimistic explanatory style,
and then to hopefully taking a more optimistic
approach to events in your life. Ultimately, you
will be shifting your view of yourself, from someone who is held hostage by adversity, to someone
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who can find positive outcomes in things—even
when things don’t go well.
Let’s now take a look at how you can find alternative (and more adaptive) attributions.
Finding Alternative Explanations
Because the pessimist is used to explaining
things in a characteristic way—usually negatively— they often do not see past these explanations. That is, they lack the very creative
thinking that alternative explanations depend
on. Much of the problem is due to the pessimist’s familiarity with a defeatist way of thinking. Because there is a comfort and predictability (remember that pessimists do not have a high
tolerance for uncertainty) in their attributions,
pessimists, although they may desire for things
to be different, may also be uncomfortable
with the uncertainty that could bring. This, of
course, complicates the process of finding alternative explanations. However, finding alternative attributions, just like learning to tolerate
uncertainty, can be improved with practice.
To help you find alternative explanations, look
at the following list of statements, which describe negative events.
•
You were fired from your job.
•
You injured your knee running.
•
Your car was stolen.
•
Someone very close to you became ill.
•
Your missed your flight.
Next, write down three to five possible explanations for each of these negative events using
temporary causes. For instance, you could list
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things like, “Sometimes bad things happen,”
“My boss was in a bad mood,” “I was late leaving the house,” or, “I neglected to strengthen
my knee properly to run.” While the explanations you choose to use for these negative events
can be anything you like, the important thing
is that you stay away from permanent causes
(using words like “always” and “never”) and
instead find explanations related to temporary
(and fixable) conditions.
Now take a look at the following list of statements which describes positive events.
•
You got a promotion at work.
•
Your spouse (or significant other) surprised
you with a gift.
•
You won a prize in a drawing.
•
You were able to run farther than your
thought possible.
•
You reached your fitness goals.
Again, write down three to five explanations for
each positive event, but now using permanent
causes. You could list things like, “I am a hard
worker,” “I put a lot of effort into the things I
do,” or, “I am a lucky person”. Here, again, the
words you choose to use are up to you, but what
is important is that the attributions incorporate stable traits, which are descriptive of your
character, as opposed to temporary conditions
or those that exist outside of yourself.
Through drawing your attention to unique outcomes, and encouraging yourself to find alternative explanations for events in your life, the goal
of these exercises is to help you learn to think
optimistically. And as you know, optimism determines not just the words you chose to explain
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the events in your life, but more importantly,
how you respond to those events.
Gratitude
Positive emotions are a very important part of
creating a life of well-being. Generating positive
emotions through activities such as taking a
walk, enjoying a sunset, and eating a tasty meal
are what create a pleasurable life, and one worth
living. Recent studies in positive psychology
have demonstrated that when performing tasks
designed to raise gratitude levels, people do experience a significant boost in their mood, which
lasts till well after they stop doing them (Achor,
2010). In terms of where best to allocate energy
to create more positive emotion, gratitude seems
to be the best bet. Even further, performing acts
of gratitude orients the brain to notice more
positives and to pay less attention to negatives,
which enhances the effect (Achor, 2010). Here are
some exercises you can do to boost your gratitude (also listed in Module Four).
Do A Gratitude List
To do a gratitude list, write down three new
things you are grateful for every day for twenty-one days. You can list things like your child’s
smile, your family’s health, nice weather, a
compliment someone gave you, your ability to
help someone in need, or even simple things
like having a roof over your head and food on
the table. There are no right or wrong answers.
What is important is simply that you list three
new things every day, and avoid repeating the
same answers.
Over time, what you will find is not just a
greater variety of things to be grateful for, but
that finding them becomes easier. You will
become what Achor calls “more primed to the
positive,” and your brain will simply get better
at getting grateful.
Give Thanks
Another way to improve gratitude is to offer
thanks. When we offer thanks to those around
us, like keeping gratitude lists, our brain becomes more primed to the positives as we
search for reasons to thank people.
To do this exercise, write, verbally deliver, or in
some measurable way, communicate thanks to
three people a day. You can choose any three
people you like, such as close family members,
extended family members, coworkers, or even
strangers. Again, the people you choose, or
what you thank them for, is not important—it is
the act of thanking them that matters. However,
like a gratitude list, you must choose three different people every day. Also, keep a list of who
you thank every day, and for what reasons, so as
not to duplicate.
As you move through this exercise, what you
will find is not only that offering thanks becomes more natural, but that you enjoy doing it.
And finding joy in things is a crucial part of a
happy life.
Give Back
Helping others not just connects us with our
own capacities and skills, but also deeply
connects us to our sense of purpose, and our
sense of gratitude. When we search for ways to
be helpful, we also search our own skills and
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strengths and look for unique ways to apply
them in ways that are impactful not just for
others, but ourselves as well.
In this exercise, you will perform one act of service per week. You can choose the act yourself,
but as a starter you can look at the following list
of resources, or find another resource entirely
that suits your interests, such as a charity or
volunteer organization.
•
www.good.is/post/the-good-30-day-challenge-become-a-good-citizen Each day of the
month, this site suggests a different way to
give.
•
www.kickstarter.com Known as the world’s
largest funding platform for creative projects,
Kickstarter hosts a variety of projects—everything from games, books, movies, art,
music, plays, and services and products—all
that need funding to launch. You can also
watch the progress of a project you fund, and
see your name listed as one of the project’s
supporters.
•
www.kiva.org On Kiva, you can identify
opportunities to make microloans of $25 or
more to entrepreneurs in the developing
world. Like Kickstarter, you can see and track
the progress of the people you help.
Here is the list of some giving resources:
•
www.freecycle.org The freecycle community
is an online list of people with things to give,
and people with things they need. You can
search the list as a way to connect with others, and to see what they need and what you
can give away.
•
www.humaxnetworks.com This site offers a
suite of social networking tools for individuals and organizations. There are materials to
run a “reciprocity ring,” where a community
of people—typically fifteen to thirty—come
together, and as each person presents their
request to group members, they make a contribution too, such as knowledge, resources,
and connections, to fulfill each other’s needs.
•
www.hopemob.org This initiative is called
“the place where generous strangers unite to
bring immediate hope to people with pressing needs all over the world.”
•
www.thekindnessoffensive.com The Kindness
Offensive is a group of people who strive to
be aggressively helpful, organizing some of
the greatest acts of random kindness in history. They’ve provided a toy for every child in
a hospital in London, given away a half a million pancakes, distributed tons of giveaways
at festivals around Britain, and provided free
medical supplies and housing to support
families in need.
Transformation Specialist
While it is up to you to choose what act of
service you perform every day, keep a daily
list to ensure that a different act is performed
every day.
Giving is a natural remedy for boosting positive
emotions. Not only will you find that giving improves your sense of well-being, but giving also
creates positive feelings that are powerful and
have long-lasting purpose—crucial components
of creating the life you want.
Meaning
The pursuit of meaning is an essential part of
well-being. Yet, recent statistics from the Center for Disease Control estimate that 4 out of
10 Americans have not yet discovered a satisfying life purpose. Much of the reason for this is
that we often confuse happiness with meaning.
Meaning is a much larger and more complex
concept than happiness, and is intrinsically
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connected to something larger than ourselves.
That is, in order to find meaning, we need to be
giving ourselves (or our services) to something
beyond ourselves. Meaning is also strongest
when we feel as though our strengths and skills
uniquely position us for the task at hand. But
part of the problem is, as much as we pursue
meaning, it doesn’t happen extemporaneously.
Rather, it involves the deliberate dedication of
our strengths toward something that has deep
importance to us. The process of finding meaning, then, can be one of trial and error. First, we
have to determine what matters to us—what is
deeply important to us. We also have to know
our values, priorities, and strengths. And then,
we simply have to try things until they “feel”
right. Here are some ways to find more meaning
in your life:
Assessing Values
Changing your life, and then constructing one
that better fits you depends on knowing your
values, When we know what is important to us,
we can go about crafting the life that reflects
that. But we have to start with what matters. Understanding (and often changing) values is at the
root of changing lives, and here, even adversity
can offer a unique opportunity. When you are
faced with the realization that something in your
life has to change, the desire for change, and for
growth, is catalyzed. The next step is for you to
carry out an unbiased appraisal of your values,
and determine what values will now work under
the changed circumstances. To do this, you can
use what I call a values assessment. A values
assessment begins by you making a list of all of
the values you can think of, considering every
area of life, such as family, career, friendships,
spirituality (or lack thereof), personal goals,
hobbies, and things you are passionate about.
You can list anything from honesty and integrity
to connection and trust. You can also list things
such as acclaim, success, and feeling significant
and appreciated. Once you have created a list, ask
yourself the following questions:
•
What values no longer seem important?
•
What values now seem more important?
Once you have answered these questions, it’s up
to you as to how to proceed. The most important thing is that you now have a clearer sense of
what you value.
Re-Aligning Priorities
Like values, priorities are at the heart of change.
How we understand our priorities often regulates
how we conduct our lives, and the importance
we give to activities in our life. And change is
often inspired by a conflict between what we
would like to happen (the ideal), and what we are
actually doing (the reality). This conflict reflects
a crucial misunderstanding of our values. Often, we find that we are not living in accordance
with what is really important to us. Identifying
priorities can also be a very powerful motivator
for change because it highlights a disconnect that
materializes often in undesirable ways. Priorities,
aligned with behavior, constitute the recipe for
change. However, you must first become aware
of what your current priorities are, and then
re-align them to reflect your current reality. To
do this, you can do what I call priorities ranking.
Start by listing the most important thing in your
life, and put a number one next to it. Then, write
down the second most important thing and put
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a number two next to it. Continue with this list
until you have listed ten items. Then, ask yourself
the following questions:
•
Have any priorities become more important
now?
•
Have any priorities become less important
now?
Once you have the answers, recreate the list,
ranking the priorities as they now apply. Here
again, where you go from here is up to you.
What is important is that you have a clear idea
of what your priorities now are.
Take the Volunteer Test
Volunteering, because there is no compensation, is a wonderful way to consider what really
matters to you. When we remove money from
the equation, we begin to think differently
about what we’d like to do with our time, what
our unique talents and strengths are, and how
we can use them to help others. Volunteering also orients us toward helping others, and
re-connects us with the joy of giving back (or
paying forward). But more importantly, volunteering, because it involves acting beyond our
own interests, is a very powerful way to find
meaning. One way to begin to find meaning, is
to take what I call the volunteer test.
Begin by asking yourself the following question:
If money were not a factor, and I could volunteer
my time anywhere I choose, what would I do?
Next, write down the first three things that come
to your mind. You can list things like “help at
the animal shelter,” “volunteer at an elementary
school,” or “help at a homeless shelter.” There are
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no right or wrong answers. The goal is simply for
you to consider what you enjoy doing, regardless
of the extrinsic payment attached to it. It is what
you do just because you feel good doing it, not
for any other reason. The answers to this question are typically autotelic in nature, meaning
that they are rewarding in and of themselves.
For this reason, autotelic activities do not require
external motivating factors, such as fame, power,
or wealth. For example, you may find that you
enjoy rescuing dogs because it feels rewarding
to you. Similarly, you may find yourself helping
out at your child’s school because, again, it feels
rewarding to you.
What autotelic activities—things that do not
offer external rewards—do for you is they ease
your natural resistance to trying something
different. Because the rewards for volunteering
are internal, and the service you offer is free of
charge, the evaluation of progress is measured
in terms of how you feel. By asking yourself
questions like “Did I enjoy doing this?” “Did I
feel good when I did it?” external evaluators,
like money and status, become secondary. More
importantly, you will be uncovering what is
truly meaningful for you.
Achievement
For most people, finding a sense of achievement
can feel like a vast and often complex endeavor.
Much of the reason for this is due to the fact that
achievement is often linked to accomplishing
something large and admirable. However, as you
can imagine, this construction of achievement
also acts as a barrier. The reality is that what is
considered admirable is entirely subjective and
not something that lends itself to an external
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standard. What one person may consider an
achievement, may have no importance to another. But what this also means is that in terms
of our experiencing a sense of achievement,
what matters most is our own perception of our
triumphs. This also holds tremendous promise,
because what this means is that achievement can
come in any size. And often, the road to large
achievements is paved by smaller, more seemingly insignificant ones along the way. Using smaller
achievements to create larger ones is a framework with which to not only experience a greater
sense of achievement, but also to understand the
process of change. By starting with more manageable accomplishments, you can build a sense
of confidence in your skills, and also ignite your
desire to take on larger tasks. Over time, these
small quantitative gains add up to a much larger
and more profound qualitative change. Here are
a few ways you can experience a greater sense of
achievement.
Chunking
Chunking involves breaking large complex
tasks into smaller more manageable ones. For
example, if you want to run ten miles, but it
seems too overwhelming, you could break the
run into five smaller runs—each of two miles
in length. As you begin your run, you will only
focus on the first two miles, and then once you
get to that point, then allow yourself to focus
on the next two miles, and so on. By breaking the run into smaller parts, and confining
your focus to only the part you are doing at
the moment, the larger run seems much less
overwhelming. Chunking is a crucial skill
because often the entirety of one’s goals can
seem almost impossible (e.g., to consider losing
100 pounds). By breaking things into smaller
pieces, you can find a way around the fear and
anxiety associated with larger goals. But more
importantly, you begin to experience a sense of
achievement early on, which not only enhances
motivation, it also enhances well-being.
To begin, write down the following list of goals:
1.
One-year goal.
2.
Six-month goal.
3.
Three-month goal.
4.
One-month goal.
5.
Two-week goal.
6.
One-week goal.
7.
Daily goal.
Once you have a list of goals, break each one
into smaller separate parts, starting with your
daily goal. (And write these down). For example, if your daily goal is to exercise for one hour
per day, you can break this goal into twenty
minutes in the morning (perhaps with abdominal exercises or walking), a twenty minute walk
on your lunch break, and then a twenty minute
strength session in the evening. If your weekly
goal is to walk ten miles, again, you can break
this up into two miles per day for five days, or
one mile every morning and two and a half
miles each weekend day. How you chunk your
goals is completely up to you, as there is no
right or wrong way. What is important is simply
that you understand the process of making
seemingly unmanageable things more manageable, and along the way, you will uncover a
powerful way to feel a greater sense of achievement in your life.
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Recreating the Story
In many ways, people are not only held back
by the fact that achievements can feel almost
too large to be accomplished, but they are also
often interrupted by setbacks. When life events
get in the way, one of the first things that falls
to the wayside is forward-focused achievement.
Instead of thinking about what makes us feel
accomplished, adversity fixates our focus on
simply surviving. For many people, getting
back on track (toward achieving again) can be
extremely challenging. Opportunities that are
missed are not easily re-created. The process
of recreating a life story is an opportunity.
The story can be constructed in a way that
orients you toward your goals, harnesses your
strengths, and utilizes your unique skills. It can
also be an opportunity for you to recapture past
dreams and hopes, try new approaches, and see
things from multiple perspectives—all crucial
components of changing behavior. What you
may also discover is unique opportunities that
you might have otherwise overlooked.
To do this, let’s do what I call a setback
storyline.
Begin by writing down the events of any setback that have occurred in your life, but in just
one sentence as a story. For example, you may
say, “Man fell in love, got married, had two
children, and his wife left him.” Or you might
say, “Woman lived her whole life wanting to be
a gymnast, only to break her leg in practice.”
Be as concise as possible, incorporating all the
relevant details into one summarizing sentence.
Once you have your sentence, you are going to
add one more. In this next sentence, complete
Transformation Specialist
the story any way you like. For example, if the
first sentence is “Man fell in love, got married,
had two children, and his wife left him,” the
second sentence could read, “Man went traveling with a friend, fell in love with hiking, and
started an adventure company.” Do this five
times until you have five different stories.
When you are done, you should have five
alternative perspectives on the same setback.
Again, what you write, and how the story is
completed, is up to you. There are no right or
wrong answers. If you get stuck, you can ask
a trusted friend to help come up with story
completions. The goal is to be able to look at the
situation in many different ways, from multiple perspectives. What you will find is not just
that a story can be told in many different ways,
but that any situation, even a very challenging
or heartbreaking one, can be considered from
multiple perspectives. When it is, it can also be
completed in many different ways. And when
you can focus on how you complete the story—
as opposed to the frustrating setback itself—
you will become more oriented toward using
your strengths and skills toward solutions that
provide a sense of achievement. Not only does
recreating the story help you overcome barriers,
but it is also a powerful way to open the door
toward a greater sense of achievement.
Change Methods That
Work: The Complete
Commitment Strategy
Guide
Changing behavior is hard. For example, the
recent rates of the chances of success of New
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Year’s Resolutions indicate that while 52% of
people are confident of success, only 12% report
success in keeping New Year’s resolutions.
Another example is weight loss. In a Gallup poll
from 2008, 56% of Americans said they would
like to lose weight, while only 30% were seriously trying. Even more tellingly, 59% of those
interviewed in 2001 said they were trying to
lose weight, implying that at least 15% were still
trying seven years later. Perhaps the question
we should be asking is why do people set goals
and then fail to keep them?
The answer—and a solution to keeping one’s
commitments—might be found in the research
on commitment devices. A commitment device
is an arrangement that a person enters into with
themself to make certain choices more expensive than others. The idea behind the theory
is that people have consistently experienced
problems with self-control in a number of areas.
And these problems with self-control, lead to a
lot of missed goals, unkept commitments, and
forgotten resolutions. Yet it is here that commitment devices offers something very promising:
An agreement that one makes with oneself to
fulfill a plan for future behavior that would
otherwise be difficult due to an interpersonal
conflict, such as a lack of self-control. The idea
is that through making the choices that contradict our personal goals more “costly” (cost
can be measured financially—known as “hard
costs”—or psychologically and socially—known
as “soft” costs), we will be less likely to make
them, and thus more likely to make choices that
are in accordance with our set goals. Let’s take
a look at how you can design a commitment
strategy to reach your goals.
Step One: Use small goals that
carry high confidence levels
Starting with small goals with which your
confidence is high is a fantastic way to build
confidence. And if you are trying to change a
behavior that you have tried to change in the
past, building confidence is essential. To determine which goals are right for you, ask yourself a few questions: What is one small change
that you could make that you would consider a
success toward your goals? On a scale of 1–10,
how confident are you that you could make that
change? What you are looking for is a goal that
is relatively minor in the overarching construct
of your larger goals, but that will give you a
tangible result. Some examples are walking for
twenty minutes every other day, eating twenty grams of protein every morning, drinking
coffee as opposed to cappuccinos or mochas, or
eating only one brownie every other day instead
of three. In order to ensure that your confidence
to reach these goals is high, your answer to the
second question should be 8 or above. In order
for any behavior change strategy to work—and
especially a commitment device—we have to
start with successes that will develop confidence
in your abilities, before moving on to larger
challenges. Often, it is these small seemingly
insignificant changes that lead to larger qualitative change.
Step Two: Use frequent hard
commitments.
Hard commitments are those agreements we
make that have penalties attached to them.
For example, we agree that when we drive on
the road we will follow the speed limit or we
International Sports Sciences Association
298 | Appendix
will likely have to pay a hefty speeding ticket.
Similarly, you can make an agreement with a
friend to increase the time you spend exercising. It might go something like this: you give
your friend $1000 to keep unless you run (or
walk) twenty miles in one week. Or, you give
you spouse $100 from which to dispense $10
for every day you don’t eat ice cream. Both of
these are examples of hard commitments, and
while they may seem quite stern, hard commitments consistently result in better outcomes
(that is, lasting behavior change). The basic
idea behind hard commitments is that you
make an agreement to do something (such as
to adopt a healthy behavior, exercise more, eat
less desert) and if you fail to keep you commitment, you have to pay a “penalty,” which is
typically financial in nature. Because the cost
of not performing the desired behavior (having
to pay the penalty) is greater than the effort
associated with the behavior, hard commitment
strategies are very effective ways of changing
behavior. In terms of changing your behavior, it
is best to use hard commitments with frequent
time intervals. For example, you might design
an agreement where you have to work out for
twenty extra minutes every day for one week, or
avoid eating ice cream for one week. By making
the time intervals (one week or less) relatively
short, your chances of success increase, and
your confidence builds. You can even increase
the frequency with which you implement the
penalty, by asking your friend or spouse to
dispense a small portion of the total penalty
back to you for every day you are successful.
For example, you might start by giving you
friend $1000 to keep for you if you don’t make
your goal of twenty miles in the week, and then
Transformation Specialist
ask her to give you back $50 for every mile you
complete. Increasing the frequency in this way
inserts small successes into the larger task of
reaching your weekly mileage goal, and makes
the rewards of your efforts more frequent and
more tangible. And these small successes go
a long way toward the larger goal of changing
behavior.
Step Three: Move from smaller
goals to larger goals.
Starting with small goals is a great way to build
confidence, and once you have had some success
at achieving a desired goal, you will be ready to
move to a larger one. For example, let’s say that
you started with a small goal to walk ten minutes
every day for one week, and you successfully
reached this goal, well now you can move to
try to walk fifteen minutes every day for another week. You can also choose a different goal
entirely, such as eating only one small yogurt for
desert every day for the next week. However, one
thing to keep in mind is to make the shift from
small goals to larger ones incremental in nature.
For example, if you were successful at reaching
a goal at which you had a confidence level of 8,
the next progression would be to attempt a goal
at which you have a confidence level of 7. Progression should be no more than one number (in
confidence rating) per week, and if you are not
successful at your goal, simply move to a smaller goal, in which your confidence is higher. For
example, let’s say that you chose a goal at which
you rated your confidence at 8, yet you were not
successful at reaching this goal, then you should
move to a goal at which you rate your confidence
at 9. The reason for this is twofold: people do
The Complete Change Workbook | 299
not always estimate their confidence accurately (sometimes we are more confident than we
think, or sometimes we underestimate the difficulty of the task), and what is most important
here is to feel successful.
Step Four: Connect goals to
long-term outcomes
While any goal attainment carries a positive
connotation, it is best to always connect whatever goals you achieve to long-term outcomes.
The reason for this is that people always work
harder on goals that they have an interest in.
You are much more likely to allocate effort
toward achieving a small goal, when you see
it in the much larger perspective of your life
and when it represents something that is very
important to you. For example, let’s say that
one of your primary reasons for losing weight
is to “be able to keep up with your kids.” So
you begin by choosing a commitment strategy
with a small goal of walking ten minutes per
day, and a penalty of $10 a day should you not
complete your walk. You are successful at this
goal, so you move to another goal to eat only
half a candy bar for desert for one week, and
again you are successful. While these goals are
a great start, you must keep in mind that your
primary reason for weight loss is to keep up
with your kids. Therefore, goals that directly reflect this will increase your interest and
participation. For example, you could choose
a goal to play ten minutes of soccer with your
kids every day, which is in direct relationship to
your overall long-term goal. When small goals
such as these connect with long-term outcomes,
you experience them as much more purposeful,
and demonstrate much greater interest in them
because they reflect your own motivations.
Following the steps above will help you utilize
a very potent defense against the self-control
problems that so often deter our goals. But even
more importantly, effective use of commitment
strategies will allow you to begin making commitments that you will keep, which will build
your confidence, and make you feel successful—
all critical components of behavior change.
Am I Getting Better?
How to Use Experience
Sampling to Propel
Change
The experience sampling method (ESM) is a
research method designed to gather real-time
data of people in their natural environments.
The method consists of wearing a device—such
as a beeper, cell phone, or Apple watch—and
being prompted throughout the day to respond
to some sort of assessment questionnaire. For example, we can wear a beeper that is programmed
to go off at random intervals four times throughout the day. When signaled, we must respond—
usually within thirty minutes—to a predesigned
set of questions. The assessment questions
typically ask about our mood, who we are with,
and ask for a short description of the activities
we are doing at the time we are signaled. Today,
different ESM approaches have effectively been
used in a variety of situations to identify moods
and how they correlate to activities, flow states,
and even to identify situations that may trigger
addictive conditions, such as drinking (Bos et
al., 2015). The ESM can also be used alongside an
International Sports Sciences Association
300 | Appendix
objective measure—such as pounds lost—to help
assess our progress in a weight loss program.
Through the use of the ESM, we gain not only a
subjective measure of how we felt while doing the
activities that led to weight loss, but which specific activities were linked with the highest levels
of happiness. It is in this way that the use of the
ESM can bridge the gap between interventions
that might work, and our attitude toward those
interventions. And because our attitude toward
(or interest in) an activity is one of the strongest
predictors of continued involvement, the ESM
represents a very promising way of propelling
change. Let’s take a look at how you can use the
ESM to boost your change efforts:
Design the Study
In order to use the ESM effectively, start
by designing questions that ask about your
mood, thoughts, and behavior. Here are some
examples:
•
On a scale of 1–10, rate your current mood.
•
In one sentence, describe your thoughts.
•
In one sentence, describe your activities.
It is important to keep the questions brief and
easy to answer, as you will be answering them
several times throughout the day.
Next, you will need to use a signaling device,
such as a beeper, smartphone, or any sort of
wearable device, and choose the signaling
intervals. As the goal is to acquire as much
data as possible about your daily experience
and the way it affects how you feel, it is best to
use 4–6 signals delivered at random intervals
throughout the day.
Transformation Specialist
Once you have you questions and your signaling intervals, make sure that you respond
consistently to the signals within thirty minutes
in order to gather accurate data. Complete your
responses to the signals for one full week and
then ask yourself the following questions:
In What Ways Is My Mood
Connected to My Behavior?
Because the ESM can be used to ask questions
about both mood and experience (behavior),
it can be very helpful in drawing awareness to
the affect your actions have on the way you feel.
When you use the ESM in this way to connect
your mood to your resulting behavior, you not
only gather valuable data on your experience,
but also a very persuasive motivator for change.
In What Ways Are My Thoughts
Connected to My Mood?
By asking yourself about your thoughts in a
signal-contingent interval, not only do you
increase your awareness of your thoughts, but
also the way they influence your mood—which
is another very potent inspiration for change.
During Which Activities Do I Feel
Engaged?
As the ESM was originally developed to identify
peak experiences, it is a very effective way to
help uncover the activities that bring you the
greatest level of engagement (and fulfillment).
When you focus your attention on the things
that bring you the greatest satisfaction, you provide a very convincing motivation for change.
The Complete Change Workbook | 301
Inspiring Change
While the use of the ESM is a very useful tool to
identify connections between thoughts, mood
and behavior, it is also a very effective way to
measure change. Once you have completed an
ESM study (of at least one week), you will have
a quantity of information about your daily experience: the way you feel at certain times of the
day, the way specific activities influence your
mood, the influence your thoughts have on
your mood, and the way your emotions affect
your behavior. In terms of inspiring change,
look for the following things:
Unexpected Connections Between
Behavior and Mood
Because the ESM asks about both behavior and
mood, quite often unexpected connections can
be identified. For example, you may find that
every time you clean the house, your mood improves, while every time you have to speak with
your boss, you experience anger and frustration.
Connections such as these can be very informative in terms of how to design experiences to
have the best outcomes on the way you feel.
Unexpected Enjoyable Experiences
As the use of the ESM involves random sampling throughout the day, you may find that
some activities may hold unexpected benefits
in the way you feel. For example, you may find
that while you might not have thought that
your mood was positive while on your daily
walk, it is, in fact, one of the highest points of
your day. When you can uncover these optimal
experiences (or peak moments) in the day, you
have valuable information—that can dramatically improve your happiness.
Unexpected Aversive Experiences
In the same way that the ESM can help you
uncover peak experiences, it also helps you become more aware of those experiences that have
a negative effect on mood. For example, you
may find that while you thought you enjoyed
spending time with a particular friend, actually,
your mood is quite low during that time. It is in
this way that the ESM offers invaluable data—as
knowing just what experiences do not bring you
joy can be just as important as knowing what
does.
Through learning about which activities, situations, and events bring you the greatest joy, how
your thoughts are connected to your mood, and
how your emotions influence your behavior,
the ESM offers tremendous benefits in not only
inspiring change, but helping you create a more
happy, fulfilled, and meaningful life.
International Sports Sciences Association
302
INDEX
E
M
S
A
emotional contingencies 278
maintenance 10
scaling questions 28
empathy 16
mastery 29, 32, 285
self-efficacy 4
achievement 294
environmental reevaluation 7
meaning 292
self-liberation 7
action 10
experience sampling method
memory biases 276
self-motivation booster 285
motivation 48
self-reevaluation 7
affirming 27
262
agreement with a twist 22
extrinsic reward 52
amplified Reflection 21
F
motivation assessment 42
short-run self 120
fitness psychology 56
O
siding with the negative 23
flourishing 64
observer effect 271
social liberation 7
open-ended questions 24
soft commitments 160
optimism 289
Spotlight Effect 210
assessment 9
autonomy 29, 30
B
flow 198
assessment 42
shifting focus 22
simple reflection 19
behavioral contingencies 278
flow channel 205
C
G
Optimism Test 67, 79
stage-matched 6
change model 6
gratitude 291
P
stimulus control 7
H
positive psychology 63
hard commitments 161
63
stages of 6
change talk 16
collaborative 16
Positive Psychology Model
helping relationships 7
post-traumatic growth 71
commitment strategies 108
hyperbolic discounting 113
precontemplation 10
Complete Commitment
Strategy Guide 296
I
preparation 10
consciousness-raising 7
interviewing, motivational 15
purpose 29, 33, 287
contemplation 10
intrinsic reward 52
counter-conditioning 7
L
commitment device 108
D
psychic entropy 198
R
real-time data 222
listen reflectively 25
reframing 23
decision balance 6
long-run self 120
reinforcement management 7
discipline 49
loss aversion 156
resistance points 20
disconnect 59
double-sided reflection 22
dramatic relief 7
Transformation Specialist
retrospective data 268
Strengths Inventory 92, 93
summarizing 26
T
temptation costs 114
U
uncovering ambivalence 19
V
validating 27
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