About the Author
Dr. Melissa Davis holds a PhD in
Neurobiology and Behavior. She has 10
years of research experience studying
cortical plasticity, brain development,
and somatosensory based disease
intervention. Her work has been featured
in Scientific American, published in high
impact, peer reviewed journals, and
recognized by faculty of 1000. Melissa
has earned awards for teaching,
scholarship, and excellence in research.
She has also been involved in science
outreach activities for over a decade.
Melissa is currently the vice president
and chief strategy officer at Renaissance
Periodization where she has coauthored books on nutrition, training, and recovery. She has
been an invited speaker at numerous scientific and fitness related conferences around the
world and is passionate about making scientific knowledge accessible to everyone. Melissa is
also a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt under Giva Santana and has been training in the sport
since 2009. She has competed all over the world and across the United States and is a
repeat IBJJF Master World Champion and has also represented the United States for her
division in the international Abu Dhabi World Pro Competition. Her current position at
Renaissance Periodization represents the marriage of her passions for sport, science, and
teaching. In her free time Melissa enjoys hiking, hunting, painting, crime shows, and DIY
home improvement. She currently resides in Montana with her husband, cat, dogs, and
mule. You can find Dr. Mel on the RP website or on Instagram @regressive_underload.
Special Thanks
To our content editor: Tiago Vasconcelos Faleiro is currently the Research Editor at
Renaissance Periodization and is working on a degree in Philosophy and
Psychological Studies at Open University, Psychology & Counselling.
To our technical editor: Stephan Dvorak holds an MFA in Creative Writing from
University of Miami and is currently a medical student at University of Virginia School
of Medicine.
To Charly Joung, RP Director of Branding & Marketing: for cover-concept design
and book title.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION Psychology and Neuroscience of Behavior
1
CHAPTER 1 The Intention Behavior Gap
12
CHAPTER 2 The Willpower Problem
20
CHAPTER 3 Goal Delineation
28
CHAPTER 4 Chunk and Organize
55
CHAPTER 5 Awareness Through Mindfulness
68
CHAPTER 6 Self-Monitoring
84
CHAPTER 7 Keep Your Eye Off the Prize (and On your Behavior)
108
CHAPTER 8 Building Your Plan for Change
140
CHAPTER 9 Trouble Shooting Progress
150
CHAPTER 10 The Role of the Coach
158
A Final Note from the Author
166
INTRODUCTION
Psychology and Neuroscience of Behavior
A Brief History of Understanding and Research
“All of our life is but a mass of small habits––practical,
emotional, intellectual and spiritual––that bear us irresistibly
toward our destiny.”
William James
People define success differently. It can mean acquiring wealth, being a winning athlete, building an
impactful enterprise, helping people, having sound relationships and a good reputation, or any
host of other achievements. While individual ideas about what it means to be successful vary, all
successful people will have at least one thing in common: consistent goal acquisition. No matter
how you define success, it will come about by choosing a target and hitting that mark. Sometimes
over and over and sometimes on a huge scale. At the heart of setting goals and acting to achieve
them is the ability to alter your behavior. This book will seek to help you do just that using evidence
from decades of research and understanding about habits, goal setting, and human behavior.
Believe it or not––as you begin to read a book about changing your habits to support your goals––
there was a time when scientists thought that all human behavior was based on stimulus-response
reactions and biological drives; they did not believe that free will or personal goals played much of
a role. You can imagine that this theory was supported by common observations; we have all made
plans that never came to fruition or found our automatic responses to be stronger than our goaldirected behaviors. It’s part of the human condition. Still, most of us have also achieved a goal.
Scientists of the past just assumed that this resulted from a series of basic drives and responses to
stimuli rather than intentional behavior change thrusting you toward an accomplishment.
Thankfully, current philosophy regarding goals and behavior has changed substantially; research
now supports our ability to direct our intentions and alter behavior volitionally for the sake of
achievement––a process that the chapters of this book will guide you through.
1
Having a grasp of the general processes that govern learning and behavior and examining the
research that led to this point will help you in several ways. First, this understanding allows us to see
how earlier scientists framed their findings and enables us to identify new zeitgeists that shape the
current framework. In other words, knowing history can help us avoid the mistakes of the past. For
example, the idea that all behavior is merely a complex series of reflexes was inspired by the
understanding of neuroscience at the time. Scientists extrapolated from their knowledge of reflexes
(where neurons fire in predictable ways when a stimulus is presented) to explain all neuronal
functions of the brain, including human behavior. We see similar trends from the onset of the
computer era (research likening the brain to a hard drive) and after the discovery of DNA
(hypotheses that memories are stored in molecular chains like genetic material)1. Even Descartes
used then-current technology to try to understand brain function––after seeing fountains in the
royal gardens, he developed the hypothesis that hydraulic action pumped fluids carrying sensory
information throughout the brain2. It is always worth thinking about how current ideas might shape
scientists’ conclusions.
Another way that an understanding of neuroscience can help you on your behavior-change
journey is to make clear the complexity of your brain and behavior. Grasping this concept and
considering the amount of research that has brought us to our still nascent knowledge will
hopefully put you in awe of that funny organ in your head. This should encourage you to consider
the breadth of your own potential!
Most importantly, this introduction to behavioral science will help you to be patient with yourself as
you endeavor to change. Altering your habits requires functional modification in the brain that will
not occur overnight and will often be imperfect. It takes time and commitment for changes in
behavior to solidify into good habits; a basic knowledge of the neurobiology behind behavior will
help you to recognize the source of some of those struggles, making them a bit easier to
overcome and helping you forgive yourself for not being able to change immediately!
Early Behaviorist Theories
The theory of Behaviorism was in full swing in the early part of the 20th century. Behaviorism is the
name for the scientific movement that assumed all behavior could be explained by conditioned
responses and that feelings and thoughts played little role, if any. In a famous (and later heavily
2
questioned and perhaps unethical) experiment, the father of Behaviorism, JB Watson, allowed a
nine-month-old baby known as “Little Albert” to play with a cute white rat. The baby was not at all
afraid of the rat––until scientists began clanging a metal rod against a pan and making a terrifying
noise every time the baby encountered the rat. Subsequently little Albert began crying at the sight
of the rat, even in the absence of any noise. Supposedly, Albert also began to fear other furry white
objects (like stuffed bunnies and men with white beards) after this experiment, despite not fearing
them previously. It is important that we take this experiment (in which only one subject was studied)
with a grain of salt. The take home here––other than that psychological research in the 1920’s was a
wild west situation––is the idea that a behavior can be shaped via pairing a neutral stimulus with a
salient (upsetting or rewarding) one directed the field of psychology, for quite some time. Though
we have expanded our understanding of the complexity of human behavior since, the basic
learning paradigms below still hold relevance.
Thorndike’s Law of Effect
The stimulus-response theory of behavior is a very old understanding of how some behaviors arise.
Edward Thorndike developed his law of effect in the late 1800’s; it states simply that behaviors that
are followed by desirable consequences are more likely to be repeated and those followed by
unwanted consequences are less likely to be repeated. Though this is familiar and relatable, it is not
the only way behaviors are driven. This theory explains how simpler animals learn to behave
productively in their environment––spontaneous or accidental behaviors are either rewarded or
punished by outcomes and this shapes the animal’s future choices. For example, a wild animal such
as a bear that would normally stay away from loud humans might find some food left at a camp
site when it is quiet. Though the bear may have randomly encountered the campsite, the positive
experience of acquiring food acts as a reward. If the animal acquires easy food regularly when it
encounters human campsites, it will eventually seek them out in search of that reward. This example
of Thorndike’s Law of Effect has become problematic at many U.S. parks where bear encounters
with humans are too common and become risky (to bears and humans; bears get hit by cars and
humans get attacked). Rangers are forced to manage this by altering the consequences of human
interaction for the bears. Once again using Thorndike’s law, rangers blow airhorns and fire rubber
bullets (annoying but harmless) so that the bears associate human contact with these frightening
annoyances and alter their behavior accordingly, avoiding rather than seeking humans.
3
Thorndike’s law can be observed in human behavior as well. A baby (who to the dismay of parents
everywhere) puts everything in their mouth, might find after a few tries that the consequences of
eating sand are too great and (assuming the baby is at a point in development where this type of
learning is possible) stop eating sand. Adult humans are not immune to stimulus-response learning
by any means (cake tastes good, eat more; exercise feels bad, do less), but with moods, emotions,
planning abilities, long and short-term thinking capacity, and motivations, the shaping of adult
human behavior tends to be more complicated most of the time. In many cases the simple rewardbehavior relationship exists on some level, but the reward can be incredibly less obvious to an
onlooker or even to the person themself.
Classical Conditioning
Around the same time that Thorndike was developing his theory of behavior, Ivan Pavlov was
studying trained responses to neutral stimuli. Pavlov’s experiments are written about in many
textbooks because the model was so illustrative of the concept of classical conditioning––an idea
that helped us understand behavior on a level one step further than Thorndike’s Law of Effect. In
this type of learning, two stimuli (a bell and dog food for example) are paired and over time one
stimuli (the bell) becomes predictive of the other (the food) and elicits a response
(drool/anticipation of eating). Prior to training, the sound of a bell would not have had any
association with food or have caused salivation. This paradigm helped extrapolate stimulusresponse theory to explain how layers of stimuli might predict rewards. We have all probably
experienced this phenomenon in different areas of life; perhaps seeing the packaging of your
favorite snack makes your mouth water (even if the package is empty) or the sound of your
computer signaling incoming emails makes you feel stressed because that sound is so often paired
with extra work for you. Perhaps putting your key in the front door to enter your house at 6:30pm
on a weekday triggers a desire for beer because you generally get home from work, take off your
shoes, and crack one open while you prepare dinner. The series of stimuli that lead to a behavior
can be lengthy. Previously neutral stimuli (like a bell making dogs anticipate food or keying into
your house triggering the desire for booze) can start you down an automatic path to habitual
behavior. Maybe you don’t even want the post-work beer every night, but the chain of opening
your door, taking off your shoes, and preparing dinner regularly elicit the behavior of drinking beer
whether or not you crave it. Take special note of the series aspect of habitual behavior, as it will
later provide us a target for behavior change intervention.
4
Operant Conditioning
While classical conditioning triggers an automatic response to a previously neutral stimulus, it does
not necessarily shape voluntary behavior. The learned response in Pavlov’s dogs was involuntary
anticipation––the dogs did not consciously decide to salivate. In the early 1900’s B.F. Skinner began
to look into using conditioning to shape more voluntary behavior. What Pavlov is to classical
conditioning, B.F. Skinner is to operant conditioning. Operant conditioning uses a reward or
consequence to shape an animal’s voluntary behavior. Of course, these two types of conditioning
can work together. No doubt Pavlov’s dogs would have run towards the sound of bells (a voluntary
behavior) if allowed to, along with their involuntary salivation response. They were classically
conditioned to associate a bell with food and would become operantly conditioned to run towards
the bell to acquire food. Operant conditioning can also be used to string together a series of
behaviors with a series of consequences (positive or negative) in order to shape a more complex
response. Skinner used operant conditioning to do just this using a technique called shaping.
It is difficult to reward a pigeon for pecking a target if the pigeon has no reason to ever peck the
target in the first place. Shaping involves rewarding approximations of a desired behavior with the
intention to shift the approximated behavior to the target behavior. For example, the pigeon is
initially rewarded simply for turning in the direction of the target. Once this behavior has been
established, rewards are withheld until the pigeon turns toward and takes a step closer to the
target, and so on until the pigeon has learned to peck the target to receive a treat. An interesting
aspect of operant conditioning is that is not necessary to reward every instance of the behavior. In
fact, a variable reward schedule (where the reward only occurs some of the times that the correct
behavior is performed) can elicit stronger reinforcement of the behavior. In humans, we see this
phenomenon in action in gambling––pulling the lever with the hope of potential reward on a slot
machine is reinforced to the point of addiction in some people, despite the variable reward
schedule (you don’t win every time or even very often). A variable reward schedule can be even
more impactful when the potential reward is of high value (such as a slot-machine jackpot).
These two learning processes illustrate an important aspect of the acquisition of behaviors––we
tend to chain together and associate contexts, stimuli, and consequences in the process of learning
and behaving. This is an important factor as we attempt to change our behavior. Another
important factor is that it takes a greater amount of time for more complex behaviors to develop
and will also in turn take time to undo those behaviors once they become habitual. Knowing that
the time it takes to change certain behaviors is limited by your own physiology and psychology can
5
relieve quite a bit of guilt for many. When we understand that we cannot be expected to totally
revamp our behavior in a few days or weeks, we are allowed a wider perspective on how to direct
our intentions towards our goals.
Hull’s Drive Reduction Theory
Clark L. Hull, another early to mid-20th century scientist, added motivation to a proposed
understanding of behavior but whittled it down to basic human drives rather than goal-directed
intentions. In other words, he thought that primary survival drives such as thirst, hunger, lust, the
need for shelter, as well as secondary drives like the desire for social approval, drive all behavior not
explained by behaviorism (stimulus-response learning). He proposed that human behaviors were
the result of the attempt to fulfill these drives and that doing so provided the reward that
reinforced behavior. In other words, motivation was little more than the expression of a need for
survival and comfort.
This notion that all behavior was driven completely by conditioned responses and unconscious
associations dominated the field of psychology up through the 1950’s to the point that studying
motivation was considered “hippy shit”3 (the author’s words). Motivation was deemed fantasy, the
dream of emotional non-scientists who idealistically wished for people to be more than stimulusresponse machines. Thankfully this zeitgeist has been shifted by evidence over the last half century
and it is now clear that we are capable of sculpting our destiny according to personal desires and
goals that are not-necessarily tied to basic needs or simple associations.
The Cognitive Revolution
Behaviorists believed that because we could not observe the internal workings of the mind,
behavior was the only quantifiable source for any valid scientific conclusions. This began to change
with the development of other scientific fields, new tools, and an interdisciplinary approach. In 1956,
researchers from the fields of neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, and computer science met at
what turned out to be a seminal conference. The ideas shared at this symposium led to an
expanded understanding of how to study the mind. Computer science could model cognitive
6
processes, the scientific method could be applied to psychological assessments, and various fields
could work together to study more than just stimulus and response with regard to the human
brain. Motivation and feelings could be studied with this new interdisciplinary approach.
Though the shift away from purely Behaviorist ideas began in the 1950’s, it took roughly a decade
to take hold4. This paradigm shift––the idea that mood, internal motivations, thought processes,
and other cognitive aspects contributed to choices––allowed these ideas to be studied with less
scorn3,5,6. This ushered in an era of research regarding goal-directed behavior and multidisciplinary
investigations into decision-making, bringing into existence the field of cognitive science3,7.
The complexity of human motivation is now appreciated. Although animals make valuable and
legitimate models for many types of learning, some behavior is distinctly human. Most animals
don’t concern themselves with their health or how they look if given the choice between these and
more basic drives. Humans, on the other hand, are known to forego their own well-being in favor
of more abstract rewards. If the diet industry is any evidence, people are willing to give up food for
vanity even in the face of health risks or in the absence of social acceptance of their goals. You
won’t see a pigeon making this choice. Goal-directed behavior based on an understanding of longterm outcomes is also a distinctly human process. Humans have an internal drive to attain mastery
or develop skills purely for the joy of being good at something and seem to garner satisfaction
from self-reliance8. Rats do not tend to have hobbies that they practice simply to feel effective and
successful. Affect (mood, emotions, and so on) also drive human behavior, further complicating the
process of understanding and changing it.
Sometimes we don’t do what we know is required to achieve a desired outcome simply because we
don’t ‘feel like it’. In an ideal world, learning processes would work harmoniously, all promoting
desirable behavior. Unfortunately, processes compete for real estate in your behavioral landscape.
The short-term stimulus-response reward of smoking a cigarette for those addicted competes with
the long-term motivation of better health from quitting. The stimulus-response learning is that
exercise brings discomfort and a reasonable behavior change under that learning paradigm would
be to stop exercising to end that discomfort. This competes with the goal-directed understanding
that temporary suffering in the gym brings about the long-term positive reward of better health
and prevents the long-term (arguably more negative) consequence of impaired health.
The idea that behavior might arise via more than one process of the brain (dual-process theory)
reframed the focus of research such that those interested in goal-directed and affect (mood and
emotion) based behavior no longer had to be at odds with those studying conditioned or
7
automatic behaviors9. Dual process theory suggests that behavior can be expressed based on
either automatic conditioning, goal-directed learning, or both10. This means that your decision
whether or not to go to the gym can be driven by both negative associations and goal-directed
intentions. This is another target for behavior change; the competition between associations and
goals can be alleviated if we make the associations positive––so that both pathways push us
towards the same behavior choice. In that case our example might look like: “Going to the gym is
fun because I meet my friend there and I need to improve my health”. This way both the stimulusresponse (the gym is fun) and goal-directed (I want to improve my long-term health) push you to
make the behavioral choice of going to the gym.
To tackle behavior change, we must take advantage of what we know about basic learning
processes but also consider the complexity of other factors that influence our behavior. We must
provide more diverse rewards and consequences customized to ourselves and our specific
behaviors. In this way, we can attack a problem at multiple points and across multiple levels of
behavior and motivation in order to enhance our chances of effective change.
Neurobiology of Habits
People often separate mind and body as if they are mutually exclusive, but in fact all of the things
that arise in your mind are based upon changes in your brain: a brilliantly complex enigma but
nonetheless an organ of the body. Perhaps the first proponent of what is now known as
neuroscience (previously psychobiology––the combined study of behavior and underlying
biological processes) was William James. Though his presumed associations between biology and
psychology were not explicated by research until decades later, his ideas have critically influenced
cognitive neuroscience.
Just as a basic understanding of the principles of learning are a good prerequisite for habit change,
some knowledge of the basic anatomical and neurobiological processes underlying behavior can
also be instructive. Again, comprehending the precepts of behavioral psychology and neurobiology
helps prevent feelings of guilt when we cannot change our habits overnight––the time and work
required for habit change is in part a limitation of our human hardware. This time required to form
a habit has its benefits. It means that automatic responses are based on statistical likelihood of
8
favorable outcomes. In other words, habits take a while to acquire because our brains “make sure”
the reward or consequence is consistent and ramp up automaticity accordingly.
Let’s dip our toes into anatomy and neuroscience for just a moment. Two important brain
structures in learned behavior, particularly habit formation and addiction, are the prefrontal cortex
and the basal ganglia11–16. Although many animals have a cerebral cortex, the human cortex is
larger and has many more folds than most mammals––one of the things that facilitates our higherlevel cognition (the folds help us cram more brain into our little skulls for more processing than our
head size might imply). Parts of the frontal lobe are involved in the more complex aspects of
behavior and personality. The basal ganglia is a structure also shared by most animals and its
function seems to be conserved across species to some extent––meaning it plays a very similar role
in the brain of a mouse and a
human17,18. This part of the brain is
involved in habit acquisition14,19.
Different regions of the basal ganglia
may be involved in different aspects
of behavior and habit, including
stimulus-response learning and goaldirected behavior15,20.
During the learning process, afferent
signals (information coming into the
brain) arrive to a subsection of the
striatum (part of the basal ganglia).
When the series of cues, subsequent
behavior, and feelings of a new experience come in together more than once, this brain region
“chunks” them so that the brain registers them as a single event. You can think of this chunking as
similar to how you see a piece of pizza––not as it’s ingredients (fluor, butter, cheese, tomato paste,
seasonings, etc.) but rather chunked into the single idea of “pizza”. Your brain does this with a
series of events that are repeated together. This “chunking” explains why Pavlov’s dogs drooled at
the sound of a bell (their brains had chunked bell and food together). For a human example, the
sight of an unusual box on the “free food” table at work that turns out to have some very tasty
donuts inside gets coupled with the pleasure of eating a donut. After a few instances of this same
experience, the sight of this box, the behavior of eating, and the pleasure all get lumped into one
single event. These associations get strengthened each time you see that once unfamiliar box and
eat a donut. Over time, the eat-a-donut response to seeing the donut box might become so
9
automatic that you don’t even enjoy the donuts or you eat ones that you don’t like that much if
your favorites are gone. The behavior of eating a donut persists even if the pleasure does not
because the brain has chunked the stimulus of seeing the box with eating a donut. This is when
behavior has essentially become habit––when it is performed as a result of a stimulus irrespective
of reward or consequence.
Brain activity patterns that result in habits start with brain cells firing in response to stimuli. In the
first few instances of seeing the donut box, there are cells in your brain that fire when choose not to
eat a donut and cells that fire when you eat one and have pleasure. As one choice (eating donuts
for example) becomes more common, automaticity increases––and cells that fire for that behavior
increase (even if you don’t enjoy eating the donut on occasion). This underlying change in cell firing
might explain the difficulty of breaking bad habits even when they are no longer rewarding. The
behavior becomes entirely automatic. Perhaps you have had the experience of finishing a “treat”
and thinking “That wasn’t even very good, I didn’t even want it, why did I eat that?!”. In later
chapters we will learn to look at “triggers” for such automatic behavior and take the behavior apart
to affect change. Eating a donut now and then for pleasure is something that should not be taken
from anyone but eating donuts with no pleasure is something we can all do without!
This process is not limited to food associations, it happens during the formation of any type of
habitual response. The human cortex and other brain regions associated with emotions also
interact with the basal ganglia, allowing for a host of stimuli, experiences, moods, and feelings to be
involved in chunking and habit formation. Though we cannot pinpoint regionally acute brain
changes with medications, we can use this information to inform strategies for habit change. For
example, to help the brain chunk a new habit, we can chain cues, behavior, and reward. Performing
a new habit in a similar place and manner when first initiating it can help solidify new behavior. You
can add a reward or choose to focus on the rewarding aspects of the new habit as well. You can
begin to expand the behavior to more contexts over time, making it stronger.
The science of habit formation in the brain is much more complex than we will cover in this book––
some aspects are still being studied and are as yet unclear21. What we can take away from this
information is that there are some practical targets for behavioral intervention22. Second, we can
come to terms with the fact that habit change is a biologically limited process and that there should
be no guilt or shame in the lack of rapidity with which we make changes to our behavior. This stuff
takes time, and that fact is not due to any lacking in willpower or efficacy on our end.
10
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(2018).
11
CHAPTER 1
The Intention-Behavior Gap and Habits
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and
precious life?”
Mary Oliver
Intentions and Behaviors
If our behaviors always matched our intentions, most people would be highly organized and wildly
successful. If you decided to start a new training program you would automatically work out on
every planned exercise day without hesitation, if you decided to save some money, your spending
would immediately be reduced to precisely what your new budget allowed, if you wanted to lose
weight, you would simply eat on plan and never be tempted to stray––success would be easy!
Unfortunately, people often have behavioral patterns, desires, and unconscious habits that get in
the way of goal-aligned behavior. Most of us have had the experience of intending to clean the
house on a Saturday and then watching movies instead, planning to complete a diet or a workout
program and then losing motivation after a few weeks, or making big resolutions for the new year
but falling into old habits very soon after January passed. This discrepancy between what we want
to do and what we actually do is exceedingly common and has been studied in psychology––
upwards of 40% of intentions fail to result in persistent
behavior change according to research1–3. This 40%
failure rate is the discrepancy between intended and
actual behavior and is so prevalent that it has a
name––the intention-behavior-gap3,4.
The size of the “gap” between intended behavior and
current behavior varies depending on the desired
behavior itself and the current status quo for the
individual. If you floss five days a week and your
intention is to increase that to seven, the gap is much
smaller and the likelihood of success is much higher
12
If you find that you do not follow
through with your goals, you are not
alone! This is a part of the human
condition. The intention-behavior gap is
ubiquitous. Learning to align your
behavior with your goals is a skill that
takes time and a great deal of practice.
You wouldn’t learn another language
with casual study and the same goes for
learning to shape your behavior––it is a
skill that takes consistent training. This
book will give you the tools for this
practice. Invest the time and effort and
you will master your own behavior!
than if you have never lifted weights and your intention is to start training six times a week. Filling
smaller gaps between a goal and current behavior is always easier––the smaller the leaps in change
you can take at a time, the more likely you can attain large changes in the long term.
If a large portion of our behavior is not predictably based on intention––that is to say if what we do
is not based on what we intend to do, then where does behavior come from? One large
contributor to unintended behavior is habit, which can be defined as follows:
Habit: A regularly repeated, learned behavior that is context dependent, automatic (does not
require and usually occurs without conscious consideration), and insensitive to outcome5,6.
\
There are three critical aspects to this definition: the regular repetition of the behavior, its
automaticity in response to certain contexts or cues, and its insensitivity to outcome. Let’s walk
through these aspects in order to better understand this powerful driver of behavior.
Repetition of a behavior is the straight-forward aspect of habit that most of us intuitively
understand. Habits are things we do over and over and the things that we do over and over
become habits. Consistent repetition is an important characteristic that we can use to break down
unwanted habits and build desired ones.
The second part of the definition is also fairly intuitive. Particular situations cue habitual behavior. A
study of people who like to purchase popcorn at the movies helps shed light on how big a role
context plays in habitual behavior. The study showed that people consumed just as much stale,
unseasoned popcorn as they did fresh tasty popcorn at a movie theatre––they ate just as much
with or without the taste-pleasure reward. The same subjects also ate the same amount whether
they reported being hungry beforehand or not. Interestingly, if the same people were given
popcorn in a lab and made to eat it with their non-dominant hand, they ate less of the stale
popcorn and less total popcorn if they weren’t hungry. This shows us that outside of the usual
context (being in a movie theatre and eating with their dominant hand), popcorn eating was based
on hunger and enjoyment––it was not consumed habitually. In other words, when the context of
being at the theatre and using their usual eating hand were removed, reward again played a role in
their choices!7 This information provides a tool that we can use to gain more conscious control of
13
our behaviors––to act with intention rather than habitually. We will explore the manipulation of
context for behavior change in later chapters.
The third part of the definition might at first seem counterintuitive. Habits are insensitive to
outcome; even if an established habit pushes us farther from our goals, has no benefit, or brings us
no pleasure we will keep doing it8–10! The reason we sometimes behave in a way that does not
support our goals even when there is a lack of any other reward lies in the structures of our brains.
Habits develop initially because there is some type of reward that encourages their repetition or
because the behavior allows us to avoid some negative outcome. Once this loop is established in
your brain it is as if a road has been paved from a cue to a behavior and the cue can then trigger
the behavior neurologically. This new wiring in your brain permits action in response to the cue
independently of outcome. If you have ever used a toilet with a different flush handle location than
you are used to, this idea might be more familiar. Perhaps your home toilets have a side flush
handle and you visit a hotel with a top flush and reach repeatedly for the side despite having seen
and had to switch to the top flush for days. This is an example of automaticity in a certain context.
Even the conscious knowledge that conditions have changed does not inhibit the habitual action
right away. There is no benefit of reaching for the side flush when using the top-flush hotel toilet
for the 15th time and in fact reaching for the wrong flush location gets you further from your flushthe-toilet goal. While this is a very neutral example (toilet flushing is rarely tied to overarching life
values), it helps us understand how more complex habits function without much conscious choice
and with or without reinforcement. This example can be extended to all types of counter or
unproductive habitual behaviors and might be the most insidious aspect of habitual behavior––it
means that a large chunk of our actions are without any kind of benefit.
We can break a habit down into its distinct aspects:
Cue/context: The stimulus, situation, or feelings that cue habitual behavior
Habit: The automatic behavioral response to the cue or context
Previous reward for behavior: The reward or consequence that initially reinforced the formation
of the habit
14
Let’s break down the toilet flushing example in terms of each aspect of habit to make sure we are
all clear on the basic structure of habit formation:
Cue/context: Being in the bathroom using the toilet
Habit: Reaching for a side flush handle
Previous reward for behavior: Having the toilet flush when we push the side handle
Lack of reward but persisting behavior: Reaching for the side flush when using a top flush
toilet = toilet does not flush (no reward), but behavior persists
Contexts, behaviors, and rewards can all be much more complex. For clarity, let’s imagine a more
complex habitual behavior and designate the aspects of that habit. We’ll imagine that when you
were young, your family struggled with money and you developed the habit of being extremely
frugal. As an adult, you make a good living and have money to spare, but you find yourself taking
flights with two layovers to save a few dollars or spending an inordinate amount of time calculating
which bread loaf will get you the most slices per dollar. The time spent being overly frugal might in
reality cost you more total money if you make more per hour than you save for the extra travel
time, inconvenience, and cost-calculating. In this case:
Cue/context: Spending money
Habit: Seeking absolute least cost
Previous reward for behavior: Surviving on a meager income
Lack of reward but persisting behavior: This level of frugality is no longer necessary for your
survival and might be an impediment, but you continue spending time and enduring stress
A habit is something we do without thinking, over and over, in given situations or contexts even
when the behavior is no longer rewarding. Habits also become stronger the more they are
repeated. Studies have estimated that 40% or more of our daily behavior is habitual11–14. This
number is interestingly similar to the 40% of intentions that fail to result in behavior change1–3.
Perhaps those intentions fail because of our habitual behaviors? This would mean that nearly half of
what we do automatically might be getting in the way of what we want to do. Research also
suggests that around 40% of premature deaths in the United States could be prevented with
behavior change (quitting smoking, exercising more, eating healthier, etc.). Taken together, we can
infer that the volume of unchecked habits poses a substantial detriment to our personal wellbeing.
This does not mean that habits are always obstacles. We can intentionally develop habits to
support our goals, which can be used to bridge the gap between our intentions and our behavior.
15
Benefits of Habitual Behavior
Although the examples above mostly illuminate the drawbacks of habitual behavior, there is a
reason our brains facilitate habit formation in the first place––habits are efficient! You can think of
unwanted habits as the negative side-effect of this mechanism of the brain. Making an action
automatic and insensitive to changes ensures that the behavior is efficient and robust. Perhaps our
ancestors developed the habit of walking carefully in grassy lands after several encounters with
venomous snakes. While they might go extended periods without seeing a snake, the strength of
this habit would serve them well when snake season was upon them again, even though the effort
might seem wasted at times when danger was absent. Evidently this odd insensitivity of habits to
change can serve some productive purposes.
Habits also free up cortical processing capacity for other tasks6. If our ancestors had to consistently
think and worry about snakes (instead of habitually walking slowly in tall grass), it would have been
difficult to focus on hunting, gathering, and tending to other daily tasks essential to survival. Habits
allow you to think about and plan other things while you function in the world. Imagine how
oppressive it would be to have to consciously think through the tying of each shoelace, each step
in the process of making coffee in the morning, every tiny detail of brushing your teeth. These
activities would consume your conscious thought to the point that you could not execute many of
the higher functions of your daily activity. There would be no capacity for yelling at your kids to get
ready for school while simultaneously preparing breakfast, no way to think about your best route to
an off-site work meeting while packing your lunch, no way to sing along to your favorite song while
driving safely.
Habits also seem to have the benefit of being more impervious to emotion and mood. A habitual
behavior is fairly easy to perform even when you are feeling down or are upset about something
else12. Aside from clinical or severe cases, a bad mood usually does not impair your ability to brush
your teeth or tie your shoes. However, a bad mood can make goal-directed behavior (like going to
the gym) more difficult if it is not habitual. In fact, people tend to rely on habits more during
periods of increased stress than they do during less stressful times9,10,15. A study by Neal and
colleagues showed that students who had less-healthy eating habits tended to eat pastries even
more often during exam week than they did during more carefree portions of the semester.
Students who had healthier eating habits tended to eat even more healthy meals than normal
during exam week demonstrating that habits are stronger under stress regardless of whether they
are desirable or not6,15!
16
Likewise, another study showed that during periods of low motivation, exercise frequency persisted
only insofar as it was habitual. If subjects had strong exercise habits, they were much more likely to
keep going even when they did not have strong intentions to stay in shape. Those without these
habits stopped going to the gym readily in the absence of motivation16. The more precise a habit in
terms of day and time, the stronger that habit is in the face of stress. If your habit is to train three
times a week, but you do not keep specific days or times, you are more likely to fall off your
training habit than someone who also trains three times a week but always goes to the gym
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday after work. A regular schedule helps establish context which, as
we have just learned, is an important factor in creating a strong habit. This effect is enhanced if you
tie new habits to already-habitual parts of your day. If you work out after you get off work such that
the training habit is tied to that aspect of your routine, the habit will be further reinforced. Others
who have work schedules that are much less consistent might need to look for another aspect of
their life to append a new habit to in order to facilitate its formation. Perhaps even though your
work schedule changes weekly, you always have to attend a Friday morning meeting. This stable
aspect of your schedule is a good place to append a new habit. Post-meeting on Friday is good
time to set one of your training days if your goal is to work out consistently. That regular meeting
can provide the contextual cue to help establish your new behavior. A series of chained, desired
habits can create a very productive routine!
Emotional Response Habits
Affective states (moods and emotions) can be a cue for habitual behavior, but they can also be the
habitual behavior. Do you experience anxiety when stepping on the scale, no matter what the
conditions? Perhaps you get anxious when invited to eat at a restaurant or feel dread when walking
into the store to shop for workout clothes. Maybe you feel excitement approaching a squat rack or
a little stab of joy seeing a stack of organized food containers that could be used for meal
prepping. These are all examples of habitualized emotions that can either help or hurt you in your
life, fitness, and health pursuits17. In most cases these emotional responses are the result of past
success or failure at the associated task. If you have wanted to lose weight and have made many
failed attempts, you might have a habit of feeling anxiety about the scale even when you have
consistently remained at your desired weight. This habit of feeling negative emotions in response to
stepping on a scale can deter your healthy lifestyle even after losing your desired weight
successfully. Daily weighing has been shown to improve weight maintenance (via acute awareness
of weight trends) and if the scale is a source of anxiety, this might lead to scale avoidance, making it
17
more likely weight will be gained back18–20. Scale anxiety might make dieting so uncomfortable that
you avoid it altogether, despite a genuine desire to be leaner. If you have had success with
squatting and getting stronger, you might habitually feel joy walking up to the rack. The pride
elicited by your squat progress can be motivating and reinforce your continued exercise. The goal
is to have habitualized positive emotional responses to your goal-related activities. If you are
pursuing a degree, it is advantageous to feel excited sitting down to read about your field or
invigorated walking into a classroom. On the other hand, feeling stress about learning can lead to
study-avoidance and test anxiety can impact test taking even when you are well prepared. Similar
dynamics exist in any goal pursuit and our ‘goal before the goal’ should be re-habitualize our
emotional responses to support getting what we want.
Goal-Directed Behavior Versus Habit
What might be considered the opposite of habit is goal-directed behavior––behavior consciously
decided upon in order to support a desired outcome. When habits and goal-directed behaviors are
in opposition, change becomes difficult; you want to do things to support your goal, but your
stronger, easier-to-do habits will tend to win out. The purpose of this book is to help you develop
goal-directed habits––the holy grail of behavior change. Combining the force of habitual behavior
with the productivity of goal-directed behavior makes just about any behavior change possible. The
idea is to build habits that support your goals so that even when you are acting mindlessly you are
making progress. This combination aligns your conscious and unconscious behavior such that you
are always moving forward rather than allowing your unconscious habits to be pitted against your
conscious desires. This sounds wonderful, but remember, achieving goal aligned habits requires
initial behavior change. Learning to change your behavior requires study and practice and plenty of
time.
So, get excited to make changes, but be patient and know that it will take time and that missteps
will occur on the road to change––that’s a part of any transformation that sticks.
18
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Rhodes, R. E. & Dickau, L. Experimental evidence for the intention-behavior relationship in the
physical activity domain: A meta-analysis. Heal. Psychol. 31, 724–727 (2012).
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(2016).
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Profits (and Pitfalls) of Strong Habits. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. (2013). doi:10.1037/a0032626
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Implications for Educational Research and Practice. (2006). doi:10.1007/s10648-006-9029-9
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19
CHAPTER 2
The Willpower Problem
Willpower is the self-control to abstain from impulsive behavior. Because this ability is so powerful
and can have so many personal and societal implications, psychology researchers have sought to
understand willpower from the time the field shifted to accept self-determination. Once psychology
came to the consensus that humans were more than just stimulus-response machines,
understanding willpower became a hot topic. Papers on willpower and self-control have been
rolling out since the latter half of the 20th century, with research from the 1990’s into the 2000’s
becoming increasingly prolific. This chapter will discuss what they have found and just how
important (or un-important) willpower is for effective behavior change.
The Death of the Resource Model of Self-Control
Some controversy remains in the field of psychology regarding how willpower functions. From the
late 1990’s up until recently, the predominant understanding was that willpower was a limited
resource––that it could be exhausted with use. This supposition included the idea that willpower is
muscle-like and can be trained and strengthened. The latter concept became the substrate for
many self-help books and continues to inspire an uncountable number of inspirational social media
posts.
In the previously prevailing theory of willpower, depleting the willpower resource was referred to as
“ego depletion”, a term coined by Roy Baumeister (an influential scientist who drove resource
theory research). Ego depletion suggested that people could “run out” of willpower “gas” and be
left less capable of controlling themselves. Perhaps the most famous of Baumeister and colleagues’
studies is the cookies and radishes experiment.
In this experiment, subjects were brought into a lab that was filled with the smell of fresh baked
chocolate chip cookies. A plate of those cookies along with a plate of fresh radishes were placed in
front of the volunteers––the subjects were unaware of the purpose of the study. In one group,
subjects were told to eat the radishes and asked to avoid the cookies. Another group was asked to
20
eat several cookies and skip the radishes. Each group was then asked to work on a problem-solving
task. The study found that subjects in the group who had to resist fresh baked cookies and instead
eat radishes (all while inhaling the tempting scent of the tastier option) did not spend as much time
on the problem set compared to subjects in the group permitted to eat the cookies1. The authors
concluded that the participants forced to ignore cookies and eat radishes had “depleted” their
willpower reserves by abstaining from cookies and were left with too little self-control remaining to
push through the problem-solving task. This idea captured the minds of scientists and laypersons
alike––not only were these interesting results, but many of us can relate to the conclusions the
authors drew. After dealing with a long day at work (spent using your willpower to keep from
yelling at colleagues and forcing friendly smiles when your boss is being condescending for
example) many of us have come home and not “had anything left” to push ourselves to exercise or
restrain ourselves from junk food.
Though the above conclusions are compelling and feel relatable, a recent worldwide attempt to
replicate Baumeister’s work has failed2. Many contributing researchers around the world tested the
hypothesis but did not find that capacity for willpower was decreased with use. Evidence of
publication bias in ego-depletion research has also surfaced, meaning that experiments that looked
for ego-depletion but could not find it were not published while all those with positive results were
published, skewing the overall available literature. With all the valid critiques of the resource model,
failures to replicate ego depletion findings, and evidence of publication bias calling this theory into
question, one can’t help but wonder what’s behind the positive results that were published. While
skepticism about ego depletion and the idea of willpower as a limited resource is warranted, there
must be an explanation for the positive results3,4. As we will discuss, there are alternative
conclusions for the results Baumeister and colleagues observed and for our own experiences of
waning willpower. Just because willpower is not constant and can be impacted by prior experience
or current circumstances does not mean it must be a finite resource that we can simply deplete.
What is the Alternative Explanation for Waning Self-Control?
If we know from experience that our willpower is variable but the research seems to suggest that
self-control is not a finite resource, what then explains these conflicting observations?
Before we dive into alternative conclusions about willpower, there is a methodological confound of
the famous radish and cookie experiments to be considered that has its basis in nutrition. The
21
group of subjects that were permitted to eat cookies may have had greater stamina to solve
puzzles simply due to the effect of calorie consumption on mood. A better comparison would be a
group who had to eat radishes while looking at and smelling cookies compared to a group that
had to eat radishes without any cookie temptation. Then each set of subjects would have
consumed the same food, but one would have done so while denying themselves something (using
willpower for restraint). Then we could have seen how willpower for problem solving was impacted
by prior willpower ‘consumption’ with both groups in the same nutritional state.
In later research Baumeister himself acknowledges the role of glucose but draws an erroneous
conclusion––that glucose is the limited fuel that underlies willpower as a resource5. This is logical on
its face––if willpower is a limited, there must be some underlying physiological substrate that can
be depleted and result in a loss of willpower. Glucose, being the primary fuel for brain activity,
seemed like a rational choice. Unfortunately, despite how logical this supposition sounds, the brain
does not consume more glucose when working on difficult tasks compared to less difficult
endeavors; further direct testing of the glucose-willpower hypothesis has debunked the idea6–13. It
appears that ingestion of glucose does not improve self-control and that glucose measures are not
altered by self-control exercises. Ego-depletion, as Baumeister and colleagues described it, appears
to diminish or disappear if subjects are offered a reward for continued self-control––further
suggesting that glucose is not the rate-limiting factor for willpower; rather, it can be modified by
motivation14,15. This does not mean that calories and glucose are not ever involved, just that they
are not the limiting resource. As Robert Kurzban put it: “No one whose computer is performing
slowly would think that the fault lies in the power supply” 6. This is likely the case with glucose and
willpower.
Self-control is likely much more complex than Baumeister and his lab originally concluded. That is
not to say that eating cookies has no impact on mood, which can impact willingness to work hard
on a problem! As mentioned above, our understanding of our ability to self-regulate has been
expanded to research on the influence of affect (mood and emotion) and even Baumeister
acknowledges the impact of feelings on willpower16,17. Glucose levels can impact mood and are
needed for physical functions, both of which might interact with self-control capacities.
When scientists have subjects perform a difficult cognitive test prior to a physical endurance test
(which relies on glucose), they see mixed results. Some studies show reduced endurance
performance after a tough mental task, while others do not18–20. There is likely some interplay
between cognitive tasks that do not directly require glucose and physical responses to these
experiences. While solving a puzzle on a time limit in a lab with a scientist watching does not use
22
extra glucose, your physical stress response to this might. This could explain the differing results in
the studies above. Athletes who did not perform as well on endurance tests might have had a
larger stress response to the preceding cognitive task. Increased heart rate and fidgeting will use
glucose and having less of that resource will impact endurance performance. Brain processes
resulting in stress or mood change impact physical responses and this might be why glucose
impacts self-control in some cases.
The impact of mood and motivation on willpower might be the link between Baumeister’s results
and alternative conclusions. New research on willpower links its strength to mood, attention,
motivation, and personal priorities rather than energy availability21. Furthermore, task motivation
and self-perception seem to prevent self-control-exertion from leading to depleted willpower22,23.
In other words, if we alter the desirability of working on a problem then people tend to be able to
work on it more (appear to have “more” willpower). Other researchers frame willpower as
something that rises and falls with various cues like an emotion24. We do not run out of sadness or
joy, for example––these are affects that come and go and are influenced by our experience.
As is often the case in science, answers are not simple. While it would be nice to think that
willpower could be “filled up” with certain practices and trained to be iron-clad using self-help
books, it is likely much more complicated.
Maybe S/he’s Born with it?
Though not everyone would agree that they are perfectly interchangeable terms, willpower and
self-control are highly related ideas and are most likely rooted in similar brain structures. The
activity of these two functions would likely be governed by the same or overlapping sets of genes25.
The definition of self-control is more tangible for measure in scientific studies, so we will discuss
that here with reference to the genetic component of these capacities.
It is difficult to assess the role of genetics in complex behaviors and some have even argued that it
is not worthwhile26. Nonetheless it is an interesting question and one that evokes natural curiosity.
The question of nature versus nurture (genetic predetermination versus learned behavior) can be
addressed in part with twin studies that collect results from genetically similar or matched
individuals raised in different environments. The principle of these comparisons is that identical
twins should exhibit a high degree of overlap in a given trait even when raised in different
households (and therefore having been exposed to different environments) if that trait is genetic.
23
However, even when identical twins are separated at birth and raised by different adoptive families
there is the confound that the types of people who adopt children and the environments that they
provide are not overly dissimilar. Meta-analyses attempt to tease out such confounds and though
estimated percentages should be taken with a grain of salt, it is reasonable that these studies hold
validity. As with most complex human traits, it appears that genetics play a substantial role in selfcontrol (49-75% according to different studies)27–29. The large range of percentages can likely be
accounted for by different study design and testing methods, but even the lowest percentage
suggests genes are involved in self-control capacity. There is hope for us adults, however. Many of
the studies showing a likely relationship between self-control and genetics were conducted in
children and a predisposition to early self-control might not meaningfully impact the capacity to
develop self-control later in life. Even if your natural baseline of self-control is low, you may have a
great capacity to develop it under the right circumstances. Self-control is at most 75% genetic
according to the literature, that still leaves at least 25% dependent on environment and so
potentially impacted by your choices.
In a now-questioned study it was suggested that childhood self-control predicted later life success.
In this well-known experiment, children were left alone with a marshmallow and told that if they
waited to eat it, they could have two marshmallows, but if they gave in to temptation early, they
would only have the one30. The design tested the kids’ ability to delay gratification for a bigger
reward––in other words it tested their self-control. The authors then followed the children through
some of their later life. The study reports that the patient kids who could restrain their impulses for
the delayed gratification of two marshmallows were more successful as they got older than kids
who took the instant gratification, one-marshmallow route. The only problem with this elegant and
interesting study was that replication and re-analysis drew slightly different conclusions31. Even
though the lack of reproducibility calls the original conclusions into question, this study is quite
influential and cited to this day. While early self-control does have some predictive value for later
success, there are other variables that are more influential. These include early family and peer
environments31,32. If the life circumstances of kids or adults are abnormally chaotic then they have
reason to lack trust that future rewards will come to fruition. In that context, it makes more sense to
eat the marshmallow in front of them.
The fact that the marshmallow study’s conclusions have been softened by further research is great
news for those of us who, as children, would have wolfed down the first marshmallow before the
researcher left the room. It is also great news for those of us who thought we were doomed to live
life only with the level of self-control we currently possess. In fact, a longitudinal study published in
2021 followed newborns until they were 45 years old and found that although self-control in
24
childhood was a decent predictor of success in adulthood, levels of self-control did change across
time. People made improvements through adulthood, suggesting that self-control is a malleable
trait33! It is liberating that our early self-control impulses, those that are arguably most dictated by
genetics, do not fully predict adult behavior. It means that we have the capacity to improve on this
as we develop. While it is still up for debate whether willpower can be strengthened with direct
training, it does appear to be malleable. This means that even if directed willpower practice does
not result in greater self-control, there may be a means by which self-control can be augmented.
Some evidence suggests that life events like marriage and raising children can influence the
development of self-control and related traits34,35. This overlaps with more simple experiments
mentioned above––increase the reward for self-control and self-control increases.
Should Willpower be Our Focus?
Interestingly, it seems that motivation or simply believing that willpower is not a limited resource
impacts how much willpower you will exert22,23,36–40. This is critical––believing that willpower can be
depleted makes it more likely that we will lose self-control after exercising willpower on some task.
This implies that mindset is an important aspect of self-control capacities and suggests that we can
augment them with our beliefs. One can’t help but wonder how much of “trained self-control” is
actually mischaracterized acquired habitual behavior.
Whether or not willpower is a limited resource and whether it is trainable or inborn is most likely
irrelevant to our current pursuit, in the humble opinion of the author. What we do know
unequivocally is that willpower is fickle and cannot be relied upon, but that habitual behavior can
be leveraged in the absence of willpower, whatever the cause of its lacking. In cases of low selfcontrol, habitual behavior has been shown to be even stronger, for better or for worse41–43. So
rather than lamenting our lack of willpower, wondering if we can blame our parents for bad
genetics, or pondering whether willpower is a limited resource that needs training to be increased,
let’s work on more developing more reliable strategies for behavior change! Granted, a modicum
of self-control is required to do the work needed to build good habits, but if you had the
motivation and self-control to buy and read a book to these ends, the author posits that you have
what it takes for habit change!
25
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27
CHAPTER 3
Goal Delineation
Choosing Goals that Will Bring You Satisfaction
“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people
or things.”
Albert Einstein
In my mind Einstein’s words encourage us to seek fulfillment in self-improvement rather than
depending on people or objects to bring us joy––to take ownership of our own happiness. I don’t
believe that the above quote means that we should devalue relationships or refrain from worldly
luxuries. Our loved ones and the material fruits of our labor are important parts of our happiness.
The literature on the subject suggests that self-efficacy is strongly associated with well-being,
irrespective of other factors, grounding the above advice in evidence1,2. Rewarding relationships
and monetary success are often biproducts of consistently seeking self-improvement anyway.
Before embarking on such a journey, we have to define what improvement means to us;
determining our personal goals is a critical but often neglected aspect of the process. This chapter
will help you develop personal goals and explicate other important steps on the road to behavior
change and achievement.
Developing and refining goals involves two key elements. First, we must identify goals that are
realistic and tied to personal ideals. This is easier said than done––what constitutes a realistic goal is
variable from person to person. In the words of goal expert Anthony Grant, “goals are not
monolithic”––that is, there are many different types of goals and subgoals and these need to be
individualized, taking into account a person’s current capacities, perspectives, knowledge bases,
and personal values3. Second, we need to determine the current behaviors that are keeping us
from the target and the new behaviors that are needed to reach it. In other words, we must first
identify reasonable personal goals and then outline the behavior changes that will be the path to
those targets.
Many people take a flawed approach to goal setting. They make unrealistic goals without
considering their current situation or time constraints, they fail to create goals that can be
28
measured and are therefore never really sure if they have made any progress, or they create goals
that are measured when they shouldn’t be––when their knowledge base is not strong enough to
execute the measurements themselves. Other people establish goals based on what they assume
people want them to be, causing their motivation to fizzle faster than any habit can be formed. Still
others make outcome-based goals without any thought to what behavior changes will be required
or choose goals that would require unsustainable behaviors. Careful goal setting can help you
avoid these mistakes.
Self-Efficacy and Beliefs
Self-efficacy is associated with greater well-being. It also seems to predict success, which then
supports more self-efficacy, bolstering further success. Some scientists argue that the relationship
between success and self-efficacy suffers from the ‘chicken or the egg’ problem and that success
may contribute more to self-efficacy than visa-versa. In any case, it is clear that the two are related.
Feelings of self-efficacy tend to improve the likelihood of goal acquisition and this further increases
self-efficacy leading to an “upward spiral”4–9. This is important to discuss during the goal refining
process because it means that making smaller and more feasible goals initially may start a snowball
effect for continued success. Give yourself ample opportunities to succeed and celebrate each step!
We will discuss who should make more challenging goals for themselves and when––beginners
ought to make smaller goal steps, while the more experienced have enough self-efficacy already to
safely shoot higher.
In addition to the positive feedback loop between success and self-efficacy that smaller goals can
support, this strategy can prevent stress and self-doubt. When we initially over-aim for a lofty goal
and then miss the mark, it can make us feel less capable10,11. Failing to achieve a set goal is not only
defeating, but it can be stressful––and stress is another predictor of failure. Self-efficacy not only
predicts success, it minimizes the degree to which stress endangers results––we can handle more
adversity when we believe in ourselves; succeeding at smaller goals can facilitate this belief5.
Choosing your goals wisely from the start can save you a lot of time and suffering as well as
improve your long-term results. It is always preferable to move forward in half steps if the
alternative is taking 10 steps forward and 11 back in the same amount of time. Making fast progress
always feels great, but if the pace leads to regression then it’s not progress after all. This happens
to countless people with weight loss goals. They may target a 20-pound loss, achieve it with
29
extreme dieting, then gain 25 pounds back. They end up five pounds heavier than where they
started despite months of work. If they had aimed for 5-10 pounds in the same amount of time,
chances of maintaining the lost weight would have been better and they would be 5-10 pounds
lighter in the end. You can appreciate the difference between these two outcomes; feeling good
about their ability to diet (after keeping the smaller chunk of weight off) would support further diet
success12. Value small successes over huge leaps and you will get further in less time in the long
run!
Even when your outcome goal seems like a baby step from where you are, if it requires large-scale
behavior change to get there, success is less likely. Baby steps in behavior change are needed as
well. To facilitate the self-efficacy and success loop, goals should be made in small outcome and
performance steps as well as small behavior change steps.
Choosing Your Goal
There is a long history of research on motivation seeking to determine how and why people are
successful, as well as how and when they find satisfaction in their achievements. Though the
literature is complex and spans decades, the results provide a starting framework for practical
application. There are a few types of goals to consider.
Outcome goals: These are the end-game goals. The number of pounds you wish to lose, the
promotion you wish to receive, and so on.
Learning goals: Also called process or strategy goals. These are goals to improve your
understanding of something. Learning about calories, macros, and how fast weight loss should
occur or learning how to be more efficient at your job and what attributes lead to promotion in
your workplace are examples of learning goals. These goals often need to come before outcome
goals are set if you are lacking knowledge in the goal arena.
Behavior goals: These are goals of habit-change––what you will need to change about the things
you do in order to achieve an outcome or learning goal. For the examples above these might
include changing your eating, exercise, or your work habits. Behavior goals include both approach
and avoidance goals. Approach goals target an increase in a behavior while avoidance goals target
a decrease13.
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A goal is only as good as its feasibility. Targeting a goal that can never be reached leaves your selfefficacy in shambles. It also diverts time, energy, and resources away from achievable goals. Finally,
working for something that you do not personally desire or believe in is a self-defeating process.
Work without reward will simply cause emotional fatigue, while reward without work will prevent
internalization of usefully habitual behavior.
Make your goal personal
Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (and everything in between)
If your goal requires work that is personally engaging and is in line with your values, you are more
likely to attain it and to find satisfaction in that achievement14–17. This concept is often referred to as
having internal, autonomous, or intrinsic motivation. In other words, your drive to do the work and
reach the goal comes from your own internal passions––from inside you. The contrasting
motivational paradigm is external, controlled, or extrinsic motivation. In the latter you are driven to
work towards a goal in order to receive an external reward like fame, money, or social acceptance,
or to avoid an external consequence such as shame or punishment.
It may sound counterintuitive, but extrinsic factors can “crowd out” intrinsic motivation and
decrease chances of success. This is especially true if the motivation for a particular goal is to view
one’s self as a good person. In this case, something like adding a monetary reward decreases
altruistic feelings––if you get paid to be nice, you feel less like a nice person. The addition of a
monetary reward for altruism has even been associated with a decrease in people’s efforts to be
nice18. For example, Gneezy and colleagues conducted an experiment where parents picking up
children from daycare were charged a fine when they were late to get their kids. To the dismay of
the daycare center, instituting this extrinsic, monetary consequence caused a large increase in
tardiness––parents were late to pick up their kids more often once the daycare center started
charging them for the offense19. When being on time was a matter of being a conscientious person,
there was less tardiness. As soon as there was a fee that could cancel out the guilt for being late,
more parents were late––paying the fine removed the intrinsic motivation to be on time. It is the
alleviation of an intrinsic consequence that caused the change in behavior; it seems the intrinsic
cost of being a “bad person” is more motivating than the extrinsic cost of paying a fee.
31
The previous example shows that external consequences were more tolerable and less avoided
than internal consequences, but you might wonder: what about external rewards for success?
Surely something like money is at least somewhat motivating even without any internal drive for the
requisite work. While money can be a motivator, an extensive body of research shows that
monetary reward by itself is not a great predictor of achievement. This is especially true for goals
that require more difficult, long-term, or complex work to attain20–23. Any reward that comes in the
distant future or only after a great deal of work is less motivating. If your goal is to succeed in a
career that will bring you wealth after many years of hard work, but you have no passion for that
work, you might want to rethink your goal. On the other hand, if you are driven to do the work, the
reward of a substantial income can increase motivation and improve outcome23,24. In the latter
case, the more immediate reward of being satisfied with your work because you are passionate
about it tides you over until the long-term income goal comes to fruition. There may be some
middle ground, in the former case, in which you can frame your work goals internally or find
passion for aspects of the work, but to do this you must know that it is relevant.
Data also show that extrinsic financial incentives by themselves are not reliable motivators even for
shorter term, less complex outcome goals25–27. In one study, participants who were paid for weight
loss lost the same amount as those who had no financial incentives. Being paid to make behavior
changes that supported weight loss on the other hand, led to more weight lost compared to
controls27,28. An external reward for a learning goal was more effective than an external reward for
an outcome goal; when the goal was personal development (internal, self-efficacy reward) the
added monetary incentive was motivating. Simply getting money for losing weight without being
encouraged to learn and develop a capacity was ineffective. It seems that if an external reward is
added to an intrinsic desire to achieve and compounded with feelings of self-belief, outcomes are
improved, but money alone is not enough.
To summarize, extrinsic motivation is useful provided intrinsic motivation also exists. When coupled
with intrinsic desire, external reward might be a stronger motivator than external consequence. You
need to want it for yourself and if you don’t you are relying on fickle motivational factors,
decreasing your chances of success, and setting yourself up for less satisfaction in the event that
you are successful.
Very often intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are presented as opposite and mutually exclusive
options, but as it concerns biology or psychology there is often grey area and overlap. As we have
seen in the examples thus far, this is likely the case with motivation as well. You can be intrinsically
32
driven to perform well at your job because this is in line with your ideals about work ethic while also
having the extrinsic motivation for being promoted or seen as successful by others. In the real
world, if you want a promotion at your job but have no personal ideals about work ethic you are
less likely to get that promotion than someone who also wants it but believes that to be a good
person, they must be a hard worker.
The takeaway here is that when science parses internal and external motivation we observe that
internal motivation is usually much better correlated with success. Cultivating this type of motivation
is likely a beneficial strategy for goal acquisition. That does not mean that extrinsic motivators are
irrelevant, only that intrinsic ones are more reliable. We can better achieve our goals by structuring
them to be more personal and intrinsic. Practically applying this advice means you might need to
reframe some of your goals. For example, if you are trying to be a better listener in your
relationship; rather than framing the goal as “I am going to listen to my partner more because they
get mad when I don’t”, you might think “I value a harmonious relationship and believe that
communication is a part of this, so in order to be a good partner I will listen more”. Let your drive
not be only to please your partner but also to make certain that your actions align with your ideals
for what a good partner is. Combining intrinsic and extrinsic motivation by integrating your goal
with internal values is sometimes called “integrated regulation”29,30.
Make your goal genuinely yours
Part of making a goal personal involves making sure the goal is actually yours . Many people
unconsciously make goals that are consistent with social pressure rather than personal preference.
The sad thing about these kinds of goals is that they are achieved less often and rarely bring joy to
the person who has worked so hard for them31. An amusing study in California shows that, while
most people report making eco-friendly choices out of altruism, their choices are actually most
influenced by how eco-friendly other members of their community are32. The pressure to act is
based more on a need to meet normative standards than on the outcome (improving the
environment). While this might be beneficial to everyone in the case of eco-friendly choices, it can
be individually detrimental in the case of personal goals. When social pressure is the motivating
factor, achievement is less associated with happiness33,34. As people become involved in the fitness
world, they are exposed to more and more fit people, each one leaner and more muscular than the
next. Even as you get more and more fit on your own journey, it is easy to feel less like you can
keep up with the fitness standards of all of the new models, competitors, and athletes around you.
It turns out that the primary effects of viewing #fitspo on social media are body dissatisfaction and
33
decreased happiness––perhaps encouraging viewers to engage in pursuits based on others’ ideals
rather than their own35–37.
Do not underestimate the importance of framing your goals personally. Research shows time and
again that personal values, beliefs, and passions are what most predictably drive goal acquisition
regardless of what external rewards are added. Achieving this type of goal is also usually more
satisfying. Ask yourself whether the goals you have are your own. Will the work required to achieve
them be engaging and rewarding to you? Are you setting your goals based on how fit people on
Instagram make you feel or on your own passion for physique development? Will the final outcome
be something you believe in and are proud of because it is in line with your personal values? These
are all important questions to ask yourself before diving into the pursuit of your goals! So have an
honest talk with yourself about your values and ideals before setting your own targets.
Consider Your Current State
Experienced in your goal arena
Being experienced in your goal arena means that you already have some of the requisite
knowledge and tools to attain the type of goal that you seek. If your goal is weight loss, this might
mean that you understand energy balance, food contents, and have run a successful diet and
maintained those losses before. If your goal is to become fluent in a new language, it might mean
you have experience with studying and have taken a language class previously. Your goal might still
be challenging, but being experienced means that you go into the process understanding what
those challenges will be and are equipped to handle them.
For the more experienced, making behavioral avoidance goals seems to result in worse outcomes,
more stress, and decreased well-being3,38,39. Behavior avoidance examples include trying not to
miss a free throw, trying not to eat certain foods, or striving not to procrastinate. Some knowledge
in a particular goal arena makes an approach goal (striving to do something positive) more likely to
be successful. Getting better at something, when possible, is perhaps more motivating than
avoidance. If you have some experience in your goal arena, looking to increase desirable behaviors
is preferable to a focus on avoiding unwanted behaviors. Even when some behavior must be
34
eliminated to reach a goal, the focus can be on replacing that with a preferable behavior––an
approach goal.
Experienced goal-setters can better negotiate specific outcome goals compared to beginners as
well. The concept of narrowing your goal to something explicit comes from psychology research
that started in the 60’s; the familiar S.M.A.R.T. acronym (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant,
Time-Limited) for goal creation arose later from these ideas40,41. Specifying goals precisely has since
been advocated by some of the most cited researchers on goal-setting theory and can be very
helpful for those with a knowledge base in their goal arena3,42.
Most of us have a very general idea of what our goals are: “I want to get in shape”, “I want to make
a lot of money”, or “I want to get healthy” are common. Evidence suggests that such general goals
are difficult to achieve because they are difficult to quantify or track3,40. It is hard to know when you
are “in shape” if you have not defined what that means to you. It is hard to say if you are “healthy”
if you do not have a standard with which to evaluate your health. Without a target we rely only on
our perceptions, which are often different from reality. A specific or S.M.A.R.T. goal can facilitate
these measurements and be of benefit. Making your “get in shape” goal S.M.A.R.T. could mean that
you plan to lose 10lb (Specific and Measurable) in three months (Attainable and Time limited). To
make the goal Relevant, you would frame your reasons as intrinsic. For example, you could say that
your goal to be leaner is based on your respect for hard work and your desire to physically
represent that ideal. This process can be an excellent way to set yourself up for success, assuming
you are not a beginner in your goal arena.
Beginner in your goal arena
For some people, specific outcome goals can be overwhelming––a goal of “learning about
nutrition” might be a better choice than “lose 10lb in three months” for someone who is brand new
to fitness43–45. If people are faced with a complex task––one for which they do not have any preexisting tools or experience––giving them a vague outcome goal or a learning goal can be
preferable42,44. “Do your best” seems to lead to better strategy building and fewer hasty decisions in
the face of a complicated task that is new. An early study used student subjects who had no
experience with the stock market. In this study, one group was told that they must estimate the
value of a host of stocks to within $10 of the actual value. Other groups were either given looser
ranges to aim for or told to “do their best” in estimating values. The students told to “do their best”
made the best estimates46. For people who have no tools or experience with a task, a less specific
35
outcome goal reduces pressure in the decision-making process. The lack of pressure allows people
to take their time in developing reasonable strategies to tackle the problem––it broadens the
definition of what could be considered success, making it more attainable. In a later study, subjects
were assigned the task of creating class schedules under a series of constraints within a limited
amount of time. When they were told to do their best, they still performed better than those given
a specific outcome goal, but if they were given a specific learning goal, they performed best of all44.
So rather than being told they must successfully create a certain number of schedules, they were
told instead to develop a specific number of shortcuts and strategies for making schedules. This
focus on strategy and learning, although the goal was specific, made them capable of completing
more schedules correctly in the allotted time. On top of this, the specific but difficult learning goal
led to increased feelings of self-efficacy, which we know to be associated with success in
general42,44,47.
If you are new to your goal arena, starting with either a vague outcome goal––or perhaps even
better––with a specific learning goal leads to greater success, diminished stress, and enhanced
well-being. Even if you have been targeting a certain goal for years, but failing, this strategy might
be best for you; you may have remained a beginner in your goal arena because you have yet to set
a learning goal!
For example, if you have been using crash diets and starvation methods for years, this might mean
that a diet based on scientific principles is brand new to you. In this case, starting with a learning
goal before initiating a new diet might lead to more success in the long-term. You could challenge
yourself to study the basic principles of diet for body composition change across the next thirty
days (the RP Diet 2.0 book is a great place to start)48. You could also set a goal to learn a number
of strategies regarding how one might adhere to the diet principles you learn about. You could
make subsequent goal to learn some recipes that would be easy for use when dieting. You can
make your learning goals specific and challenging, but forget about weight loss outcomes for a
month––or several. Data suggest that this strategy leads to more success when you eventually
begin your outcome goal pursuit after completing your learning goals42,44,47.
Setting learning rather than outcome-based goals can also be helpful for those not yet sure of their
exact target or what trade-offs they are willing to make43. In this case, learning goals might facilitate
sufficient understanding of sacrifices and required investment to better inform specific goal-setting.
Further, vague or learning-based goals might be more intriguing and less threatening under these
circumstances45,49. Successful development of understanding (reaching your learning goal) will also
36
establish self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation, setting you up for better outcome goals once you
move on to those50.
Beginners in a particular goal arena can also benefit from avoidance goals more than the
experienced goal seeker51. A beginner’s limited understanding might just mean that approach goals
are confusing. Figuring out how to do something new, correctly can be more difficult than just
trying not to do something. The first behavior goal for a beginner who wants to eventually lose
weight might simply be to limit the consumption of fast food or decrease daily alcohol
consumption. As they concurrently work on learning goals and gain understanding of food content,
an approach goal could be taken on––seeking to eat more health-promoting food in adequate
quantities for example.
What this means for your own goal setting if you are new to an arena is that working on learning
goals before setting explicit outcome goals is best. Once you have mastered the basics, making
specific outcome goals will be more productive. You may also benefit from initial avoidance type
behavioral goals, but be able to transition to approach goals as you gain understanding.
As you adjust your goals for your knowledge base, be sure not to undershoot. Your goal should be
within your capacity, but still challenging to you. Even if you are brand new to golf, you can make a
challenging learning goal––memorize the rules of the game, understand the handicaps, and figure
out what clubs are used for what purpose over the next week. This is tough but feasible and will
leave you feeling self-efficacious when you succeed. If you make a goal to learn which club is used
for putting this week, this is probably too easy and won’t leave you feeling like you have made
progress. When goals are too easy, people also tend to put them off––“it won’t take very long, I’ll
do it tomorrow”. Overly easy goals also inspire less preparation and effort, which makes them less
motivating.
37
PITFALLS TO AVOID: Making outcome goals as a beginner
A woman is hoping to lose some weight for summer and fit into an old bikini that she loves, but has
not been able to wear in a long time. She sets a specific fat loss goal for the next six months before
summer. She is new to fitness and unaware that resistance training is needed to prevent muscle loss
when losing weight. Also, she is unfamiliar with counting calories or macros, has never run a diet
before, and has no concept of how long it should be or how much weight loss to target. She reads
some blogs online and is a bit confused about what works and what doesn’t. Overwhelmed by all
the options she decides to go with a keto fasting diet since those are big online at the time. Because
she is not familiar with tracking macros or calories, for the first few weeks she gains weight. Being
hungry from the fasting led to eating quite a bit in the latter half of the day and her food choices
often included calorically dense options like peanut butter and bacon. Gaining weight despite the
big effort to change her eating habits knocks her self-efficacy down a notch, but she keeps trying.
She decides that maybe she needs a smaller eating window for success and fasts until evening. She
ends up getting her calories low enough, but her protein also drops to amounts that are below ideal
quantities. Although she is feeling tired and psychologically burned-out, her weight begins to drop
quite quickly. Because she does not have much knowledge in this goal arena, she does not realize
she is losing muscle without sufficient protein or resistance training. She also does not realize she is
losing faster than would be recommended for long-term maintenance. As the six-month diet wears
on, she begins to have instances where she loses control and binge eats, leading to weight stalls.
This results in guilt, a return to restriction, and then the cycle repeats itself. After four months she has
stopped losing anything because the binge episodes neutralize anything lost on her strict days.
Feeling totally incapable of success and burned-out from all the hard work, she gives up. The
deprivation leads to compulsive eating and rebound weight gain. The rebound gain is all fat since
she is still unaware that resistance training is an important part of body composition change. She
lands at the same weight and an even higher body fat percentage by the time summer arrives and
only feels less capable of dieting and worse about herself all around.
Taking a beginner approach could have saved her a great deal of struggle and led to better results.
Had she spent the first month or two studying some basics about nutrition and fitness, she could
have learned about calories, macros, and resistance training. The second month she could have made
a behavioral goal to avoid fast food and eating past fullness and another learning goal to start
figuring out how to use resistance training equipment. By month three she could be practicing some
macro-friendly recipes and developing a regular resistance training routine. This alone might result
in weight and body composition changes without even trying to diet yet. Months four, five, and six
might then be spent losing weight with a specific (but researched and reasonable) outcome goal,
leading to maintainable changes. Even if she did not quite fit into that old bikini by summer, she
would be much closer than in the previous scenario and be feeling great about her ability to make
healthy, sustainable changes to her body.
38
Make Your Progress Quantifiable
Whether you are establishing a specific or non-specific goal at the outset, there needs to be some
quantifiable progress to indicate that change is taking place. Even if you are working on a learning
goal rather than an outcome goal, you should still identify a metric for your progress. If you are
learning from a book, quantify your progress in pages read or in concepts understood. If you are
anticipating pitfalls, name a number of strategies to generate. This allows you not only to have an
idea of where you are going and how far you have come, but supports the important development
of self-efficacy52. Tracking gives you the control to adjust your approach if you are not making
progress or if you are moving too quickly.
If progress to your goal is not specifically measurable, it is important to find a proxy to quantify. As
an example, it is difficult to quantify being a better listener directly. However, you can find a way to
measure improvement. You can ask your partner to give you a daily rating of your listening on a
scale of 1-10 and track this number. You could also count the number of times your partner asks
“are you listening to me?” or count how many times you notice your mind drifting when someone
else is talking.
Whether your goal is a learning objective or a specific outcome, find a way to measure progress
towards it and establish a plan to track this progress.
PITFALLS TO AVOID: Progress that can’t be quantified
A woman decides she would like to improve her health, but she has not identified any measures
of outcome or behavior. She does not check in with her doctor to see where she is before this
endeavor and so is unaware of her starting point. She makes a point to eat more veggies and go
on a walk after lunch, but she does not have the means to track changes and thereby has no way
of knowing if she is indeed becoming healthier. She goes to the doctor for a check-up and is told
that her cholesterol is high. Since she had been putting in effort in to be healthier, she feels like
she has failed and that the effort wasn’t worthwhile and falls back into old habits. Had she gone to
the doctor before she began her health-improvement efforts, perhaps she would have logged
even higher cholesterol––then seen the progress at the subsequent check-up and felt great about
her progress. The difference might have been even greater if she had set some precise behavior
goals such as eating veggies three times per day or walking five days per week––things she could
track improvement on so that she could confirm overall differences in health related behaviors. If
nothing can be measured or tracked, it is hard to say if you are making progress and if or when
you have reached your goal.
39
Identify and Assess Potential Obstacles
When excited about the planning phase of goal acquisition, people often overlook potential
obstacles. There are always obstacles in everyone’s path to success and planning ahead for these is
critical. Obstacles can include time constrains, other responsibilities, unexpected costs, limitations of
knowledge, life events, or even goal conflict (when someone has multiple goals that conflict with
one another). The best way to deal with obstacles is to anticipate them when possible and then to
adjust goal increments when unforeseen obstacles arise and cannot be avoided.
Minimize obstacles where possible
If you have two weddings, a birthday party, and a vacation coming up in the next three months,
you might want to choose a different time for your fat loss diet. Dieting while at a celebration or on
vacation is much more difficult than dieting at home. Temptation is higher both due to food
availability and because of the atmosphere. Success in these instances requires a larger sacrifice––
dieting on vacation usually ruins diets and vacation. Social media inspiration posts might have you
thinking that success means pushing forward against all odds, but making something that is already
difficult unnecessarily harder is counterproductive to both your goals and your happiness. That is
not to say that you should put off working on your goals until everything is perfect. There will never
be perfect time to do hard work and there will always be some obstacles to overcome. However,
you can choose a time when putting in the work will have fewer impediments. Let’s say you are
setting up your fat loss goals for the year. You can decide to place your dieting periods during
times when your schedule is relatively regular and you will have limited temptation––perhaps
periods when you are working more and have fewer social activities, vacations, and special events.
If you happen to have year-round social activity and fun events (lucky you!) the good news is,
although you will have to choose some events to refrain from eating and drinking as much in order
to reach your goals, there will be more events to look forward to after the diet so the feeling of
missing out should not be as bad!
This general idea applies to any type of goal. If you need more time relaxing to cope with workload
stress, make your behavior change plans when work is lighter. If your goal is something like
learning a new language and you are a single parent, you might wait until you have a consistent
babysitter so that you can go to night classes a few times a week rather than trying to study at
home with your kids. Maybe you have been wanting to learn kickboxing, but you are about to
move states and jobs. You might be better off holding out until your schedule and routine are set
40
in your new home rather than starting at one gym, establishing a routine and relationships there,
and then having to re-establish that habit shortly thereafter.
Minimize obstacles as much as possible, but do not allow this process to delay your goal
achievement indefinitely. Hard work will always be work, but we can make it less difficult by
choosing a relatively less challenging time to start.
The above are just a few examples to encourage you to think about what challenges you will face
while pursuing your goal so that you can be better prepared. Remember, behavior change is
challenging; there are no bonus points for making it harder! If you try and fail it can yield worse
long-term outcomes than waiting to try at a better time with a more reasonable goal!
Adjust goal increments according to remaining obstacles
Some goals are better started sooner than later, and some obstacles cannot be eliminated. In cases
like these, we must adjust our expectations according to those obstacles. For example, let’s
consider the goal of seeking a healthier diet. Maybe your doctor has told you that if you don’t start
eating in a more health-promoting way, you might face some serious medical issues. Let’s assume
that life will be busy and stressful for the foreseeable future––maybe you are a single parent in a
new career path and there is simply no way around your busy schedule. You can still work towards
eating healthier, just prepare to make smaller steps towards your goal over a longer time period.
The easiest steps for you should be prioritized. For example, if your partner eats lots of veggies,
adding some to your diet is an easy first step. If you also drive through for fast food regularly, but
breaking this habit is more difficult than adding veggies, work on the veggies first. You could just
target getting veggies in once a week on your least busy day to start. When this is automatic, add
another day. Work your way up to your goal level of health-promoting food consumption
incrementally. Once that habit is a part of your life, start shooting to eat fast food one less time per
week than your current average. Once this is easy, remove another day. Expect slower progress,
but don’t feel bad about it. In some situations, slow is the only progress possible. You can still get
to your targets as long as you are consistent.
41
PITFALLS TO AVOID: Ignoring Obstacles
A man is hoping to lose some weight. He has a good base of knowledge about calories,
macros, and training so he sets a challenging but reasonable three-month fat loss goal.
What he forgets to consider is that during that same time he has a vacation planned for
his anniversary with his partner and then is starting a new job which will include a two week
work trip where food is provided at a lodge. The weeks of potentially hard to control food
intake will decrease the amount of weight he can lose in three months. If he tries to skip
out on enjoyable food and drink on vacation for his anniversary he will feel like he is
missing out and will probably irritate his partner. On the other hand, indulging will make
him feel guilty about failing at his diet plan. He has put himself in a lose-lose situation. He
will also likely be irritable on his work retreat at the new job, trying to juggle work-related
stress while weighing food options and feeling hungry. This plan would lead to a great
deal of stress––considering the possibility of missing out on meaningful experiences and
feeling unnecessary guilt along with a high chance of missing the initial weight loss target.
A better assessment of obstacles might have led him to schedule the diet after he was
settled at work, during a time with no vacations or special events. He would have been
able to focus on making a good impression at his new job without the added stress of
measuring food at the work retreat and would have been able to enjoy a relaxing and
meaningful time on vacation with his partner without worrying about having some drinks
or sharing deserts. Alternatively, he could have reduced his weight loss goal to account for
a few weeks of not being on point with diet. This way he could make some progress, but
not miss out on important events or handicap himself on his work trip.
At What Cost? Decide the Trade-Offs You Are Willing to Make
Sacrifices are a necessary part of goal acquisition. What you are willing to sacrifice will dictate what
goals you are able to pursue. Take the earlier example of being on a diet during your anniversary
with your partner. You can either sacrifice the experience of having a relaxed dinner with your
significant other for that day for a week of weight loss or you can sacrifice the weight loss for the
anniversary experience. This example is just to illustrate the way that trade-offs work in goal pursuit.
There should be no shame in either choice, but people often fail to assess trade-offs and end up
feeling like they have failed no matter which choice they make. Taking a look at what is to be lost
and gained with either choice and then rationally choosing what suits your priorities can take all of
the guilt out of decisions like these.
42
After making a decision such as the one from the above example, you can remind yourself not to
have guilt by saying “I will not feel bad when my weight loss is not on track the week of my
anniversary. I value celebrating with my partner over one week of fat loss and have planned for this
trade-off”. It is important to look ahead to obstacles such as these and decide whether trading off a
little progress for an important or special experience is worth it. Some things are (much) more
important than fitness goals. The same can be said for many other types of goals as well.
In contrast, some goals are so important that more painful trade-offs must be made. If you need to
improve your health based on doctor’s warnings, trading-off experiences might be the better longterm decision for you. It is still your decision. Many athletes trade-off aspects of health to excel in
their careers without shame. What to prioritize is always a personal choice. In the case that your
health is your priority, the above anniversary dinner trade-off might go differently. You might ask
your partner to dine at home, keep the dinner full of health-promoting foods, and go for a walk on
the beach together so that your relationship celebration can support your health goals. There are
many variations of this example and any trade-off. The important part is to identify what you want
to prioritize and how much, act accordingly, and feel good about it.
This is one of the most important and least recognized aspects of goal pursuit. The idea that you
have to do what it takes to reach your goal, no matter the cost, is unrealistic. When someone has
this mentality and then makes some perfectly reasonable trade-offs, they often end up feeling as
though they have failed. Had they made the trade-off assessment, no matter what choice they
landed on, they would have been able to feel good about it.
43
TRADE-OFFS AND FITNESS PURSUITS:
Enjoying food is a critical aspect of our culture and can be a wonderful source of joy in life.
There is nothing weak about you if you enjoy food and drinks with family and friends. What
must be recognized is that some of that will need to be temporarily traded-off if you wish
to alter your body composition. Remember that altering your body composition is a luxury
and a choice––as are many of the goals people strive for. If you are reading this book you
live in a time and place where you are safe and nourished enough that actively changing
your body is an option. That is not the case for most people, in most places, across all time.
You do not by any means have to make this choice to be a complete person. Should you
decide to work on your physique, recognize the trade-offs that will need to be made to
reach your goal and decide if those sacrifices are worth it to you. If you want to be Mr. or
Ms. Olympia (one the best bodybuilders in the world), you might have to give up all alcohol
and all uncounted indulgences for extended periods. You might have to measure every
meal you eat for years and plan the rest of your life around your diet and training. Best-inthe-world competitions are usually won and lost by a hair’s difference. Everything you do
at that level will determine how close you can get to your own personal potential and a
chance at being the best in the world. If you are a working parent with pets, a busy social
life, and a host of hobbies aside from lifting weights, these trade-offs are absolutely not for
you and you should not feel that they have to be. On this other end of the spectrum, you
might value the stress relief of a few glasses of wine and a delicious dinner (with no
weighing or counting calories) every Saturday night. You should not feel bad about valuing
that experience. You should not have to give it up. What you must do is determine where
in the spectrum you are between “my world revolves exclusively around fitness at the cost
of all else” and “as long as I am healthy, I value all the other joys”. Similar things can be said
for most goals.
There will never be an achievement that comes without sacrifice. Your job is to make sure the
sacrifices are worth it to you. Once you have chosen how much you are willing to trade-off, you
can adjust your goals accordingly. Remember that they can always change! Just don’t expect to live
without trade-offs, every goal requires the sacrifice of something else.
44
Choose a Target That Will Not
Require Perfection
GOAL MAKING TIP:
Don’t make goals when you are
comfortable. When you are sitting on
your couch sipping wine and relaxing,
you might overestimate how much
suffering you can endure across
months. Make your goals when you
are more uncomfortable and you will
be more likely to accurately estimate
your capacity for suffering. Decide on
your next big exercise goal after
finishing a tough run or lift. Pick a
study goal when you are stressed
about work and time constraints, not
while on vacation.
Write out what will have to be done to reach
your goal. For weight changes this will be
calorie deficits or surpluses per day along with
appropriate training plans. For sport it might be
training and recovery plans. For a language,
daily practice and occasional competence tests.
These plans will be similar from person to
person assuming the same starting point
(though needed behavior changes to get there
will almost definitely differ). Choose the target
that would result from perfect adherence and
then take that down by some measure to
account for imperfection. The more obstacles you expect to encounter, the more you should
nudge your goal down from the ideal. For example, you have read that a reasonable weight loss
pace is 0.5-1% bodyweight lost per week. Let’s say you currently weigh 200 pounds and you
calculate that losing 1% of body weight per week (the upper end of the scale) would result in 24
pounds lost across a 12 week diet. If you have a relatively obstacle-free 12 weeks and have some
experience dieting it is still advisable to reduce your goal, maybe shooting for ~21 pounds simply to
account for the unexpected. If you are knowledgeable but newer to dieting and foresee some
obstacles during your 12 weeks, you might want to reduce your goal more and shoot to lose 18
pounds total. Again, if you are very new to dieting your goal should be focused on learning; you
might target an hour per day reading for a 12-week period and choose four diet-friendly recipes to
practice making. If your next three months are busy, you can take that down to reading 30 minutes
per day and finding two recipes that work for you.
This target adjustment is not an exact science, but it is important that your goal will not require
perfection. Shooting too high with your goals and missing the target can leave you feeling
defeated even when you are making progress! Perfect adherence is very rare; the more new the
lifestyle required for your goals, the more rare. Your utmost goal should be to make changes that
can be sustained. It is far better to lose five pounds and keep it off than to lose 15 and gain it all
back. It is far better to start eating fruit and veggies a couple times a week than to maintain an
absurdly healthy diet for a month and then rebound to fast food at every meal. If you take nothing
else away from this book, please remember the concept that a small and permanent change in the
45
direction of your goals, whatever they may be, is far preferable to temporary perfection or huge
changes that disappear.
In summary, if doing things correctly (or at all) in the realm of your goal is new to you, consider
starting with learning and strategy development goals. You might also consider assessing what
behaviors will likely impede your progress and make some general avoidance goals for these. Once
you have a good base of understanding and some strategies in place, you can move on to creating
outcome goals and supporting behavior approach goals. These should be considered within the
context of your starting point. You want to make sure that your month to year goals include
making small changes to your current situation with the abstract goal of stepping that up a notch
once the first changes become habit.
Goals should not be arbitrary whims, but well thought out, personally valuable endeavors. Success
is unique for everyone and goals should be as well. Please use the worksheet that follows this
chapter to walk yourself through the goal making process, avoiding the follies described here and
honing a realistic target that will bring you joy when met!
46
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moderately complex task. J. Organ. Behav. J. Organiz. Behav 22, 291–307 (2001).
Israetel, M., Davis, M., Hoffmann, J. & Case, J. The Renaissance Diet 2.0: Your Scientific Guide to Fat
Loss, Muscle Gain, and Performance by Mike Israetel, Melissa Davis, Jen Case, James Hoffmann,
Paperback | Barnes & Noble®. Meyer & Meyer Sport (2020).
Deci, E., research, R. R.-H. of self-determination & 2002, undefined. l9: Self-determination research:
Reflections and future directions. books.google.com
Sarrazin, P., Vallerand, R., Guillet, E., Pelletier, L. & Cury, F. Motivation and dropout in female
handballers: A 21-month prospective study. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 32, 395–418 (2002).
Schnelle, J., Brandstätter, V. & Knöpfel, A. The adoption of approach versus avoidance goals: The role
of goal-relevant resources. Motiv. Emot. 34, 215–229 (2010).
Latham, G. P. & Seijts, G. H. The Effects of Proximal and Distal Goals on Performance on a Moderately
Complex Task. Journal of Organizational Behavior 20, 421–429
49
EVIDENCE-BASED
HABIT BUILDING
C H A PT E R 3 W O R K S H E E T
Goal Delineation
Decide if you are a beginner in your targeted goal arena. If so, choose a learning
or strategy development goal with a vague later outcome. If not, choose an
outcome goal that is more specific; identify learning and process aspects that
you can focus on while pursing your specific outcome. In either case, choose
the shorter-term subgoals needed to get you moving towards bigger changes.
Remember, it might be best to fill this sheet out when you are stressed or tired.
You are more likely to make realistic assessments at those times compared to
when you are comfortable and life is feeling easy.
GOAL/S (If you are a beginner make these primarily learning and strategy
goals. If you are more advanced, choose a challenging, but realistic
outcome goal. In either case, do not promise yourself too many changes):
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EVIDENCE-BASED
HABIT BUILDING
C H A PT E R 3 W O R K S H E E T
Subgoals* (Make sure these are small, feasible steps you can take in
the short term.):
*If you are having trouble describing sub-goals/needed steps to reach your
overall goal, you might want to start with learning and strategy as your primary
goals before working directly on an outcome goal. Remember that this has been
shown to result in more success in the long-term and that patience is critical if
you want permanent change!
Subgoals and self-efficacy (Describe how reaching each subgoal will
make you feel more capable and prepare you for the next):
51
EVIDENCE-BASED
HABIT BUILDING
C H A PT E R 3 W O R K S H E E T
Describe how your goals are tied to your personal ideals and values:
GOAL/S REFRAMED (If you have not already, reframe your goals
according to the above personal ideals. Instead of “lose weight”, you
state “in order to be in line with my values of being healthy and fit so that
I can spend active time with my family, I will lose weight” for example):
Describe how you will quantify progress (Remember that you can track
improvement both by decreased instances of an unwanted behavior
[this can be better for beginners] and by increased instances of a desired
behavior):
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EVIDENCE-BASED
HABIT BUILDING
C H A PT E R 3 W O R K S H E E T
List potential obstacles:
List some ways that the above obstacles might be avoided or
mitigated:
List the trade-offs and sacrifices you will have to make to get to your
goal:
(Make sure once this section is finished these trade-offs and sacrifices are
worth the outcome to you! If not, go back and reassess your goal)
53
EVIDENCE-BASED
HABIT BUILDING
C H A PT E R 3 W O R K S H E E T
List instances when you expect to be less than perfect on your plan
and how it will impact your results (Consistency is more important
than perfection. Plan to be a little less than perfect and adjust your
expectations accordingly)
54
CHAPTER 4
Chunk and Organize
Break Goals Down and Identify Behavior Changes Needed
“Drop by drop is the water pot filled.”
Buddha
Baby Steps Before Marathons
Though people do tend to work harder for more challenging goals, there is a fall off to the taskdifficulty–positive-outcome relationship. If milestones on the way to a substantial change are not
identified or the daily changes required are too large, people give up. Even if they keep trying,
stress from the excessive challenge can hinder their ability to develop creative strategies and will
diminish performance1,2. Breaking any goal (outcome, learning, or behavior based) down into
subgoals can help with this problem.
Chunking or breaking down information into smaller packages is ubiquitous in learning. It is present
in motor learning, memorization, and concept understanding3. You don’t learn an entire language
overnight (despite what language app advertisements are telling us). You learn a set of vocabulary
and some grammar concepts. You practice these until they are comfortable and automatic and
then extend the number of verb conjugations. When learning a martial art, you start with basic
positions and slowly add more complex variations over time. Dividing information this way is the
essence of chunking.
You probably have used this idea in your own life––cleaning one room at a time is more
approachable than cleaning your entire house all at once. The same applies for developing the
physical or mental endurance to tackle a large project––you don’t just go run a marathon, you
work up to that level of output. People often disregard this basic rule of acquisition in personal goal
pursuit and try to upend their lives for instant changes and drastic transformations and then
wonder why things crash and burn. The whole world operates on increments leading up to large
change, broad knowledge, and big success. This is true for most achievements––small, consistent
changes built on new habits are the most likely to yield impressive and lasting results.
55
Chunking your goal involves breaking down the specific outcomes, behavioral changes, and
needed learning goals into baby steps. You want to identify the milestones along the way to your
larger outcome goal, the increments of behavioral change required to get you to your goalsupporting behavior, and you want to learn a little bit at a time for any learning goals. Maybe your
general behavior goal is to eat in a more health-promoting manner and your specific targets are to
get fruits and veggies in at every meal. If you currently eat no vegetables, you might start with a
subgoal of eating veggies at one meal per day. Don’t try to increase the frequency until that
change is completely automatic. Before you know it, eating health-promoting foods daily is the next
baby step from your current habits. No matter the goal, you must outline the daily and weekly small
changes needed to accumulate the larger long-term results.
Building small successes over time generates belief in your own ability, which as we have learned
leads to greater success. Over time, your ability to sustain behavioral changes multiply––climbing a
mountain one step at a time rather than trying to jump to the top. Below is a simplified example of
integrating behavior and outcome goals at the broad, specific, and subgoal level.
56
Making Your Subgoals
Distal and proximal goals
It is important to have underlying long-term ideals that drive the shorter-term specific goals in your
day to day life. You can think of your distal goals as a “vision statement” for yourself4. These broad
goals can be outcome, behavioral, or learning based––ideally all three. Who would you like to be in
five years? What do you need to learn and do to get there? Your short-term subgoals should
directly support these desired outcomes.
Proximal goals are your short-term targets on the way to large changes; they tend to be easier to
visualize because they are not as far from your current state. You can think of your proximal goals
as your day-to-day targets that support long-term change. How much weight do I have to lose this
week to meet my long-term goal of losing 15 pounds in three months? How many pages do I need
to read today to finish this book by the end of the month? How do I need to frame my feelings
about my partner to make more compassionate choices in my marriage? Your proximal goals
should be just as tied to your personal values as your distal goals.
If you have a bachelor’s degree and want to apply for a master’s, writing the application for a
master’s program might be a proximal goal. It is work, but not wholly unfamiliar work and is the
next step in the process of your continued education. Distal goals are often too far-fetched to be
perceived as attainable5,6. For example, if you have a high school degree and would like to earn a
doctorate, the latter is a distal goal. It might be hard to imagine getting all the way to your
doctorate because the actions required are so far outside your current wheelhouse and the end
result is so far in the future. Although distal goals are less directly actionable, this type of goal has
an important place in shaping more proximal goals and fostering motivation. Research shows that
people with both distal goals and proximal sub-goals achieve better results than those with just one
goal type7–10. In the doctorate example, you might have that degree as a future target (distal goal),
but focus on the proximal goals of applying for a bachelor’s program and researching
requirements for acceptance to various graduate schools. Have both a long-term ideal to strive for
and more specific short-term sub-goals that will get you there.
Short-term goals also make creating action plans easier. Imagine someone who had never been on
a hike making a long-term goal to backpack half of the Appalachian Trail (a ~1500 mile
backpacking trip). Getting from novice to expert backpacker is overwhelming; deciding where to
begin and how to train might seem an impossible task. Rather than jumping right in, this person
57
could hold the long-term goal in their mind and start with some learning subgoals––research
backpacking strategies, read backpacking stories, and make an excel sheet listing gear to check out.
The next step would be those proximal, but more specific goals––like “do my first five mile hike on
a nearby trail”, then “work up to a 15 mile hike in one day”, then “try a short overnight backpacking
trip”. These multiple proximal goals build on one another until the distal goal is a proximal goal and
only a small step from the most recent achievement.
There are also some data to suggest that making proximal goals first can be more productive than
making a specific long-term goal and working back. That is––having a vague idea of long-term
outcome desires, but making only the short term goals specific. It seems this actually leads to better
long-term outcomes. In one study, groups of nurse surveyors were asked to set goals for
improving the accuracy of their reports. One group set long-term goals first and then built the
steps to get there. Another group set short-term goals first and then extrapolated long-term
targets afterwards. When short-term goals were set first, the long-term goals that resulted were
more difficult, but better achieved9! This is probably because people tend to limit their long-term
goals until they develop some self-efficacy and expertise. In our hiker example the person would
have a vague distal goal (something like “go on a long backpacking trip”). She would then start
making increasingly difficult proximal goals, perhaps solidifying a specific backpacking trip after
months of accomplishing step-wise proximal hiking goals. The choice of a distal goal is then based
on what has been achieved so far rather than on novice ideas of what is possible. Based on the
research this could result in a greater backpacking achievement than in the former example. As
counterintuitive as it sounds, making a long-term goal to lose 50 pounds then breaking that down
into a series of diet and maintenance phases might be less effective than making a vague distal
goal of “losing weight” and making specific proximal goals of “losing 15 pounds over the next three
months”, then “maintain for three months before losing 12 more”.
This process of making specific short-term goals and allowing the more long-term outcome to be
vague is called forward goal setting9. Making more specific distal goals is not by any means a bad
idea, but forward goal setting might be just a little bit better. Keeping your eye on more obtainable
short-term prizes shifts your focus to behaviors needed to achieve smaller goals and behavior
really is the key to desired outcomes in the long and short-term!
58
Avoid targeting large or abrupt behavior changes
Goals requiring complete lifestyle changes over short periods are not as likely to be achieved and
even less likely to be maintained. This is perhaps because if a change is large and sudden, there is
no room to break it down into baby steps––the focus required for the change interferes with the
rest of your life. Incremental changes in behavior have a much smaller impact on your day to day
life and take much less of a toll on your mental workload and stress. Choosing gradual increments
that will lead to larger changes and mastering each in succession is a better choice11–13. Even small
changes to your lifestyle involve altering your existing habits and require a substantial amount of
dedication. If you have lost weight and then gained it back over and over, promised to get
healthier every new year for a decade, or dreamed about learning a new hobby but never gotten
past the first week of practice, now might be the time to consider altering your strategy. Perhaps
you have been trying to force lifestyle changes that are overwhelmingly large. Maybe your diets
have required you to drastically alter your eating times or the types of foods you eat. Maybe your
weight loss rates have been too fast as well, so that the amount of strictness and suffering required
are difficult to sustain long enough to get to your goal. Maybe you decided you want to learn
kickboxing, but shot for ten hours per week and quickly got overly sore and burnt out because you
tried to make such a large time commitment without working up to it. If you always try to achieve
new things by going all in all at once and continually revert back to old habits, it might be time to
think about an incremental strategy––walk down the steps into the pool instead of diving in headfirst.
These ideas apply to much more than fitness; you can use these strategies in learning a new
instrument, considering a new career, or developing better social skills––virtually any goal can be
broken down into small behavioral changes. Combining last chapter’s learning with this chapter’s,
our goal structure might look something like the diagram on the next page, shown with a weight
loss goal example.
59
\
60
The very first baby step: exposure before learning goals
Starting with a learning goal is great for beginners, but what if they are so unfamiliar with their goal
arena that they don’t even know what they ought to learn? The first step is to simply get some
exposure to something that is entirely new to you. Exposure gives you a basic framework from
which you can start asking questions and seeking answers (creating learning goals). Imagine that
you have always wanted to own horses, but have no experience whatsoever with them. Before
setting goals to learn about caring for and training equine animals, you might want to just spend
some time around them. Do some guided rides, talk to horse owners, ask to watch them feed and
tend to their animals. Though none of these involve specific learning goals, the general exposure to
this new arena will provide a context for questions and research. This knowledge can help you
refine your learning goals. You may have thought that the first order of business would be to learn
about different kinds of horses and their capabilities, but after some immersion you are most
overwhelmed by the details of tack and saddle as well as the risks that come with riding. You would
then choose a learning goal related to these topics specifically thanks to your immersion in the
world of horse ownership.
Sometimes, for those living a lifestyle extremely far from their ideal and for whom a structured plan
is intimidating, starting with something like what is described above can diminish stress, add some
learning and tools, and make success more likely14,15. We recommend those individuals in this
position work on exposure to their area of interest and use this to develop learning goals; then
remember to chunk those learning goals down into bite sized steps.
The need for small steps can be difficult to accept when the early motivation for change is strong,
but you don’t go from learning your alphabet to reading Shakespeare or from a training-wheels
bicycle to downhill mountain bike racing overnight. Any large goal should be treated with similar
patience as learning to read or developing a high-level ability. Remember that behavior
modification is a skill and all skills take time and practice.
Limit the Number of Goals You Pursue at One Time
The previous chapter discussed choosing a single goal. People motivated to change their lives
often have a host of different goals. All changes are stressful. Imagine how this stress accumulates if
61
you are starting a new diet, a new training program, working on your relationship, and shooting to
get promoted at work. Even without any research anyone reading that list of goals will likely feel the
stress and overwhelm that so many simultaneous changes would create.
Altering behavior takes time, focus, and work. Most of us would not try to prepare six different
meals in six different houses at the same time (or if we did would likely see none of those meals
come out ideally). So why would we try to put in the drudgery of behavior change on many life
fronts at once? Perhaps it is the snapshot transformations and success stories of athletes and
businesspeople as they are portrayed on television and social media. These often only present the
changes and not the work in between. Maybe it is the overemphasis on motivation and willpower––
get up earlier than your opponent! Work harder than the next guy! Suffering is nothing if you want
to win! People tend to assume that weakness, laziness, or lack of motivation are the only reasons
they are not changing their whole lives at this very moment. This could not be further from the
truth. As we learned earlier, our human hardware limits how much we can change in a given
timeframe. Focusing your effort on one small task at a time very often yields the best results.
Imagine if instead of trying to cook six meals in six different houses at once, you cooked one meal
at a time. Staying in that house until all the food was removed from ovens at precisely the right
moment, arranged perfectly on plates, and served hot. Then you moved on to the next house and
the next meal, pouring your attention and thought into its preparation. This is the method with
which you should approach life changes. Pick one, focus and devote yourself to it, and once it has
become second nature, move to the next step.
Some goals are bigger than others. If your goals are to start flossing and stay on top of vacuuming
your house, it is reasonable that you can work on both of those at once. On the other hand, if you
want to lose 50 pounds, repair a relationship, and improve your career, it might be best to either
start with one or shoot for extremely small improvements on each simultaneously.
Eliminate or periodize conflicting goals
Some goals and the behaviors required to reach them work against each other. As an extreme
example, if you want to run a marathon and compete in a Powerlifting competition, the training for
each will drastically inhibit the other. The beating you take from heavy lifting will leave you
exhausted and decrease the endurance properties of your muscle fibers needed for long-distance
running. Meanwhile, because marathon training can lead to a decrease in the strength
characteristics of your muscle fibers and possibly muscle loss, your Powerlifting numbers will suffer.
62
Trying to be your best at both of these pursuits simultaneously will prevent you from reaching your
full potential in either. Not all examples are this extreme. Perhaps you have a goal to clean your
house more often and a goal to work extra hours to save up for a vacation. These are not mutually
exclusive, but they might take up the same time and energy––which are limited for all of us. If you
use all of your spare time working, where will the hours to clean come from? Your sleep and
relationships might have to suffer in order to do both the extra cleaning and the extra work.
The good news is that goals can be periodized. Periodization is the systematic organization of
training such that certain phases are done at certain times to facilitate best performance.
Periodization can also be applied to behavior change such that a logical progression of changes
facilitates the best outcomes. This works for our Powerlifting and marathon running as well as for
cleaning and work. Though your lifetime achievements will likely be below your potential in each,
you can train for and perform well in a marathon one year and a Powerlifting event the next. The
conflict is reduced by separating the goals in time so that the training required to reach each
objective do not overlap or conflict directly. If you spend two years on either pursuit your
performance in your chosen discipline would be even better. For the conflict between working
overtime and cleaning the house, resolving to let the house be less than perfect while you are
working more will allow you to better focus on your goal of saving money. This will permit you to
maintain your relationship as well as get enough sleep to perform well at work. You can then start
working on being tidier after you have saved up, gone on vacation, and are back to normal
working hours.
Sometimes just the act of examining the behavioral subgoals of your broad outcome goals can
make it clear that there are conflicts. This is why the process of examination is so important. If you
merely stated that you wanted to run a marathon and do well in a Powerlifting competition this
year, the conflict might be unclear. When you start writing down your peak lifting protocols and
weekly running targets however, it would quickly become obvious. After assessing subgoals, you
have the informed opportunity to alter your plans for more satisfying results––either choosing one
endeavor or periodizing your changes to do each at a different time.
63
References
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4.
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Espedido, A. & Searle, B. J. Goal Difficulty and Creative Performance: The Mediating Role of Stress
Appraisal. Hum. Perform. 31, 179–196 (2018).
Locke, E. & Latham, G. A Theory of Goal Setting and Task Performance. Acad. Manag. Rev. 16, 480–
483 (1990).
Fonollosa, J., Neftci, E. & Rabinovich, M. Learning of Chunking Sequences in Cognition and Behavior.
PLoS Comput. Biol. 11, (2015).
Grant, A. M. An integrated model of goal-focused coaching: An evidence-based framework for
teaching and practice. (2012).
Karniol, R. & Ross, M. THE MOTIVATIONAL IMPACT OF TEMPORAL FOCUS: Thinking About the
Future and the Past. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 47, 593–620 (1996).
Grant, A. (Anthony M. . & Greene, J. Coach yourself : make real change in your life. (Momentum,
2004).
Stock, J. & Cervone, D. Proximal goal-setting and self-regulatory processes. Cognit. Ther. Res. 14,
483–498 (1990).
Latham, G. P. & Seijts, G. H. The Effects of Proximal and Distal Goals on Performance on a Moderately
Complex Task. Journal of Organizational Behavior 20, 421–429
Weldon, E. & Yun, S. The Effects of Proximal and Distal Goalson Goal Level, Strategy Development,
and Group Performance. J. Appl. Behav. Sci. 36, 336–344 (2000).
Palmer, S. et al. International Coaching Psychology Review Notes for Contributors.
Lewis, L. K., Rowlands, A. V & Gardiner, P. A. Small steps: preliminary effectiveness and feasibility of
an incremental goal-setting intervention to reduce sitting time in older adults. Elsevier Irel. Ltd (2015).
doi:10.1016/j.maturitas.2015.12.014
Pomietto, M. et al. Small steps to health: Building sustainable partnerships in pediatric obesity care.
Pediatrics 123, (2009).
O’neill, B. Small Steps to Health and WealthTM. (2006).
Sarrazin, P., Vallerand, R., Guillet, E., Pelletier, L. & Cury, F. Motivation and dropout in female
handballers: A 21-month prospective study. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 32, 395–418 (2002).
Deci, E. & Ryan, R. Handbook of self-determination research. (2002).
64
EVIDENCE-BASED
HABIT BUILDING
C H A PT E R 4 W O R K S H E E T
Chunk and Organize
Decide whether you are new to the realm in which you seek to achieve a goal.
If so, choose a learning development goal and a non-specific distal outcome.
If not, choose an outcome goal that is more specific, but identify the learning
and process aspects that you can focus on. In either case, choose the short-term
proximal subgoals needed to get you moving towards bigger changes.
GOAL/S (Restate your goals from Chapter 3 worksheet):
Rank your goals in order of importance
65
EVIDENCE-BASED
HABIT BUILDING
C H A PT E R 4 W O R K S H E E T
Assess whether any of the above goals conflict and remove any that
do off the list (at least for now)
Make learning (if needed), behavior, and outcome subgoals for each
goal* (Make sure these are small, feasible steps you can take in the short
term):
*If you are having trouble describing the sub-goals/needed steps to reach your
overall goal, you might want to start with learning and strategy as your primary
goals before working directly on an outcome goal. Remember that this has been
shown to result in more success in the long-term and that patience is critical if
you want permanent change!
66
EVIDENCE-BASED
HABIT BUILDING
C H A PT E R 4 W O R K S H E E T
Remind yourself of how your goals are tied to your personal ideals
and values:
67
CHAPTER 5
Awareness Through Mindfulness
Learning to Observe as a Prerequisite for Change
“My mind begins to seem like a video game: I can either play it
intelligently, learning more in each round, or I can be killed in
the same spot by the same monster, again and again.”
Sam Harris
Once you have identified your goals, the first step towards developing a habit-change program is
to start paying careful attention to your behavior. Most of us pay much less in-the-moment
attention than we realize. Instead, we ruminate on past events or worry about the future. Start
noticing where your thoughts drift. You will likely find that you spend a lot more time planning for
tomorrow or thinking about yesterday than you do experiencing the current moment. Attention
requires a focus on what is happening right now and it is this awareness that allows us to see our
behavior clearly. Research shows that a lack of this kind of attention can result in lapses of selfcontrol1. This is because without attention, we have to rely on habitual behavior because our
thoughts are too occupied for conscious choice. Habit change also requires self-regulation, which
cannot be done without self-awareness. This should include paying attention to our actions as well
as assessing the reasons for our behavior. As discussed in Chapter 1, sometimes whatever initially
reinforced a habit no longer exists (maybe you were teased for dieting a decade ago and now
habitually hide your weight loss plans, even though the antagonist is no longer in your life). Even if
the reason your habit came about is long gone, knowing why you developed the habit in the first
place can still be useful.
Paying attention to our experiences and our feelings in the moment is often referred to as being
mindful. Mindfulness is used in religious and secular meditation practices as well as therapy settings
to develop self-awareness. Research shows that people acting mindfully tend to behave more in
line with their personal values and ideals––which you may remember predicts greater success in
pursuit of goals2! Not only can mindfulness help us dissect our behavior and interrupt automatic
responses, it might help us refine our personal goals and act according to our values more often,
leading to further success. In another instance of positive feedback––similar to the self-efficacy68
success relationship––performing engaging tasks that align with personal values may increase
mindful attention2. Taking all of these ideas together creates a series of positive feedback loops: If
you are mindful and making value-driven choices you tend to be more successful. You are better
engaged when doing things in line with your values and this facilitates more mindfulness. This leads
to greater self-efficacy and then that to even more success!
In Chapter 6 we will discuss how to monitor and quantify our behavior. Before we can effectively
self-monitor, we must learn to pay attention. Awareness is project number one. One tool that can
help us notice more about ourselves, the situations we encounter, and how things affect us, is
mindfulness training.
69
Mindfulness Research
Western society and the field of psychology were exposed to mindfulness via Buddhism. Many
sects of Buddhism advocate mindful meditation as a means of release from suffering. Given the
many benefits of mindfulness based on scientific data, this looks to be an apt description of the
practice’s potential! One study published in Science shows that our minds wander away from the
present moment up to 47% of the time and that this is associated with unhappiness. You may also
remember that research has estimated that somewhere around 40% of our behavior is habitual––a
mind wandering away from the present moment is probably a mind relying on habitual behavior.
Unless your habits have been crafted to support your goals, this can very well mean less happiness.
Mindfulness research is still in its infancy and is not a straightforward topic. It is a complex, internal
concept and creating an operational definition with which to do research and replicate work is a
challenge. Imagine trying to develop a way to measure “levels of mindfulness”. That in itself is a
task, but now imagine that this measurement must work for a variety of people and be comparable
across studies in different labs. Internal human experience is difficult to quantify! This type of
endeavor is slowly sorted over years of research and discussion and the field is still working on it in
the case of mindfulness. To further complicate things, many different mindfulness protocols have
been studied in research (from intensive Buddhist meditation retreats to at-home prescriptions to
pay attention to your breathing once per day, and everything in between). A multitude of
outcomes resulting from mindfulness interventions have also been studied––from general mood to
severe psychological disorders to physical pain3–11. This makes it difficult to compare the results of
one study to another and attempts to review the literature as a whole have been inconclusive12.
Nonetheless, many positive effects under many circumstances have been recorded over the last
few decades. It seems only a matter of time until standardization allows for better study to study
comparisons and stronger collective conclusions.
While mindfulness training is by no means a panacea, it does have clear benefits. The evidence for
mindfulness alone as an effective agent of change is usually mild to moderate––but this is probably
because awareness is only the first step. Nonetheless, research suggests that simply paying
attention to habitual behavior as it occurs can provide the opportunity to act differently.
Mindfulness and attention training can decrease athlete burnout and attenuate anxiety13,14. Some
data also support awareness training as beneficial in the treatment of binge eating disorder15. This
is important because binge eating is an ingrained, automatic behavior. If mindfulness can help with
a habit as strong as binge eating, it should be a useful tool for any behavior change. Indeed,
mindfulness training has been shown to improve self-regulation, concentration, emotional control,
70
empathy, and social relations. It can also reduce depression, stress, and anxiety16–26. With all these
purported benefits, you might wonder why everyone isn’t practicing mindfulness. The answer is
that, like many other worthwhile endeavors, mindfulness takes time and requires consistent effort!
Mindfulness can be a useful preliminary tool in a more complex process to alter habits––a practice
by which better awareness can be gained and then implemented in a behavior change program.
The intention of this chapter is to provide information and a framework for you to work on
mindfulness. You are not expected to achieve enlightenment, only encouraged to find a practice
that facilitates your self-awareness. Experimentation is encouraged. Whatever method you use, so
long as awareness is increased, it is the correct method for you.
Defining Mindfulness
Bishop and colleagues define mindfulness as “the ability to maintain attention to the current
experience and one’s reactions to that experience while employing a perspective of curiosity and
openness”27. In other words, mindfulness includes paying attention to what is happening now, how
you are feeling, what you are thinking about, and requires that you do not judge your thoughts
and feelings. Refraining from judgment about how you respond to an experience allows you to
honestly and accurately monitor yourself. With an honest view, behavior change will be possible. If
you lie to your doctors about your lifestyle, they might have trouble diagnosing and treating your
problem––if you lie to yourself about your feelings, behavior change will be more difficult.
The more extensive, if less precise, definitions of mindfulness can include many factors. Intention,
attention, and attitude are generally considered critical components28–33. Intention is the purposeful
pursuit of mindfulness, attention is the focus upon the current moment and experience (including
feelings and reactions to it), and attitude is the way we perceive these experiences and feelings. It is
within attitude that we see a variable list of necessary attributes. Though the variations might blur
the concept in the empirical sense, it is instructive for the individual first trying to grasp the core of
mindfulness practice. These attitudes are: non-judgement (no shame or judging of your responses
or thoughts as you attend to them), what is known in Buddhism as beginner’s mind (attempting to
see everything as if for the first time in order to relieve yourself of biases), non-striving (the letting
go of trying to control perceptions and reactions and instead just observing), acceptance (openness
to the current moment irrespective of whether it is an experience you sought), and letting go
(allowing things to be as they are in that moment). Additional attitude descriptions include curiosity
71
(having a sincere interest in the experience), playfulness (being lighthearted and not overly stern
with one’s self during self-exploration), and kindness (being gentle and non-judgmental with one’s
self). You might notice that many of these seem a little redundant but perhaps one or a few of
these explanations of desired attitudes for mindfulness will best speak to you.
It is important to recognize that the above descriptions do not imply that we need to accept unfair
situations in life, be open to abuse or mistreatment, or accept our current state and not strive to
change. The exercise is merely to allow honest evaluations of one’s self and one’s responses. Selfknowledge can then be used to effect change, with the added benefit of reducing stress––some
things in life cannot be changed and this practice can help with coping.
For our purposes, because we are people trying to work on ourselves (and not scientists trying to
standardize a concept for study replication), we can define mindfulness as the simple summary of
this host of ideas––purposeful, non-judgmental attention to the moment and associated sensations
and feelings.
Mindfulness Practice
Formal mindfulness practice began thousands of years ago, but has been adapted and used up
through the present day. In this section we will walk through mindfulness practice as directed by
both modern Buddhism and as adapted for use in psychological settings, along with a few other
general secular meditative practices. Again, experimenting with these options to find what best
helps you develop personal awareness is my recommendation.
Formal mindfulness practice in modern Buddhism
One of the most well-known and prolific Buddhist monks, Thích Nhất Hạnh has written over 100
texts on mindfulness practice. His five-step process is summarized below34.
1. Mindful Breathing
Mindful breathing is the practice of quietly bringing your attention to your breath––
inhaling and exhaling. Hanh reminds us that to be alive is an amazing privilege and
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that focused awareness of our breathing is a celebration of the fact that we are alive.
Intent focus on the breath distracts us from other thoughts that take us away from the
present experience. This might seem unrelated to behavior change, but think of it as
cycling with training wheels in the process of learning to be a downhill mountain bike
racer. This is the most basic, low pressure, and easy situation in which to practice
being aware. Being aware of our internal thoughts and feelings while experiencing a
stressful situation involving many other stimuli is a much more difficult task, so take
baby steps towards that skill. The breath is a perfect thing to attend to since it is
always there. Practice being mindful and paying attention to your breath during quiet
moments to begin your practice.
2. Concentration
The next step in this exercise is to continue with your mindful breathing, but also try to
sustain your focus on your breath for the full inhale and then for the full exhale. The
idea is to start being mindful for longer stretches at a time. The concentration on your
breath makes interruptive thoughts during your mindfulness exercises less and less
likely as you practice. When concentrating on your breath, your mind will inevitably
wander. When it does, notice this and then allow the thoughts to float back out from
where they came. Bring your attention back to your breath whenever you notice you
are tangled in thought. Try to observe the details of your breath without clinging to
any thoughts or judgements or trying to control it.
3. Awareness of Your Body
The next level of awareness in Hanh’s five step process is to begin to bring your
awareness to your breath as experienced by your body. As you focus on your
breathing, allow yourself to be aware how it feels to breath. In Buddhist practice the
idea is to make the mind and body one. For example, many of us have been
physically sitting on the couch next to a loved one while our mind wandered
elsewhere. This step requires that we practice being on that couch with our loved one
in both body and mind. This can help us be present in many other situations where
we are better served feeling and examining the current reality rather than letting our
minds wander.
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4. Releasing Tension
As you get good at the third step and become more aware of how your body feels,
you may notice you have areas of tension (you may even have neck or back pain
resulting from tensing areas without awareness for years). Actively releasing this
tension is the purpose of this step. Hahn relates an excellent example of integrating
this step into your life. He says:
When you come to a red light, you are eager for the red light to become
a green light so that you can continue. But the red light can be a signal.
It can be a reminder that there is tension in you, the stress of wanting to
arrive as quickly as possible. If you recognize that, you can make use of
the red light. You can sit back and relax—take the ten seconds the light
is red to practice mindful breathing and release the tension in the
body34.
You can see here how your practice can begin to become a part of everyday life.
Rather than only being mindful when you decide to sit down in the afternoon and
perform mindful breathing, you can begin to take various opportunities in your life to
practice. This has the potential to develop your skill into something incredibly useful.
5. Walking Meditation
This final step integrates the practice of mindfulness functionally into life. Walking
while being mindful of your breath, body, movement, sounds, and sights in the world
helps you practice under more stimulating conditions so that you will be better
equipped to remain present across different experiences. Most of us have obligations
and periods during the day when we cannot focus on our breathing. During these
times, focusing on the precise thing that we are meant to be doing at that moment is
the goal. If you are spending time with your child, bring all of your awareness to this
experience and don’t waste time thinking about work. Likewise, when you are
working, focus on the task at hand and don’t spend time watching the clock, waiting
to go home. Walking meditation is meant to facilitate your ability to have this kind of
presence in the rest of your life.
The above steps are paraphrased summaries from Five Steps to Mindfulness34.
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NEUROSCIENCE NUGGET: The Neurobiology of Mindfulness
Research shows that mindfulness training can help establish behavioral changes, alter brain activity,
and even change brain structure42,43. There are data not only for real world outcomes, but for
underlying physiological changes to support those outcomes41,44–47. The insular cortex is an area in
the brain that has been implicated as essential for cognitive processes like attention and
awareness48. This cortex has also been shown to be capable of plasticity (change) in adulthood as
have areas like the motor cortex (involved in physical movement) and visual cortex (involved in
vision). There is no reason to think that training awareness and attention, mediated by the insular
cortex, would be particularly different to training a motor skill mediated by the motor and visual
cortices49,50. In other words, data and theory suggest that attention is trainable and that you can
improve awareness. The exact neural and molecular changes underlying the cognitive benefits of
mindfulness training are still unknown44. Luckily for us, we don’t need to know the precise
underlying mechanism in order to see the confirmed benefits and use these to our advantage!
Formal mindfulness training in cognitive therapy and secular practice
Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MCBT) is a type of therapy that has been effective in the
treatment of anxiety and depression35–38. Similar to Buddhist practices, there is a focus on breathing
in MBCT. There is also special emphasis on attention to bodily experiences, feelings, sights, and
sounds. The previously discussed non-judgmental, curious, observer-attitude is encouraged in this
practice as well.
Though most formal MBCT involves group or in-person sessions with a therapist, at-home training
is considered an essential part of the process and is something you can begin to practice on your
own. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses show that at home MCBT practice itself (even when
participants completed less than 70% of what was assigned) improved behavioral change
outcomes25,39. Participants were assigned 30-60 minutes of mindfulness practice per day on six or
more days per week. Amount of practice is likely correlated with degree of outcome, but the upside
of mindfulness is that it is something you can do during your daily activities.
Your mindfulness training may not need to be as intensive as that described above (MCBT
protocols are often designed to treat depression and other more severe issues). Other mindfulness
methods, like integrative body-mind training (IBMT) have been shown to produce positive
behavioral changes with much less intensive work. There is evidence from randomized trials that
two to three hours across one week improves executive attention and alters brain activity, and that
75
the same weekly commitment sustained for a full month improves self-regulation40,41. Studies using
other types of mindfulness training have shown various mental improvements with more minimal
training. In one study, subjects participated in four days of mindfulness meditation training with an
experienced practitioner as their guide. The meditation group showed improvements on sustained
attention tests (along with improvements in mood, fatigue, anxiety, visuo-spatial processing, and
working memory)18. Mindfulness meditation practice in the latter study might provide a simple
starting point for your own practice. It was described as follows:
In session one, small groups of three to five participants were
instructed to relax, with their eyes closed, and to focus on the flow of
their breath occurring at tip of their nose. If a random thought arose,
they were told to passively notice and acknowledge the thought and to
simply let ‘‘it” go, by bringing the attention back to the sensations of the
breath. In subsequent sessions (2–4), participants worked on developing
mindfulness skills. For example, in sessions 2 and 3, subjects were taught
to focus on the full breath, that is, to focus on the sensations of the
breath from the nostrils to the abdomen and back. Participants were also
taught to notice and focus on any sensations that arose in the body, and
to simply acknowledge those feelings and then to return their attention
back to their breath. Session 4 was premised on developing the skills
established in the previous sessions, however, more time was spent in
silence so that participants could meditate18.
Mindfulness training can include guided meditation with recorded voices, an experienced guide, or
sounds on which to focus attention. Seeking out apps on your phone, training modules online, or
even visiting a local meditation center can all be ways to initiate your mindfulness practice.
Literature suggests that a guide or program is more effective than self-directed practice, but as
long as you are practicing daily there is good chance that you will make progress. It is always wise
to research your options. Some suggestions are listed at the end of this chapter; explore for
yourself and find a program or regimen that works for you.
76
Moving into Awareness
After some time practicing mindfulness, you might be amazed at the things you learn about
yourself and your current habits. Setting aside just 10-20 minutes per day to pay attention to your
breath and the current moment may not seem like it will affect the rest of your life much, but many
people find the impact to be profound. The habit of paying attention starts to bleed into other
parts of daily life. Many notice that they become more aware of how they feel during various
behaviors even when not actively attempting to pay attention. This in itself begins to break the
stimulus-response chain of habit, allowing you the freedom to make a different choice. It also
affords you the ability to look more closely at the facets of a previously automatic behavior, giving
you points of action for your behavior change plan. Many also find that mindfulness practice makes
them more grateful, compassionate, and calm.
77
Awareness Resources
App based:
Waking Up by Sam Harris (yearly subscription, but excellent program with easy onboarding and free subscriptions for those
who cannot afford the app cost)
Headspace
iMindfulness
Insight Timer
10% Happier
Mindfulness for Fidgety Skeptics by Dan Harris
Simply Being
Smiling Mind
Stop, Breath and Think
UCLA Mindful
Mindfulness App
Online:
MCBT:
https://mbct.com
Meditation: www.headspace.com
www.mindful.org
www.zmm.org
Planners to help log mindfulness:
https://pandaplanner.com/
https://thehappinessplanner.com/
In your area:
Research Zen Centers, MCBT practitioners, and meditation centers in your area if you would like to do inperson training.
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EVIDENCE-BASED
HABIT BUILDING
C H A PT E R 5 W O R K S H E E T
Mindfulness Example
Whether you download an app, use the instructions in this book, or find your
own way to sit quietly and focus on your breath — make sure you log this new
behavior, as it is a new habit in itself! This is your first step in the process of sustainable behavior change; doing it right is important for your future goals and
allows the opportunity to practice adding a new behavior to your daily schedule.
Remember that baby steps are the best starting point when creating change,
so begin with as little as five minutes per day devoted to awareness. You can
sit quietly and focus on your breath or take a short walk and try to notice all of
the details of what you see, hear, and feel as you walk. Let other thoughts float
in and out without allowing them to consume your attention. You can use the
example below to track your new habit and even graph your consistency in an
Excel or similar sheet. There is an example of what this might look like over time
below.
EXAMPLE: Log what days you practiced mindfulness for at least 5 minutes. Then
graph how many days per week you practiced across weeks. Don’t expect immediate perfection! Just aim for an upwards trend until you are consistently averaging 5-7 days per week. After this you can extend your 5 minutes to 10 minutes.
Practice awareness as much as you like, but a good top-end target for most
people is ~20 minutes per day, 5-7 days per week.
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EVIDENCE-BASED
HABIT BUILDING
C H A PT E R 5 W O R K S H E E T
83
CHAPTER 6
Self-Monitoring
“The most serious obstacle to self-control is faulty perception
of one’s own behavior”
Howard Rachlin1
Why Do We Need to Track and Record Behavior?
While increased awareness can de-automatize behavior and make more room for motivation to
guide your choices, quantification is still needed to establish progress towards your goal.
Sustainable changes require refinement through feedback. That feedback is where self-monitoring
comes in. The translation of mindfulness into tracking behavior brings even more concrete results
than awareness alone2–7.
Biased memories
One important reason to track your behavior is that humans are surprisingly bad at accurately
recalling the details of past events, so much so that eyewitness testimony in court cases is no longer
trusted outright. Accuracy in these accounts can fall anywhere between ~20% and ~90%
depending on the salience of the experience and number of details8,9. Even more concerning is the
fact that confidence in a memory is not particularly predictive of accuracy––feeling certain about
your memory does not make it more likely to be correct9,10. If that is the case for testifying in court,
you can imagine your chances of accurately recalling a month’s worth of behavior changes.
When our ego comes into the picture, the accuracy of memories is further impaired. We tend to
overestimate our skill and competence, especially when we are particularly unskilled and
incompetent as demonstrated by the famous Dunning and Krugar study11. Dunning and Kruger
found that the less we know about something, the more likely we are to overestimate our
performance. This is because we lack both the knowledge to make good choices and the expertise
to accurately assess our actions. We tend to also be bad at estimating the risks we take in with our
health, the number of calories we consume, and the number of calories we burn in exercise12–16.
84
We are also influenced by what we are exposed to, often to the point that we adjust our accounts
of previous behavior according to new understanding––we “remember” having previously acted
more in line with a newly found recommendation than we actually did17. A study done by Ross and
colleagues demonstrates this point. Subjects were given either reading material suggesting that
daily tooth brushing destroyed tooth enamel or that daily brushing was important for tooth health.
The two groups were then asked to report the frequency of tooth brushing across the previous two
weeks (behavior from before they had read the materials). Those who were exposed to the
“brushing damages enamel” material reported lower brushing frequency than those who saw the
“brushing is good” information18. This happened even though the brushing had occurred before
they read the recommendations, showing that they adjusted their memories rather than their
behavior. Each group adjusted their memory of the previous two weeks of behavior according to
the information they had just gathered in order to better fit a newly constructed ideal. It seems that
our flawed memories often reflect a bias for what we want to be and think we should do rather
than who we are and what we are actually doing. Tracking can highlight these discrepancies.
Responsibility
Tracking our behavior can also force us to take ownership of our problems, which can drive
sustainable change. For example, if you were underestimating the calories you consumed, you
might blame your failure to lose weight on a slow metabolism or “stubborn fat”. There is comfort in
a lack of fault, but also powerlessness. Once you recognize that your own behavior is what is
keeping you from weight loss, you can change it, putting control over the outcome in your hands.
Although this means you only have yourself to blame for failure, it also means that you have only
yourself to thank when you succeed! Feeling responsible for your successes is what leads to selfefficacy and reinforces positive behavior modifications for more success.
Taking ownership of your behavior is sometimes referred to as having an internal locus of control––
believing that you have control over the things that happen to you. The opposite, having an
external locus of control, refers to blaming other people or things for your outcomes. Shifting to an
internal locus of control allows you to monitor and measure the parts of yourself that contribute to
your success or lack thereof.
Having an internal locus of control is often associated with better health, success, and
satisfaction19,20. The degree of association between internal loci of control and positive outcomes is
not consistent across cultures––the correlation is weaker among more collectivist societies.
85
However, the association between external loci of control and depression and anxiety seems to be
prevalent across all cultures21. In Western culture, an internal locus does consistently predict things
like health, satisfaction, and success. If you are reading this book, it is likely you will benefit from
shifting your perspective to more internal control. Locus of control tendencies are thought to be
genetic, but may also be learned at a very young age. A 20 year study of nearly 8,000 ten year old
children followed into adulthood showed that children who perceived an internal locus of control
had reduced risk of poor health, psychological disturbances, and obesity in adulthood22. This does
not mean that our tendencies have to be our destiny.
Despite the fact that personality traits are affected by things like genetics, early experience, and
culture, the literature does support the idea that adults can learn to reframe their locus of control
and benefit23,24. For example, practicing a perception of an internal locus of control leads to safer
driving, better medication adherence, and more health promoting behaviors20,25,26. The physical
appearance of our bodies is also dependent on genetics and early experience, but we are all
familiar with the ability to alter our physiques with training. Similarly, the way you frame and
conceptualize your experiences can be trained and changed. With respect to accomplishing goals,
framing things as within your control generally leads to more success. See below for examples.
86
The last example is important. Keep in mind that turning your source of control from external to
internal does not mean you must proceed with changing your behavior immediately. It just means
that you can if you want to. Rather than saying you drink beer and eat a whole pizza every Friday
because your job is stressful, tell yourself you do it because it is an enjoyable reward you give
yourself to relieve pressure once per week. You do it because you choose to. If you choose to stop,
fine, if not, also fine, but you are in control. Instead of saying you eat extra whenever you fly
because you have no control over your food choices, say to yourself “I could bring my own food or
request different meals on the plane, but flying is stressful so I choose to give myself a break and
just enjoy the food and snacks at the airport and on the plane”. This is the difference between
external and internal sources of control––abandonment of victimhood and ownership of your
ability to change, should you choose to do so.
Behavior Change Theories and Self-Monitoring
As discussed briefly in the introduction of this book, researchers have been building theories of
behavior and models for behavior change for decades. While none of these is perfect, each can
offer some insight at various stages of change––such as when and what to track as we begin to
monitor our behavior. In the transtheoretical model of behavior change, a series of steps leads to
goal acquisition. The first active step is contemplation––thinking about what we want to alter and
how we might go about creating that change. Irrespective of whether this model is the most
effective, the contemplation phase is an important part of any behavior change. It is critical to
understand what we need to change in order achieve our goals. Arriving at this understanding is
facilitated by self-monitoring.
Another model, social cognitive theory, takes into account the effect that our social interactions and
our culture have on our behavior27. Based on this model, our tracking should include assessment of
our responses to social situations and the culturally influenced aspects of our behavior. Cognitive
behavioral therapy comes from another model for change. Therapeutic strategies based on this
model emphasize the importance of changing unhelpful thought patterns and identifying the
emotions involved in our choices28. Given this, our tracking should also include looking at
emotional habits and unproductive thought patterns. We can spend the contemplation period of
our self-change monitoring the cognitive, social, and emotion-based reasons for our behavior.
Later we can target each of these in our plan to change.
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Self-monitoring can also satisfy some of the needs proposed by self-determination theory.
The need for autonomy is supported by self-monitoring and eventual self-regulation so long as the
underlying goals are concurrent with your personal values29. Some degree of competence can also
be supported by self-monitoring––selecting behaviors to track and developing a system that
facilitates self-understanding is a success in itself.
Because behavior change theories aim to explain behavior in a simplified manner, they are
imperfect. This does not mean they are not correct or instructive. Simplifying behavior change with
flow charts and broad outlines makes something complex a little more approachable.
Established Benefits of Self-Monitoring
Self-monitoring has been studied with regard to goal outcomes in a variety of settings. Self-testing
and keeping track of the learning progress after studying educational materials from a healthcare
provider leads to better outcomes in patients with diabetes5. Daily tracking of body weight
increases efficacy of weight change; self-monitoring of food intake over the holidays decreases
average weight gain30,31,32. Not only has self-monitoring of weight been shown to be effective in
itself for weight management, adding monitoring to a weight loss program also improves
outcomes33,34. Similarly, tracking movement with apps and wearable devices tends to increase
physical activity, tracking running times leads to improved performance, and self-monitoring
improves skill acquisition across modalities4,35–39.
A bonus for those of you who coach others is that learning to self-monitor not only helps you with
your own endeavors, but also leads to better success for your clients40. Self-monitoring with
external feedback seems to be more effective for weight loss than self-monitoring alone––even
more support for the value of having a coach or an accountability buddy39.
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Identifying Behaviors to Monitor
Identifying problem behaviors
Start by outlining the behaviors that will get in the way of the goal/s that you developed in
Chapters 3 and 4. Write these out as statements of a problem. Statements should be specific and
should give you actionable items for change. Two examples are listed below with both specific
behavior descriptions and examples of overly vague behavior descriptions (the latter should be
avoided).
Goal: Become a good listener in order to live up to my ideal of being a good partner.
Problem Behaviors: Too vague: “I am a bad listener”
Specific & actionable: “I interrupt my partner often”
In this example tracking how bad a listener you are is not straightforward, but the more specific
problem behavior of interrupting is quantifiable. You can assess when and why you interrupt, as
well as how often.
Goal: To lose weight and improve my cardiovascular health so that I can spend more time hiking
with my family because I value those experiences.
Problem Behaviors: Too vague: “I’m lazy”
Specific & actionable: “I have trouble controlling my eating on the weekends”
and “I resist going to the gym because I feel out of shape and ashamed in that
environment”
In this example, tracking laziness is difficult and would likely be unenlightening, whereas tracking
incidents of overeating is simple and might reveal your specific triggers and habits. Likewise,
tracking feelings and gym-avoidance is practical; you can track when you avoid the gym and what
impacts the feelings that lead to gym avoidance in order to alter this behavior.
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Identifying target behaviors
Once you have identified your problem behaviors and are monitoring them, you can determine
desirable behaviors to take their place:
Goal: Become a good listener in order to live up to my ideal of being a good partner
Example replacement behavior: I will imagine how my partner is feeling when they talk. If I talk
while they are speaking it will be to say encouraging things, both
to remind myself to listen and to make them aware that I am
listening.
Goal: To lose weight and improve my cardiovascular health so that I can spend more time hiking
with my family because I value those experiences
Example replacement behavior: I will set up a weekend schedule to help me better control my
eating. I will find a friend who supports me and makes me feel
great about myself and either chat with them before I go to the
gym or get them to come with me.
Developing replacement behaviors is the next step after self-monitoring which we cover in more
detail in coming chapters. The examples here are just to help you understand that we are not
harping on unwanted behavior, but rather assessing it for easier alteration.
Self-Monitoring
Before the behavior
The things that precede your behavior are usually involved in triggering it. Taking note of these
cues will help you identify targets for change.
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Who, Where, What, When, Why
Tracking who you were with, where you were, what was happening, and when establishes the
physical context of your behavior. Thinking about why you behaved the way you did illuminates the
mental or emotional antecedents of your behavior. If you are trying to stop boasting as much
about yourself you might find that you do this most when you are around a certain group of
friends, at parties, or other places where you are hoping to meet a romantic partner. When you
examine the emotions you experience before boasting loudly to these friends, you might realize
that you perceive them as more attractive and confident than you and that your boasting is
triggered by a need to prove you are on their level. There are many potential examples, but in any
case, examining the internal and external contexts that precede your behavior is critical for behavior
change. Only by tracking your experiences and feelings can you develop a strong understanding of
why you do what you do and only by studying the context of this behavior will you be able to
interrupt it and change.
The behavior itself: quantification
The aspects of your behavior that you track will depend on the behavior you are trying to
understand. Some behaviors, like instances of mindless snacking have easy parameters to identify:
How often does this happen? What do you eat? How much do you eat? Other behaviors, such as
negative fantasies (where you imagine failing or embarrassing yourself) are less straight-forward.
You might track the frequency of these thoughts, but the intensity and content are more difficult to
quantify. In cases like this you can design a personal 1-10 scale of how intense or upsetting the
thoughts were to you. Below are some basic parameters of behavior to begin monitoring, but you
should consider getting inventive with your tracking of more abstract habits such as thought
patterns. What you feel during the behavior might not be quantifiable, but it can be instructive.
Frequency
Logging the frequency of a particular behavior not only tells you how often it happens, it can
illuminate trends that you may not have otherwise noticed. Frequency tracking can tell you what
days and times a specific behavior is most likely to arise. You might discover that you skip training
most often on Thursdays. You might then make the connection that your anxiety skyrockets with
your high pressure Thursday work meeting and makes you more likely to skip going to the gym.
Such a realization allows you to make choices that better support your gym-going behavior. You
could make Thursday a rest day and train on Wednesdays instead. This would better ensure your
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gym consistency since you are more likely to go to the gym on days other than Thursday. By
tracking the frequency of your behavior, you can discover identify its timing, which can help you
design a plan for change.
Tracking behavior frequency also provides an easy metric to observe trends. If you are trying to
eliminate a behavior but not tracking its frequency, you might not realize that you are improving.
Noticing the difference between biting your nails 21 versus 19 versus 16 times per week would be
difficult without counting. You might miss out on feeling self-efficacious and decide that ending
your nail biting habit is too difficult––giving up without ever realizing you were on your way! If you
are trying to add a desired behavior, while noticing an increase from zero is pretty easy, trends
upward from there can get more difficult without tracking.
Duration
Tracking how long a behavior persists is also helpful. Your incidences of binge eating might not be
decreasing on a weekly basis, but they might be getting shorter. Maybe you are still binge eating
twice per week on Saturday and Sunday, but instead of all-day binges, you only lose control for a
meal or two. This gradual improvement should be celebrated and used to motivate continued
work. You might also find that the duration of a behavior coincides with the duration of a stressor
or cue. Maybe you have negative fantasies for the entire weekend whenever your mother-in-law is
in town Saturday through Sunday. This realization might lead you to examine your social
interaction with her and how it makes you feel, providing a starting place for a change of thought
pattern.
Intensity
Quantifying the intensity of a behavior is not always a simple task. For more abstract behaviors like
negative self-thoughts or catastrophic fantasies, setting up a personal rating system can be a useful
metric. Perhaps a score of one means you felt a momentary worry, but it faded quickly and did not
impact your mood. A score of 10 might mean that the negative thoughts were so intense that they
impacted your mood and other behavior for the rest of the day. Even a less abstract behavior, such
as a binge eating session, can be rated on emotional intensity. A 1-10 scale could rate how beyond
your control or compulsive the binge session felt. Or it could score how mindless or how emotional
the eating was. In the beginning you may track many aspects of a behavior and then later focus on
the ones most related to what you find your triggers to be. Using the binge eating example, you
might discover that eating is generally triggered by emotion and that tracking how emotional you
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feel during the episode is a better metric in your behavior change plan than tracking how mindless
it was.
Quantifying intensity can also help you moderate behaviors that you do not want to eliminate
entirely! If overeating chips is your unwanted behavior, you probably don’t want to eliminate chips
from the rest of your life (this kind of extreme response is usually counterproductive to sustained
behavior change). You can rate your level of craving along with the level of guilt you will feel and
only indulge when craving is high and expected guilt is low. Doing this consistently might lead you
to eat chips only when you will truly enjoy them rather than doing so habitually––when you eat
chips by conscious choice the enjoyment should be higher and the guilt eventually be eliminated.
What need the behavior satisfies
How you feel during your behavior can also provide important information. If you find that when
you mindlessly eat cookies you feel profoundly relieved of stress, you now know that stress relief is
a need being fulfilled. If you can find an alternative option that relieves stress, you have a target
replacement behavior lined up! Some of our unwanted behaviors serve an important emotional
purpose and rather than trying to brute-force our way to changing those behaviors, we can instead
satisfy our needs with a more productive choice. This is not to say that eating cookies is never
productive, this is just an example that assumes someone wants to limit mindless consumption of
cookies and must first understand why they are doing it. In other cases, you might find that there is
no positive feeling while engaging in the behavior. This information also provides an opportunity
for change, incentivizing an alternative behavior might make it easier to eliminate this habit. If you
bite your nails when stressed but it brings no stress relief, you might identify something that does
and try replacing nail-biting with that.
After the behavior
The post-behavior assessment involves examining the end consequences of your behavior.
Describing what happened as a result of how you behaved and how you felt about it that can
provide insight. For example, if you are trying to exaggerate less when you tell stories, you might
realize that the reactions you get from your listeners makes you feel important but wears off to the
point where you feel worse about yourself. You feel like a fraud and that people would not like you
as much if you didn’t tell wild stories. This gives you something to work on––your lack of
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confidence is the real target for change. Working on that will be more productive and will
eventually help eliminate the habit of exaggeration.
Tracking the details of your behavior identifies multiple aspects that can be targeted for change.
Changing habits never happens overnight; many people lose motivation as they see themselves
continuing to engage in unwanted behavior despite hard work. Just because you are still taking the
elevator when you promised yourself to start taking the stairs does not mean you aren’t taking the
stairs more than before! Tracking can reveal your gradual changes so that doing more of a desired
behavior (or less of an unwanted one) each week can be a motivating win. There will be ups and
downs when endeavoring to change your habits, but we should assess trends and be affirmed
when they are moving in the right direction. We also develop our behaviors for good reason.
Simply forcing our way out of them can leave needs unfulfilled, making relapse likely. Finding ways
to satisfy our needs with goal-directed habits makes us happier, more productive people.
Monitoring tools
Digital Tools
Smart phones provide many resources that can be effective for training self-awareness and
monitoring behavior41. Whether you use an app designed specifically for your purpose or a digital
note pad with graphing tools, phone-based tracking is a great option because your phone is
almost always nearby. Excel and similar computer-software-based spread sheets are also a simple
and easy to use digital tool for most.
The benefit of digital tools is that they offer the ability to look at your data in many ways. You can
plot your behavior information on different types of graphs across different scales and observe
trends. This can be very helpful so long as it is not overwhelming––if you find yourself
overwhelmed with information, either minimize your display options or stick with manual tracking.
Manual Tools
Some prefer to track by keeping a journal. There may be something to be said for having a physical
object that cues you to keep up with your tracking that does not bear the distractions of a smart
phone. If you take your journal out of your bag when you get to work, set it on your table when
94
you return home, or keep it at your bedside to see when you wake up; these can all be reminders.
Seeing the journal can be a cue to self-monitor and help build your new tracking habit.
A new journal might also be a good way to punctuate your new plan for change. It is physical
object that represents this plan and that you can start and end your day with as well as carry
around with you. Choose one in your favorite color and pair it with your favorite type of writing
utensil to encourage yourself in taking the first steps toward self-improvement.
However you choose to track, make your monitoring tool easy to access. Since our memories are
not always accurate, tracking our behavior as recently as possible is best. You should have access to
your log throughout the day so that you can input data on the spot. Not only does time between
action and logging diminish the likelihood of accuracy, it limits our ability to notice exact moods
that precipitated our behaviors. For example, let’s say you were tracking fights with your partner.
Imagine on Monday you had not eaten and you encountered more traffic than usual on your
commute home from work. You exploded at your partner for not doing the dishes as they had
promised to do. If you record this incident immediately you are likely to log all of the added stress
from the day, but if you look back on the fight a week later to log the details, you might just
remember that your partner had not done the dishes and miss the opportunity to see how
preceding events influenced your response to your partner.
If you are tracking manually you might choose a journal small enough to fit in a pocket or purse so
that it is always available without being cumbersome. If you are tracking digitally, you might just use
a simple note app in your phone. In either case, you can always transfer your quick in-the-moment
notes to a more formal excel sheet or larger journal at home.
Once you have an idea of what behaviors you are tracking and what triggers them, you might be
able to track more simply. Rather than journaling every action, you could keep a notecard in your
pocket and put a check mark next to pre-written behaviors and pre-written triggers. This way,
logging is less invasive and more efficient. Be certain to log any new insights you acquire by being
mindful of the situations as you progress through this step.
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Self-Monitoring Dangers and Caveats
Studying only the unwanted facets of ourselves can decrease our feelings of self-efficacy by overhighlighting negative personal perceptions. This is especially true at the outset of the behaviorchange process when we are primarily assessing and not yet working on change. During this phase,
it is a good idea to make sure you are also becoming aware of the behaviors and habits that you
are proud of. Track these behaviors or make a point to write down three things you did well each
day and describe the contexts in which they occurred.
Information about when and why you act in agreement with your goals will also be valuable. This
shows you how and when you are at your best. You can use this information later in your behaviorchange plans to structure outcomes for replacement behaviors that mirror the rewards of your intact, satisfying habits. You might also find what people, situations, and feelings best promote your
desired behaviors. Then you can spend more time with those people, in those situations, and
fostering those feelings.
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EVIDENCE-BASED
HABIT BUILDING
C H A PT E R 6 W O R K S H E E T
Self-Monitoring
This worksheet should be a small portion of your self-monitoring. I encourage
you to find other ways to monitor your behavior as well. While I do not encourage constant vigilance with regard to your behavior, when trying to make changes, more extreme tracking can be worthwhile until the new behavior becomes
automatic. Once you have established your desired habits, careful tracking will
no longer be necessary, and you can relax knowing that your default behavior
serves your desired outcomes!
Reframe your obstacles (from Chapter 3’s worksheet) to be within your control (for example rather than “the presence of food at work
makes it hard to eat healthily”, write “because it is challenging to stick to
my healthy diet at work, I will need to build careful plans and contingencies”):
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EVIDENCE-BASED
HABIT BUILDING
C H A PT E R 6 W O R K S H E E T
Dissect your behavior:
Behavior:
Contexts in which it occurs or things that cue it (who, what, where, why,
when):
Moods, thoughts, or feelings that usually precede it:
Moods, thoughts, or feelings that result after doing it:
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EVIDENCE-BASED
HABIT BUILDING
C H A PT E R 6 W O R K S H E E T
Track the frequency of your unwanted behavior on a calendar
(example below).
Track the duration or intensity of your unwanted behavior:
Date:
Start Time:
End Time:
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EVIDENCE-BASED
HABIT BUILDING
C H A PT E R 6 W O R K S H E E T
Optional ratings depending on behavior (get creative and develop
your own rating systems for your behavior as well!):
How emotional was the behavior:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
How intense was the compulsion to do the behavior:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
How aware were you during the behavior:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
How satisfying was the behavior:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
How much guilt did you feel about the behavior:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
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EVIDENCE-BASED
HABIT BUILDING
C H A PT E R 6 W O R K S H E E T
Write down three things per day that you do well / three behaviors
per day that supported your goals and made you feel proud:
Dissect your successful behaviors:
Behavior 1:
How is behavior 1 in line with your personal values? :
Contexts in which it occurs or things that cue it (who, what, where, why,
when):
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EVIDENCE-BASED
HABIT BUILDING
C H A PT E R 6 W O R K S H E E T
Moods, thoughts, or feelings that usually precede it:
Moods, thoughts, or feelings that result after doing it:
Behavior 2:
How is behavior 2 in line with your personal values? :
Contexts in which it occurs or things that cue it (who, what, where, why,
when):
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EVIDENCE-BASED
HABIT BUILDING
C H A PT E R 6 W O R K S H E E T
Moods, thoughts, or feelings that usually precede it:
Moods, thoughts, or feelings that result after doing it:
Behavior 3:
How is behavior 3 in line with your personal values? :
Contexts in which it occurs or things that cue it (who, what, where, why,
when):
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EVIDENCE-BASED
HABIT BUILDING
C H A PT E R 6 W O R K S H E E T
Moods, thoughts, or feelings that usually precede it:
Moods, thoughts, or feelings that result after doing it:
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CHAPTER 7
Keep Your Eye Off the Prize
(and On Your Behavior)
General Tactics for Habit Change
“A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed
down the stairs a step at a time.”
Mark Twain
As convenient as it would be, change does not come from contemplating a goal. Daydreaming
about a promotion might motivate you, but it is working hard and excelling at your job that will
bring that dream to fruition. It is behavior that determines outcomes. Different people with the
exact same goals will experience a variety of outcomes depending on how they consistently act. A
person who practices daily can become fluent in a new language while someone who casually
looks up words and plays language games might be able to speak conversationally, and someone
who only thinks about how cool it would be to speak another language will not make any progress.
For any goal, your primary point of focus should be what you are doing to that end on a daily
basis.
Now that you have identified your goal, subgoals, and have started monitoring your behaviors, it is
time to work on changing them. This part of the process is as individual as any other. Of course, if
your goal is fat loss, you should eat less and exercise more, if your goal is to apply to medical
school, study harder and party less. But what changes do you need to make to your individual
behavior in order for those things to happen?
Ten people who want to lose 15 pounds might have ten different sets of behavior that are
hindering their progress. Perhaps one binge eats on the weekends and needs to find a way to
maintain structured eating on Saturday and Sunday. Another might have trouble tracking food due
to a lack of knowledge and needs to learn to weigh, measure, and record. A third might decrease
their physical activity every time they reduce the number of calories they are consuming. Each of
these people needs to manage their individual counterproductive habits to reach the same goal of
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losing 15 pounds. These are just a few examples of the myriad of obstacles different people
encounter for any given goal. Goals and required behavioral changes to meet them are personal,
so consider your own behavior deeply when making a plan for change!
Daydreaming about an outcome can be motivating at first, but this motivation fades quickly and
fixating on an outcome can become a source of stress, negative emotion, and inaction. Studies
show that after working towards a goal, thinking about the outcome makes beginners work less
and feel worse, all while increasing their desire to achieve the outcome1–3. Focusing too much on
the end-goal broadens the gap between intentions and behaviors and reduces self-efficacy––not a
recipe for success!
Even if you are experienced, an outcome goal is a delayed gratification. Finding immediate
reinforcers for your developing habits tides you over until the long-term outcome becomes a
reality. In a fitness example, working on technique improvements on lifts, tracking increases in
strength, and celebrating consistency in gym attendance should be emphasized. This provides
constant reinforcers to build self-efficacy. It will also make the work more personal, which further
supports success.
Daydreaming might initially foster some motivation, but motivation is fickle. A changed habit is a
loyal ally in the fight to achieve your goals.
Write Down Your Personal, Internally Driven ‘Why’
Sometimes the biggest problem with a new habit is that the reward for the behavior comes at a
delay. Decreasing your consumption of less-healthy food is not immediately satisfying and you
might not see the positive impact for months or years. The tastiness of candy bars is an immediate,
salient reward. This is one of the reasons that a focus on behavioral modification goals (leading up
to long-term outcomes) is so useful. Another way to make your long-term goals more significant
than immediate gratification is to maintain focus on your personal reasons for pursuing them. Your
‘why’ reminds you of what you personally stand to gain (integrity with your values) by adhering to
your plan when you are faced with immediate rewards for alternative behavior. Your ‘why’ gives
you a potential immediate reward for the desired behavior, if you keep it handy physically or in
your mind.
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The reasons that people want to change vary. Knowing your reason is important. Once the
drudgery of changing old habits begins, it is easy to lose sight of what made you want to change in
the first place. We have all reached a point in the process of changing a habit where we wonder if
what we are doing is worth the struggle. Write down precisely how the change you are working on
will improve your life. When motivation dwindles you can return to this. Perhaps you might even
return to it and find the work is not worth it to you. Maybe the process of trying to reach the goal
has altered your priorities and you are no longer willing to make the trade-offs . Either way,
determine your ‘why’ and revisit it regularly during the process.
As discussed in the chapter on goal delineation, working towards goals that align with your
personal values is more satisfying and lends itself to more success. Sometimes in work and family
life we must make changes that are externally driven at first. Your partner wants you to cut back on
screen time, your job requires you to make 6:00 am meetings twice a week, or being competitive in
your sport requires maintaining a leaner physique that you would normally prefer. These changes
might not appeal to you at all––you might not initially have an internal ‘why’ for getting out of bed
at 5:00 am for work when you used to wake at 7:00 am.
Although all of the above examples might start with external drive, there can be personal reasons
to pursue them. You probably want a happy partnership with your significant other and have ideals
that align with having a harmonious relationship. Working to spend less time watching TV and
more time with your partner can be driven by the latter rather than the external ‘why’ of making
someone else happy. When you return to your reason for changing in times of struggle, rather
than having written down “my partner wants me to watch less TV” you will have written “I want to
live up to my promises at the start of this relationship and be a good partner. I want to put in my
share of the work to achieve my ideal of a harmonious relationship”––reminding yourself that living
according to your ideals requires this behavioral change. The early meeting time might not be
something you would aspire to on your own if you are a night owl who gets their best work done
in the evening; that does not mean that this change cannot have an internal driver. Most people
respect a good work ethic and a commitment to high-quality performance. You can align your
personal belief that one should do their job to the best of their ability with the goal of getting up
early and being on time to those meetings. The satisfaction comes not from the getting up early,
but from the alignment of your work ethic with what is asked of you and how you respond. We can
apply the same logic to our sport example. In many sports, staying lean is beneficial for competition
either due to weight classes or improved speed and agility. Foregoing some indulgences to remain
lean is not always easy, but rather than framing this as something you are forced to do, make your
‘why’ personal. Write down how good you will feel if you do everything in your power to win your
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next competition or perform your best at your next game. Your why does not have to be “to win”, it
can just be to know you have done your absolute best and never have to question whether you
should have prepared more. It might involve considering how you will feel when you retire from
competition––will you have regrets about how much you put into it or lament the things you could
have done to push harder? The answer to this might be different for everyone and this is part of
why this exercise is so important. If you think missing out on some fun is a worse fate than poor
sport performance, then you can choose your goals accordingly––be a little less lean and a little
less competitive, but happier.
Aligning your reasons with your ideals will make a large difference in whether you achieve your
goals and feel satisfied. This exercise can help you refine your goals and discover they are different
than you originally envisioned. Now that you have one or more goals, an understanding of your
current behavior, and know your personal ‘why’, it is time to outline what behaviors you have to
change to reach your target.
Seek More Social Support, Less Social Comparison
Social support is the feeling of being esteemed, valued, and cared for by others as a part of a
mutually beneficial social network. Social support satisfies the need for interpersonal connection
proposed in self-determination theory4. The support of loved ones has a seemingly unlimited list of
potential benefits for well-being, physical health, and longevity5–8. It can also help with goal
acquisition, but the degree of effectiveness depends on you9–11. If you perceive the support of your
friends and family as indicating that they care for and value you, their cheerleading will be more
effective12. If you see their support as directly facilitating your goals, it might impair your intrinsic
drive to achieve! A series of studies looked at how hard people work towards their exercise,
academic, and career goals depending on how they perceive their social support. When people
believed their partners could help them directly in their pursuits, they didn’t work as hard13,14. Social
support can be invaluable, but make sure that you are not leaning so hard on your support that
you forget to put in the work yourself. Allow your loved ones to make you feel valued and know
that they are there to cheer you on, but remember that the work of self-change must be your own.
Fostering productive social support also means being honest with your social network. Hiding your
plan to get healthier from your loved ones because you are afraid to disappoint them is common.
If you have the experience of being teased for your goals by friends and family, try a new tactic. Sit
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down with each of them, one on one, and sincerely describe your goals, behavior change plans,
and personal ‘why’. Impress upon them how important these are to you and ask for their support.
Very few loved ones will continue to tease or ignore your goal-related requests after a conversation
of this nature.
Some people have trouble with goals such as decreasing alcohol intake or dieting when workplace
get-togethers are a big part of their job. They seem to forget that people respect adherence to a
goal and the behaviors needed to achieve it. If you say you are going to do something and follow
through, you can bet that social pressure to stray from your goal will turn to respect for your
fortitude––who doesn’t want persistent dedication in an employee or coworker? Standing up to
peer pressure can engender the kind of esteem that ends up providing social support in the
workplace––people believe in you because they have seen you persist and achieve.
While social support appears to be primarily positive, another type of interaction, social
comparison, is often associated with negative consequences15–20. Social comparison is when we
take our goals and compare status and outcome with others instead of focusing on our own
progress. We tend to look to those ahead of us for motivation, but this is just an amplified version
of focusing too much on our own outcomes. Our own outcomes are distant enough to be
demotivating, so imagine the effect of focusing on the outcomes of others who might be years
ahead of us in their goal pursuits. Looking at people much fitter or more economically successful
than ourselves mainly serves to make us feel worse about ourselves but do even less to change15–20.
We can take this to mean that following a bunch of fitness models online when trying to lose
weight (or analogous social comparison behavior) is counterproductive. Focusing on your own
process and your own successes while fostering supportive relationships will likely leave you
happier and more likely to achieve your goals.
Much of the social comparison research has been conducted using social media because it is a
readily abundant source of data. It might be easy to conclude that social media is bad for goal
setting and self-efficacy because it encourages self-comparison. Like most things, it is all in how you
use it! Social media can also provide a venue for social support21,22. You might find yourself
pursuing a goal that your close friends and family do not understand. Perhaps you are starting to
train Jiu Jitsu and don’t feel that you can talk to loved ones about the ups and downs of training.
Join a social media group of Jiu Jitsu practitioners with whom you can chat, complain, ask
questions, and mutually support. The support of close friends is always welcome, but sometimes
you need to interact with people on a similar path. If you are starting a diet, make a friend online
who is doing the same program at the same time (an “accountability buddy”). Social media, like
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anything else should be used carefully. It can be a source of social support or it can be a source of
social comparison; for your best goal achievement the latter is recommended!
Write a Self-Contract
Evidence shows that writing a contract (whether you give it to someone else, post it publicly, or just
make a commitment to yourself) can improve adherence to a plan23–26. Writing up a self-contract is
fairly easy and provides the opportunity to restate your goals, subgoals, intentions for behavior
change, and personal ‘why’. The act of reiterating your plan serves as a reminder of your intrinsic
motivation and reinforces your intentions. Make certain that the contract is detailed, explaining
what you plan to do to support the goals you make and why. Sign it and date it. If you can, post it
somewhere you will see it regularly; this will also help keep the promise you made in mind daily.
Break Down Unwanted Behavior
Change contexts
As we have discussed, habits are triggered by particular contexts or cues. These can be emotional
(stress triggers a binge eating habit), location-contextual (a dentist’s office triggers a habitual
pattern of anxiety), situational (a social gathering triggers habitual feelings of insecurity), auditory
(the sound of a chip bag opening triggers a craving for chips), or physical (the feel of putting on
your competition uniform triggers excitement). Contexts can be multilayered and complex. An
important part of self-monitoring for behavior change is to pay attention to the situations and
experiences that trigger your own unwanted habits and those that might be used to trigger new
behaviors.
Using contextual changes to alter behavior can be as simple as driving a different route if you are
trying to avoid eating cheeseburgers and you generally feel compelled to stop at a fast-food
restaurant on your usual drive home. Complex contexts might be more difficult to alter and require
more introspection. Perhaps you find that you are shy in work meetings, but not in social situations.
You can’t just skip work meetings to avoid the context that makes you feel shy, but perhaps you
can examine which aspects of the work meeting initiate those feelings and what aspects of social
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interaction allow you to be more at ease. Maybe in social situations you feel confident because you
were popular growing up and had success interacting with people socially. Perhaps you can make a
point to have a social interaction with a colleague prior to work meetings––such as a pre-meeting
coffee to chat with a workmate you get along with. You might then be able to bring some of your
social confidence into the meeting by adding the acute reminder of your social prowess. You might
find that you are able to stay on a healthy eating plan until you visit with friends or go out on
weekends. Adjust these situations to overlap with those in which you are more successful. Instead
of a restaurant, invite a friend to your place for dinner––a setting in which you are cued to be more
moderate in your food intake. Replace some trips to the bar with hikes or other physical group
activities. On the flip side, see if you can adjust the context by making small changes to your
behavior. Let’s say you often talk negatively or make fun of others behind their backs and find after
self-monitoring that you do this most often when you are feeling insecure. See if forcing yourself to
say something nice in place of some of your “trash-talk” can alter your mood. If this works, the
context for the unwanted behavior is changed, weakening the unwanted habit.
Create a break between stimulus and response
Part of the problem with unwanted habits is that they arise quickly and automatically. The stimulus
(context, cue, or mood) triggers the response directly. If we create a space between the stimulus
and the response, we leave room for an alternative conscious decision.
One strategy borne from mindfulness is to attempt to catch yourself in the act of a habit. If you
have identified behaviors you wish to change and have worked on being more aware in your dayto-day life, you have all the tools you need. Perhaps you are working on communicating rather
than getting angry when your partner makes a disapproving face in response to your actions.
When you catch yourself responding with automatic anger, instead of letting anger take over,
pause and think about how much you love your partner, force yourself to smile, then ask what the
face was for. This removes the automaticity of your response. Your partner’s answer might end up
making you angry anyway, but at least you will have avoided a habitual response. Similarly, you
might have promised yourself you would not order an appetizer at a weekly lunch meet up with a
friend because you want to lose a couple pounds. Usually when you meet up with this friend you
immediately order fries to share. When you sit down at the restaurant across from your friend and
the waiter asks what you would like to order, the automatic response is the easier choice to make. If
you catch yourself, tell the waiter you need a moment, then explain to your friend you are on a
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short diet and will be back to fries in a few weeks. Now you have interrupted your automatic
response and enlisted social support for your goal-oriented choice!
Another way to think about this same idea is that of adding a glitch or a new turn in a series or
chain of habitual behaviors. When you get home from work do you take off your shoes, change
into pajamas, and crack a beer open every time? Now consider that you are trying to drink only on
the weekend; add a glitch! Call a friend or have some tea before changing into pajamas. Changing
the series of typical events alters the context of the behavior. It also provides a pause between
stimulus and response that makes it less likely that you behave without conscious thought.
Sometimes merely separating the stimulus for a habit from the action by time can make room for
goal-directed rather than automatic behavior. Again, this requires some focused awareness and
self-knowledge to implement.
Make unwanted behavior more difficult (increase activation energy)
The amount of energy it takes to select a specific action (often called activation energy) can help
shift our behavior––we will choose the easier route by default. This provides us the opportunity to
help our future selves make decisions that support our goals. One way of doing this is to increase
the activation energy for unwanted behaviors. This can serve two purposes. First, it makes it easier
to avoid the unwanted behavior. Second, the added steps to get to the unwanted behavior
provides a pause between trigger and action, giving us that valuable break between stimulus and
response to consider what we are doing. Let’s take the example of wanting to reduce how much
alcohol you consume when out with friends. One option for this might be to leave your ID in the
car or in a friend’s wallet. Going to the car or asking your friend for your ID are small tasks, but the
added step can be surprisingly effective. Even if it keeps you from ordering a drink for 30 additional
minutes, that is still improvement from an immediate order. Those 30 minutes to think about what
you are doing also affords you the chance to reiterate your ‘why’ for reducing alcohol consumption
and you might end up skipping drinks altogether.
Maybe you are trying to eat less processed foods in the interest of health. Make the things you are
trying to reduce in your diet harder to get. Having some treats is an important part of life, so
eliminating them entirely is unnecessary but making them harder to get can help with moderation.
An example might be to put your less health-promoting foods in a garage pantry or in a locked
box whose key is in another room away from the kitchen. This way just grabbing them is
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impossible; if after some contemplation you really want that cookie, you can get it with a little extra
work. This ensures that you assessed that the trade-off was worthwhile––rather than an impulsive
consumption of less healthy foods, you make choices to indulge in them based on cravings and the
weight of your options.
Perhaps you feel you are bickering with your partner too much. You can both fill a bowl with folded
up pieces of paper, each of which has jokes, compliments, or reasons you love each other written
on them. Then make a rule that if you start to bicker you have to pause and each read each other
something from one of the slips of paper before carrying on. Inserting a little humor or compassion
might increase the activation energy for bickering. Stopping to read also provides a break between
stimulus and response, making room to choose your actions more carefully.
Increasing the activation energy required to carry on with unwanted habits makes it easier to act
according to your goals. This is a skill that requires consistent practice and plenty of missteps
before it effects change. Develop strategies, try different tactics, and log changes to figure out what
works best for you. No idea is too silly if it works and no idea will work perfectly the first time!
Replacing Unwanted Behavior
Replacing an unwanted behavior with an alternative can be easier to achieve than eliminating a
behavior. A behavior vacuum often requires willpower and as we have learned, it is better to rely
on habits than mental strength. We see an extreme version of replacement behavior in addiction––
from replacement drugs meant to wean a person off of the harder stuff (giving them a substitute
with less negative effects), to former smokers chewing gum and sucking on lollipops. This does not
mean that the recommendations in the previous section are not useful––we can actively work to
make unwanted behaviors less likely while adding a behavior alternative as well.
The benefit of developing an alternative behavior to replace an unwanted one is that the
replacement can fulfill the same purpose. If you usually bite your nails in response to stress,
chewing gum as a replacement behavior might be an option. When you feel stressed it triggers nail
biting. Chewing gum instead can satisfy the chewing impulse and be an easier change to make
compared to refraining from biting your nails when the impulse strikes. If you can find a neutral
behavior that provides a similar reinforcement to the unwanted behavior, it will be easier to modify
the behavior. Chewing gum instead of nail biting is an example of replacing an unwanted behavior
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with a neutral one. An example of replacing the unwanted behavior with a desired behavior might
be flossing when stressed in place of nail biting.
If you can find neutral or desired behavior replacements that you enjoy, this might facilitate the
process further. If you love herbal tea and are trying to limit alcohol only to weekend nights,
replace your evening wine with tea on weeknights. You are still drinking something that brings you
joy, and that joy can ease the difficulty of denying yourself wine when you normally would indulge.
If you are trying to walk once a day when you get home from work instead of (or before) watching
shows on the couch, add a phone call to your best friend or a listen to your favorite podcast while
you walk. In this example you sweeten the desired behavior and maintain the sense of
entertainment that reinforced the behavior of watching shows on the couch.
This is an individual process; finding replacement behaviors that facilitate your desired changes is a
personal process.
Generalize replacement behavior
Many people think of memory only as the autobiographical representations of past events that
occur in their minds (going to grandma’s house as a kid, eating dinner yesterday). In reality,
anything encoded in your brain is memory––habits are a very strong form of unconscious memory.
Scientists study all types of memory in humans and animals and there is an interesting
phenomenon they observe. The term for “erasure” of a memory in research is “extinction”, but
unfortunately data have shown that no memory is truly “erased” or “extinct”. This is especially true
for memories that are as ingrained as habits. So even after retraining or replacement behaviors are
set and strong, there is always a chance for relapse27,28. Memory research also suggests that a
learned replacement behavior is even more sensitive to context that the original27,29–31. This means
that a brand-new context might precipitate the return of the old habit. For example, you had great
success replacing a habit of imagining everything that could go wrong with a habit of listing all the
good things that might happen in a stressful situation. For years you have been free of the former
habit, then you travel to a new country and get lost walking to your hotel at night. Suddenly your
negative thoughts flood back––the all-new context caused a reemergence of what you thought
was a long-gone habit. The good news is that the more a new behavior is generalized to different
contexts, the more resistant it is to relapse. Practice your replacement behavior in new situations
and different moods, working up from the easier to the more difficult ones.
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There are two important takeaways from this information. First, as you are learning new behaviors
you are paving new pathways in your adult brain. It is similar to the struggles of a baby learning to
walk and talk, but even more difficult because your adult brain is less plastic and already contains
learning that needs to be “undone”. It is normal to struggle and to fail, but consistent long-term
efforts will result in eventual change. Second, generalizing your new behavior to a variety of
situations and moods will make it more resilient. If you can get yourself to practice your
replacement behavior in different places, with different people, under different conditions, in
different moods, it will increase the chances that that behavior is sustained when you would
otherwise be at risk of falling back to old habits.
Use temptation bundling
Rather than replacing a behavior, in some cases you can use that behavior to reinforce another
desired behavior. The practice of tying an existing habit to a new one, or bootstrapping your
immediate gratification habits to goal-oriented behaviors, can help those desired behaviors
become habitual faster32–35. In one study, participants intending to start exercising were 51% more
likely to do so if the gym provided audiobooks that were not available anywhere else33. Consider
that you want to stop watching addictive shows online because the time spent doing so is getting
in the way of your goal to exercise more. The practice of temptation bundling would mean that you
restrict yourself from watching your binge-worthy shows unless you are simultaneously exercising.
This pairs the immediate gratification of watching the show with the act of exercising, making it
more desirable. It is important that you only allow yourself the indulgent activity when engaged in
the goal-directed behavior though. If you let yourself watch shows outside of the gym, this tactic is
unlikely to increase gym attendance and watching shows will again be taking up time that could be
spent in more productive ways.
Temptation bundling is different from rewarding yourself for wanted behavior. You are creating a
pleasurable association between a desired behavior and an existing habit. Allowing yourself the
indulgence only in the context of the goal-oriented new behavior gives it a positive role. We all
deserve to enjoy some indulgent foods and activities in moderation. Temptation bundling not only
helps you keep the indulgence moderate, it facilitates development of another healthy habit.
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Adding an Entirely New Behavior
Rehearse
Just as with adding a replacement behavior, any new behavior needs to be generalized. You should
practice your new behavior in as many situations as possible. Start with the easy ones (it’s easy to
go to the gym on a stress free Saturday when you have the whole day to get other things done),
then work up to the tough ones (it is harder to get to the gym when you are in a bad mood and
traveling for work in a new place). The more you practice your habit in different situations, the
more associations you will create with the behavior and the more robust it will be in the face of
obstacles!
Perform compatible behavior when target behavior is impossible
Sometimes things in life will get in the way of rehearsing your target behavior. Maybe you were
trying to establish a habit of going to the gym but got injured three weeks in. The habit may not
have been solidified at that point, but you don’t want to lose the progress that you have made. A
simple way to stay on track for your goal is to continue to go to the gym at the planned times. I am
not suggesting that you train when injured, but perhaps you have some physical therapy exercises
you could do there. You could do some light laps in the pool if your injury allows this. Even if you
only drive to the gym, take a walk around the track, stretch on a mat, or read about resistance
training in the corner, you are helping to solidify the habit of consistently going to the gym at a
certain time. Even though you might be unable to do your regular workouts, continuing the
consistent gym attendance will serve you when you are healed and cleared by your doctor or
physical therapist to return to training. There will be less work to do towards building your gym
habit as the only thing you will have to change is what you are doing when you arrive at the gym.
Getting yourself there is often more than half the battle; you will have been working on the harder
part even while unable to work out!
At times you will temporarily be too busy to include a new daily behavior that you are working on.
Even when we carefully plan our goals to fit in our schedules and capacities, work suddenly gets
unexpectedly hectic or an unforeseen event diverts your focus to other priorities. Let’s say you had
started a mindfulness meditation practice and your target was 20 minutes per day, three days per
week. As you are starting to gain some momentum with this habit, two people quit at work and you
have to pick up the slack until new hires are trained. It would be tempting to throw your meditation
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practice out the window for now. On the other hand, you might need the benefits of mindful
meditation more than ever! Twenty minutes three days per week might feel like more than you can
commit to with all you have going on. You can still develop some small aspect of your target habit
so that you will be all the further along when life calms down. Set aside five or even one minute(s)
per day three days a week. You might find that once you start your one minute, you end up giving
it ten because the practice centers you. Again, it is the initiation that is usually the hard part of a
new habit. Starting to meditate three times per week, even for a minute at a time, will make
bumping that up to twenty minutes easier when your schedule permits.
You don’t slash the other three tires when one goes flat, so you don’t have to throw all effort out
when your plans for behavior change get shifted or interrupted. Find ways to establish the hard
part of a habit, even if you are unable to complete the entire behavior or plan.
Make contingency plans and implementation intentions
Focusing solely on your outcome goal is not usually the best strategy for achievement. It is the
behavior between your intentions and outcomes that really determines whether they will match.
One means of focusing on behavior over outcome is to utilize ‘implementation intentions’36–41. An
implementation intention is an ‘if-then’ statement that helps you plan your behavior in anticipation
of triggering situations. It is a way of priming yourself to act in a way that supports your goals. If
you are trying to cut back on social drinking but still want to go out with your friends, you might
make the following implementation intention prior to going out: “If I am asked what I want to drink,
then I will say ‘diet coke’ (instead of my usual gin and tonic)”. You can write this statement down,
repeat it to yourself before leaving, or think it to yourself on the way out to meet your friends. The
simple action of making this statement to yourself increases your chances of ordering the diet coke
instead of the gin and tonic.
You can combine the practice of implementation intention with the baby steps concept. Rather
than eliminating gin and tonic entirely from your nights out, you can slowly reduce the amount you
drink. You can make the implementation intention; “if I order drinks, then my first three will be
herbal tea and my forth will be a gin and tonic” or “if I order drinks, then I will order diet coke for
the first two hours and after that order gin and tonics”. You will necessarily reduce the total gin and
tonic consumption for the night and either take a baby step towards eliminating drinking from your
social outings altogether or towards limiting how much you drink when you go out.
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Contingency plans are implementation intentions that can be made for when life obstacles
inevitably arise. Thinking about things that might get in the way of the perfect execution of our
intended behavior and making a “Plan B” and a “Plan C” can prevent us from losing control in
surprise situations. Perhaps you made an implementation intention to stay on your weight loss diet
at a dinner engagement for work. You looked at the restaurant menu ahead of time and wrote
down "If the waiter asks for my order, then I will ask for the salmon salad with dressing on the side”.
Then you arrive at the restaurant and the menu has changed! This might throw many people off,
sending them directly into an impulsive or habitual order––“Ok, I’ll have the double cheeseburger
with fries”. A contingency plan along with your implementation intentions would go a long way in
such a situation. Along with planning what you will order, a contingency plan of “and if that is not
available, then I will order a simple grilled chicken or fish dish and choose a low-impact side like
roasted veggies”. Plan C might be that, if none of the dinners are anywhere close to your target,
get an appetizer so that the meal is smaller and make up your missing macros when you get home.
While none of these plans are perfect, the detriment to your overall goal will be less than
impulsively ordering. These secondary and tertiary plans also keep you in the habit of managing
intake for your goal. You will still feel self-efficacious on Plan B or C because it truly was the best
you could do under the circumstances.
Make wanted behavior easier (decrease activation energy)
You can also facilitate the formation of desired behavior that supports your goals by using what
amount to non-verbal implementation intentions. Just as making an unwanted behavior more
difficult can aid your success, making the things you want to do easier will help you as well. There is
a reason that meal prep is lauded in the fitness community––having already prepared meals for
every day of the week makes it easier to eat what you planned to while on a goal-directed diet.
Similar facilitative behavior can be used for many different types of goals. For example, you are
trying to go to the gym Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings, but your motivation is at its
lowest when the alarm goes off in the early morning. The impending work of gathering gym
clothes and making a workout shake sounds like too much for 5:30 am, so you often go back to
sleep and then wake up later feeling guilty. You can take a number of steps to make it easier to
follow through on your gym plans. If possible, you might change your planned training time. If your
schedule allows it, there is no reason not to work out at whatever time you are most motivated and
save yourself the early morning struggle. If the mornings are your only option, you can make sure
you have a good sleep hygiene routine so that you get as much sleep as you need in order to
make getting up easier. Making a workout shake, putting it in the fridge, and preparing your gym
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clothes the night before reduces the activation energy needed to follow through with your morning
workout as well. If all you have to do is get dressed in the clothes next to your bed, grab a shake
from the fridge, and walk out the door, the preparation tasks might seem much less intimidating to
your groggy 5:30 am brain. You can try putting your alarm clock across the room next to your gym
clothes and printed out reminder of your ‘why’. This way, in order to hit snooze you would have to
get out of bed, walk over to your already prepared gym clothes, and be confronted with the reason
you wanted to start exercising in the first place. In order to go back to bed at that point, you have
to consciously disregard your commitment and forego the relative ease of going to the gym.
Standing there looking at the reason you should get up and the easy-access gym clothes might
make hitting snooze seem much sillier than when you are still in your warm bed, barely awake.
These strategies can be very effective. In this example you might still sleep in sometimes––you are
human after all––but your percentage of successful days would almost certainly be increased. The
increased gym attendance is beneficial in itself, but the successful behavior change would also build
self-efficacy, pride, and fuel more motivation to continue to improve.
Perhaps your goal is to spend more time with your partner, but you see the weeks slip by and
always seem to be saying “we will have some quality time next week, let’s plan it” but never making
it happen. Some options might be to set up automatic emails to yourself and your partner that go
out weekly and contain a list of restaurants you want to try, movies you want to watch, and or hikes
you want to do. Whenever you come across something you are both interested in, you can add to
the list in the automatic email. This way you and your partner both see the list of options weekly
and remember that you should set aside time to spend together. You could also have a hiking gobag or a night-out outfit set up and ready in your closet so that getting ready for an outing is less
time consuming. Do whatever you can to decrease the activation energy required to make the goal
behavior happen.
Maybe you are trying to eat more fruits and veggies, but they just keep going bad in your fridge.
Perhaps when you reach for a snack, the idea of peeling, chopping, or otherwise prepping is too
much and you end up grabbing something that you can just open and eat. You might try buying
pre-chopped fruits and premixed salad greens that make getting your fruits and veggies easier.
These are often more expensive but ultimately still cost less than packaged snacks or poor health!
Another option is to buy the uncut fruits and veggies and build a weekend habit of prepping those
for easy access during the week. There are many solutions to the same problem and some will
work better than others. The idea is to make it easier for you to eat more fruit and veggies.
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Find what the challenges are for you and reduce that struggle. The easier it is to do what you want,
the more likely you are to do it!
Use positive reinforcement
Positive reinforcement can help make your new behavior habitual by acting as a reward; you can
reward yourself for your new behavior in many ways. Look for rewards that are valuable (you really
look forward to them and would be disappointed if you missed out) but that you can live without.
You do not want the reward to be something you will give yourself despite not having performed
the desired behavior. Rewards can include just about anything. They could be watching a show,
getting a massage, or eating a favorite food. Or they can be as simple as taking a walk,
daydreaming about a vacation, or sketching. Shopping, reading a book, talking on the phone, etc.
are also options. In their book on self-directed behavior, Watson and Tharp give an instructive
example concerning a student trying to improve his study habits42: Even though he spent a decent
amount of time at the library, after assessing his study behaviors this student found that much of
the time he accumulated there amounted to chatting with others instead of studying. He enjoyed
chatting with his fellow students, but in order to make a behavioral shift toward more studying, he
changed his strategy. He studied for a full hour in his room before going to the library (more
minutes than he had previously clocked at the library). Then when he got to the library, he
rewarded himself for the studying by engaging in some guilt-free chatting. With this practice, this
student increased both his total weekly study time and his totally weekly socializing time. He used
what was previously his distraction to reinforce his desired behavior. This tactic made him both
more productive and happier.
The tactic of using what was previously your distraction activity to reward yourself for engaging in
desired behavior can be extrapolated to many situations. Perhaps you binge-watch shows instead
of working when working from home. You can reward yourself with a show if you get ‘x’ hours of
work finished. Be sure to track your actual work to confirm that you have not replaced show
watching with another distractor! Maybe you are writing a book but every time you sit down to
write you end up shopping for bathing suits for an upcoming vacation. Reward yourself with some
shopping time when you have finished an assigned amount of writing.
Using reinforcers that are in agreement with your outcome goals can make positive reinforcement
even more effective. If your goal is to purchase a home in the next year and you are saving money,
you might reinforce frugal behavior (skipping an online purchase) with some time spent browsing
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homes in your price range. This way the reward for your saving reminds you of the long-term goal,
fostering motivation and a sense of accomplishment. Your reward can also be a construct. In
another example from Watson and Tharp, a student who had a goal of getting better grades would
reward herself with a self-given grade for her studying every day. An A meant she studied
effectively, a B less so, and so on42. Even though she gave herself these study grades, the student
looked back on her ‘A’ studying days with pride and this self-grading practice helped her improve
her institution-given grades in the long run.
This self-reward strategy works best when reinforcement follows the behavior immediately. The
student in the above example probably would have found that a weekly study grade was
ineffective, but her daily grades, because the reward could be tied to a recent behavior, acted as a
better modifier.
Self-reinforcement can sometimes be difficult. After all you must rely on the person you are trying
to change––yourself. This reiterates the benefit of social support. Many of us are willing to let
ourselves down much sooner than we would let a loved one down. Setting up reinforcers such as
going out to dinner with your partner or meeting up with your best friend mean that if you fail to
meet the requirement, you let yourself and a loved one down. This can be motivating in two ways.
First, you have the accountability of wanting to make your friend or partner happy. Second, you
have someone to call for support if you are feeling like you might miss the mark.
Use negative reinforcement (not punishment)
Punishment for unwanted behavior or for failing to engage desirable behavior is not an effective
strategy. While people are generally good at rewarding themselves, they are less likely to
administer self-punishment. Punishment does not involve learning new ways to behave, only
suppressing unwanted action. This requires willpower, which as we have learned, is not as reliable
as habits. Negative reinforcement on the other hand, removes the consequence to a wanted
behavior. This strategy might be a little more difficult than providing a reward for yourself but is still
feasible. If the traffic to the nearest gym is so terrible after work that it prevents you from going to
the gym regularly at that time, find a way to eliminate this issue. You could look for a closer gym or
start to collect items to build a garage gym. You could bike instead of drive to the gym or squeeze
in gym sessions on your lunch break at work when traffic is not as bad. This eliminates the negative
consequence (traffic) of your desired behavior (going to the gym). Negative reinforcement is similar
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to decreasing activation energy for wanted behaviors. Both involve making desired actions less
painful to perform by removing obstacles.
Tie behaviors to stable cues and chain habits
Tying a new behavior to a stable habit makes that new behavior easier to habitualize. It is easier to
get in the habit of doing something new if you do it after something you would do no matter
what43–46. If you want to start reading more, rather than choosing a time (for example 4pm on
Saturdays and Sundays) tack this behavior onto some existing habit. Reading for 30 minutes after
workouts would be a great plan if you work out consistently every week. This habit will be much
easier to initiate because the current workout habit provides the cue for the new reading habit. A
behavioral context is a better cue than a time of day because it is a more complex set of
circumstances that will better trigger the new behavior.
Chaining more than two behaviors can be a great way to tack on more changes once the initial
new habit is stable. For example, maybe you want to start keeping your house cleaner and cooking
meals at home. You can start chaining tidying the kitchen onto your morning coffee routine on
Saturdays. Then once Saturday cleaning is a regular habit, add meal prep to the chain. Your kitchen
will be clean so that prep will be easier and the sequence of habits will reinforce each other.
When enough habitual behaviors are chained together, this becomes a routine. A routine can be
an extremely productive series of chained habits built strategically to support your goals47. Tack on
new behaviors as previously added habits solidify and watch your progress towards your outcome
goals improve exponentially. This does not mean that life must be excessively structured; making
leisure and relaxation a part of your weekly routine is an important part of life-balance. You might
even find that leisure time brings more joy and less guilt when it is planned and integrated into a
productive weekly routine.
Use shaping for new behaviors
Just like the pigeon in Skinner’s box must learn how to peck the lever for a reward in a stepwise
manner, you might have to develop a desired behavior little by little. Sometimes the context that
cues a behavior is the start of that behavior itself. Eating the first couple chips from a bag might
trigger the habit of finishing the entire bag. If you can internalize the concept that eating a few
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chips does not require you to finish the whole bag, you are altering your brain’s understanding of
the cue “first few chips”. You might have to decrease the number of chips by just one to start and
work your way back. Your first step might be to leave a single chip in the bottom of the bag. Once
this is easy, you might leave 2-3 chips in the bag, then 25% of the bag and so on. Being able to eat
just a few chips and stop rather than one chip cueing you to eat the whole bag every time, you will
be able to enjoy chips without the problematic behavior. You can also make the conscious choice
to eat the whole bag now and then! This also keeps chips from becoming a “forbidden fruit” and
makes resumption of overeating them less likely than complete abstinence27.
Change emotional habits: Use priming and self-talk
Many of you may have found that as you began to practice self-monitoring your emotional
responses play a big role in your unwanted behavior. Perhaps becoming aware that when you are
anxious you overeat has not made you feel that you can control the impulse. One beneficial
method for altering your emotional reactions is to prime yourself to manage your responses
differently. This can be done consciously and unconsciously. To consciously prime yourself to
respond differently to cues that produce emotions that lead to undesirable behavior, you must
know yourself and plan ahead. You can write or recite something along the lines of the following:
“When I face [insert situation here] I will approach it with an unemotional attitude. I will think of
myself as detached and consider the situation objectively” (adapted from Williams et al., 2009)48.
Let’s say you become anxious when going to the gym. You feel that people are looking at you and
you don’t belong there. You are so overcome by these emotions that you often avoid the gym,
hurry through your workout, or leave early. You are so preoccupied with your self-consciousness
that you rarely focus on your exercise while at the gym. The negative emotions you have are
holding you back from getting regular, productive training. You might then recite to yourself:
“When I go to the gym, I will detach myself from the idea of being looked at. I will approach
working out objectively––thinking about the program and what my goals for the day are. I will be
unemotional about anything that might happen at the gym”. As surprising as it may sound, the
mere act of reciting this to yourself can minimize your emotional response to the gym. One study
showed that statements of this kind could lessen heart rate increases in response to a stressful
situation with only one instance of practice48. Similarly, subjects who were primed with words (by
reading or hearing beforehand) like “carefully”, “strategy”, or “reassess” had less emotional
responses to stressful situations.
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To take this a step further, using positive self-talk in combination with this type of unemotional
priming might be even more helpful49–52. Maybe you find when you have several life obstacles
arise, you become emotional, make hasty decisions, and disregard your goal behavior. You
develop a “who cares, everything is just too hard” attitude. In this case you might say or write down
the following for next time: “Things cannot always go perfectly and sometimes there will be
struggles. This is how life is and it does not mean that I am a failure. I will face these obstacles
unemotionally and objectively determine the best way to move past them. I will do this because I
am capable”. You might also use in-the-moment self-talk to reason through the situation and
reduce the emotionality of your responses. Asking yourself why you are feeling what you are
feeling can help you to reframe the situation more objectively.
Some data suggest that talking to yourself in the second or third person during emotional
circumstances might increase self-control, tame emotional responses, and lead to better sport
performance49,52–55! I might say something like “What is Melissa feeling right now and what is
making her feel that way?” or “Melissa is capable of working through this. There is no reason for
her to feel anxious. She has encountered this situation before and has to tools to handle it”.
Speaking to yourself in the second or third person forces you to look at the situation from an
external perspective, which lessons the emotional aspect and allows more objectivity.
Feelings play a substantial role in your behavior. Finding ways to manage them is a big part of habit
change. Make sure that your self-monitoring includes assessment of when you become emotional
in ways that negatively impact your life. Raising awareness of your emotional reactions improves
self-regulation skill sets56. Examine your emotional responses, write about them, reframe them––
this will further strengthen your emotional-control. Science suggests this is possible and every
available implement should be put to use in our behavior change pursuits!
If this chapter seemed overwhelming, it is because there many ways to target behavior change.
Having so many tools in your habit-change toolbox means that you can experiment with different
strategies until you find the plan that works best for you. In the next chapter we will outline a step
by step plan to initiate a behavior change. Feel free to reread these chapters as you work on your
own behavior change initiative as many things may become clearer or more relevant to you as you
work through your own process.
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EVIDENCE-BASED
HABIT BUILDING
C H A PT E R 7 W O R K S H E E T
Action Plan
Now it is time to start working directly on behavior change in pursuit of your
goals. First, let’s remind ourselves why we are working on these goals at all.
Your Why* Take a look back at your answers from the Chapter 3
worksheet regarding how your goals are tied to your personal ideals.
Along with the new knowledge you have gained across Chapters 4-6, use
this to state your reason for pursuing your goal/s. Remember to frame
your why with intrinsic values in mind.
*Consider printing your why or a picture that represents it and posting where you
will see it daily. This way you will see a visual reminder of your reasons when you
are feeling tempted to stray from your course.
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EVIDENCE-BASED
HABIT BUILDING
C H A PT E R 7 W O R K S H E E T
Social support options (Write down people in your life who make you
feel believed in. Remember to call on them for support, but not lean on
them for results):
List ways you tend to compare yourself to others and strategies to
avoid this (Unfollowing social-media accounts that make you feel bad
about your progress etc.)
Write and print a self-contract (Make sure your
contract includes the specifics of your behavior plan,
your why, and your signature.)
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EVIDENCE-BASED
HABIT BUILDING
C H A PT E R 7 W O R K S H E E T
Write down behaviors that impede your goal. Make sure to write
them in a way that is specific and actionable (rather than “I am bad at
listening”, write “I think about work while my partner is talking”):
Write down the contexts in which your unwanted behavior arises
(Include places, people, moods, etc.):
Write “if, then” implementation intentions for the above contexts
and behaviors. (If I am invited to drink after work, then I will say, ‘sorry,
I have plans, let’s meet up on the weekend instead.’):
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C H A PT E R 7 W O R K S H E E T
Write down ways you might create a break between the cues for your
unwanted behavior and the behavior itself:
Write down ways that you can make your unwanted behaviors more
difficult to perform. (I will put my phone in the other room when
spending time with my family so that it is more difficult to get to):
Write down negative thoughts that encourage unwanted behavior:
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HABIT BUILDING
C H A PT E R 7 W O R K S H E E T
Write down replacement positive thoughts for the above negative
ones. Include evidence to support the positive thoughts (Replace
“I am lazy”, with “I am hard working, as evidenced by the fact that I am
actively seeking to change my habits. This is not characteristic of a lazy
person”):
Write down behaviors that will get you to your goal. Make sure to
write them in a way that is specific and actionable (for example rather
than “I need to exercise”, write “I need to go to the gym M,W,F after
work”):
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HABIT BUILDING
C H A PT E R 7 W O R K S H E E T
Generalize new behavior. Write down all the contexts in which you
intend to practice your new behavior. Put them in ranked order of easiest
to hardest and start with the easy ones. Log when, where, with whom and
what mood you were in when you practiced. (An excel sheet or notebook
for keeping track is recommended):
Write down ways that you can make your wanted behaviors easier to
do. (I will meal prep on Sundays so that it is easier to stay on plan than
to go off-plan”):
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EVIDENCE-BASED
HABIT BUILDING
C H A PT E R 7 W O R K S H E E T
Write any temptation bundling that might be helpful. (In order to
support my goal to improve my cardiovascular fitness, I will only watch
my favorite show while on the treadmill):
Write ways you can positively reinforce your wanted behaviors.
(Remember that you can enlist the help of loved ones. Ask your partner
to go out to dinner with you on Saturday only if you have reached some
milestone in your behavior change):
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Write ways you can negatively reinforce your wanted behaviors.
(Remember that this is not punishment. Negative reinforcement involves
removing an unwanted consequence to your desired behaviors. If your
garage gym is cold in the winter, add a space heater so that dreading
the cold doesn’t decrease your chances of developing a weekly training
habit):
List current neutral or positive habits you already have that you can
chain new habits to. (If you always drop your kids off for sports Saturday
morning and want to start jogging, chain your jogging to that drop-off to
make it more likely to become habitual):
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EVIDENCE-BASED
HABIT BUILDING
C H A PT E R 7 W O R K S H E E T
Shaping (If you are struggling to add a new behavior, write down ways
you can develop a habit of just the initial aspect of it If you are trying to
swim three times per week you could try just driving to the pool three
times per week at first and progress from there):
Priming and self-talk (Keep a notebook where you reason through
emotional thoughts and encourage yourself in the third person. Use the
space below for some practice):
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CHAPTER 8
Putting your Knowledge to Work
Building a Comprehensive Plan for Behavior Change
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
You must change your behavior to reach a goal. To change your behavior, you must build an
action plan to break down old habits and add new, goal-oriented routines. By now you should
have outlined your goals, become mindful enough to identify the behaviors needed to reach them,
learned to self-monitor, and looked through a host of tools to use for change. It is time to lay out a
plan. We will start with reminder summaries for steps we have already covered.
1. Identify and chunk down your learning, outcome, and behavior goals. Set a goal or goals
that are tied to an internal, personal drive. Identify the sub-goals needed. Clarify whether
you should target a learning goal or an outcome goal based on your level of experience.
Determine what behavioral changes will be needed to achieve your goals and chunk these
down into subgoals as well. Assess trade-offs and confirm that you are willing to make these
sacrifices. Assess obstacles and adjust goals as needed. Remember that small steps are
almost always better than quick progress if you wish to maintain your results.
2. Write down your learning, outcome, and behavior goals along with their positive
consequences. Make sure that your desired outcomes are tied to personal values. Examples
could include: “My goal is to give my attention to my partner when they are speaking to
me. If I do this my partner will feel appreciated and I will feel good about myself in the
relationship” or “My goal is to stop eating tasty food before I am full. If I do this, I can enjoy
those foods without guilt and will be a step closer to a successful weight loss program.”
3. Develop awareness of your behavior. Whether you practice mindfulness or some other
form of meditation, find a way to be more aware of your behaviors, what triggers them, and
your feelings about them. You cannot change what you are not aware of.
4. Start self-monitoring your behavior. Track both the productive and non-productive
behaviors you have identified in your awareness practice. Assess as many parameters of
these behaviors as you can, as well as the feelings and cues that precede/result from them.
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5. Write down your why and tie it to your internal values and ideals. Keep it somewhere
close so that you can reference it when you are struggling with the sacrifices and trade-offs
needed to get to your goal.
6. Write a self-contract. You can post it publicly, share it just with loved ones, or put it
somewhere where only you see it daily. This is a small detail, but it takes very little time and
can boost adherence to your plan.
7. Ask for support from loved ones. Remember not to lean on them too heavily for assistance,
but keep their love and belief in you in mind as you work on your goals.
8. Revisit all of the tools and tactics for behavior change outlined in Chapter 7.
Putting Behavior Change Tools to Use: Examples
Looking at the information we have recorded using our self-monitoring knowledge, we can target
multiple aspects of our behavior in order to make changes.
ASPECTS OF BEHAVIOR TO ASSESS:
Before the behavior:
Preceding cue, context, or situation
Preceding mood or feelings
How you rationalized it (if at all)
During the behavior:
Any concomitant behaviors
Feelings and mood during the behavior
After the behavior:
Consequence of behavior (any positive rewards and or negative outcomes)
Feelings and mood after the behavior
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BEHAVIOR-CHANGE TOOLS THAT CAN BE APPLIED:
Before the behavior:
Change contexts to prevent unwanted or encourage desired behaviors
Create a pause between stimulus and response (between triggers and behaviors)
Increase activation energy for unwanted habits
Use implementation intentions/decrease activation energy for wanted habits
Generalize wanted behavior (perform new habit in many contexts)
Chain a series of habits/tie new habits to stable cues
Use priming and self-talk
Prevent rationalization
During the behavior:
Use temptation bundling (pair wanted behavior with some immediate gratification)
Use shaping (make very small alterations to behavior at a time)
Maintain awareness
Replace an unwanted behavior with something that satisfies similar needs
After the behavior:
Use positive reinforcement (reward wanted behavior)
Use negative reinforcement (remove consequences for a wanted behavior)
Use self-assessment and log new insights regarding why you act as you do
A multi-target plan has a stronger chance of success. Let’s walk through each point of potential
change, using mindless eating as an example. Remember that the behavior change specifics might
be different for you even if the goal is the same. Make sure that if you are trying to tackle the
example issue that you assess your own experience and behavior change needs.
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EXAMPLE MINDLESS EATING ASSESSMENT:
Before the behavior:
Preceding cue, context, or situation
After something stressful happened I grabbed a bag of chips and zoned out
During work breaks I snacked to distract myself so that I actually relaxed
I saw people eating and it made me want to eat even though I wasn’t hungry
Preceding mood or feelings
I felt anxious before eating unplanned snacks
When I was tired I didn’t care if I ate a whole bag of chips
If it was a conscious choice, how you rationalized it
I rationalized that I would exercise later
I felt like I deserved something pleasurable
I felt like I should not have to resist eating on top of working so hard
I felt like the stress relief would help me work harder
During the behavior:
Any concomitant behaviors
I watch TV and snack simultaneously so I am too busy to worry
I eat when other people around me are eating
Feelings and mood during the behavior
Initially, I feel calm when I am snacking
Food distracted me from my worries
I free myself to eat when feeling constrained by obligations
After the behavior:
Consequence of behavior (positive reward and or negative outcomes)
Positive: I have had a reward/break from stress and can work again
Negative: I feel sick from eating past fullness
Feelings and mood after the behavior
Positive: I feel relaxed because of the snack break
Negative: I feel regret after eating excessively
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Now that we have dissected the details of each stage of the behavior, we can seek to make
changes to promote a new behavior or deter the existing one at each of these stages. A caveat
with our example is that having some chips or is not something that anyone must seek to eliminate
entirely! Some people might choose to eliminate certain foods entirely because they are particularly
triggering. Other people might use some behavior-change tactics so that they can have certain
foods in moderation, but keep themselves from eating past fullness every time. For our example we
will aspire to the latter, as tasty foods are an enjoyable part of life and ideally not something to
eliminate completely!
Strategies to target the stage before the behavior
Change contexts / cues
At times, stress makes us lose sight of our goals and our ‘why’s. The one thing that might have kept
you form eating the entire bag of chips when you were not even hungry or getting joy out of the
eating would be your fitness goals. Stress can make us (often appropriately) deprioritize nonessential goals. While it is totally fine to prioritize other things in life over fitness, if every stressor
you encounter prevents you from working on those goals it can be very depressing for many
people. One strategy might be to keep notes on your chip bags reminding you of your ‘why’.
For the cases where you grabbed a bag of chips and zoned-out after a stressful event, one option
is to target the source of stress, if possible. If the source of stress often arises from delaying work
until the last minute, making a point to mitigate that stress through behavior modification is a good
place to start. One target of behavior change might be to set a specific number of hours per day to
spend on a project so that last-minute overload never becomes an issue––this behavior change will
probably have multiple positive effects in your life!
If anxiety is often coupled with food and eating becomes the automatic response to anxiety, food in
general becomes less enjoyable on any occasion. It will be ideal to uncouple these two things so
that indulgences are less automatic and more enjoyable when you choose to have them. Pairing
anxiety with productive behavior to tackle the source of the anxiety will take some work but is a
great target to deal with both the anxiety and the unwanted behavior that comes with it.
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Observing other people enacting your habitual behavior can be a strong cue. If seeing people
eating is a cue that leads to eating when you are not hungry, making a point to avoid this cue
(perhaps not watching food based shows on TV) will help control that behavior.
Create a pause between stimulus and response (between triggers and behaviors)
Once you have become aware of what triggers your mindless eating, adding a pause between those
cues and your response can help. The eating you are trying to eliminate in this example is not due
to hunger nor for pleasure, it is an automatic response. If you force yourself to take a five minute
walk, do five minutes of work, or stop and breath (practice more mindfulness!) for five minutes, you
can take the automaticity out of the behavior. Very often you will find that after five minutes you
don’t feel the need to eat anymore. And if you still do, go ahead and eat––you are making a
conscious decision in this case. It is the habitual, mindless eating you want to eliminate, not the
thoughtful decision to indulge.
Increase activation energy for unwanted habits
Making sure that the snacks you are most likely to eat mindlessly are a little more difficult to access
can help add some time to think about your decision––which removes the automaticity of the action.
Put your easy-to-overeat foods in a garage cupboard or somewhere that will take more time to get
to. Bring only your daily food to work and only allow yourself to have snacks if they are from the
farthest away vending machine. There are plenty of variants to this strategy, but so long as you
increase the activation energy, chances are that the frequency of the habit will decline.
Implementation Intentions / Decrease activation energy for wanted habits
Talking to yourself about what you will do in situations where you tend to eat mindlessly is also a
great strategy. Make an if-then plan: “If there are free donuts at work, then I will only eat one if I
consciously assess the choice, am hungry, and will truly enjoy it”. Having an action plan
predetermined makes it easier to do what you want. It is very easy to revert to old habits when you
do not have a plan to work against them.
Generalize desired behavior (perform a new habit in many contexts)
Practice all of the above example behavior-change plans in as many contexts as possible. Use your
strategies to avoid mindless eating at home, at work, and at parties. The more scenarios in which you
make successful conscious eating decisions, the stronger your new habit of mindful eating will be!
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Chain a series of habits / Tie new habits to stable cues
You know that you often eat mindlessly after meetings because it is then that you have the most
stress coupled with a lunch break. Since the meetings are a stable cue, you can tie a new habit to
them to replace your mindless eating. Perhaps after meetings you make yourself a cup of tea and
eat your planned lunch while listening to a favorite podcast, then continue listening as you go for a
short walk, and complete the break by writing down three things you are grateful for. This series of
behaviors can become a routine that does not allow for mindless eating and one that will likely bring
you stress relief to boot.
Use priming and self-talk
Talking to yourself in the third person about how you are capable of being mindful with your eating
and deserve to enjoy food can be helpful. I could say to myself “Melissa deserves to eat food when
she is hungry for it and will enjoy it, but right now she is not hungry. She can make a conscious
decision to satisfy her need for stress relief in a more productive manner. She has planned for this,
is capable, and has the tools to change this unwanted habit”. This might sound cornier than the
other examples, but it is easy to implement this self-talk and the research suggests it is helpful!
Prevent rationalization
Sometimes choosing not to work towards a goal is rational. When there are more important
priorities in life, other goals sometimes need to take a back seat. However, most of us rationalize
straying from our goal-directed behavior much more often than is necessary. We tell ourselves that
we deserve a break or that we will somehow make up for the indiscretion later. Being mindful of
our thought processes can help. Some people find that they tend to reward themselves for
avoiding an unwanted behavior, by performing that behavior. This strategy is productive in some
cases––for example if you avoid watching shows all week to get work done and then reward
yourself with shows on the weekend. For other goals, rewarding with the unwanted behavior can
be counterproductive. If you are trying to quit a habit of overeating chips in order to lose weight
and you reward yourself for weekday restraint with chips on the weekends, you are working against
yourself. Find an alternate reward or write down your reasoning to highlight the
counterproductivity of this behavior. In the moment it might seem rational that you deserve some
chips after avoiding them for a week, but really it makes your further efforts to curtail chip-eating
more difficult and slows weight loss. Even a replacement snack that does not trigger overeating can
be a great alternative reward for avoiding the chip habit. If you are telling yourself that you will
exercise for each chip bag you consume in order to justify it, sit down and write out how this
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logically supports dysfunctional food and exercise feelings because it frames food as something to
be punished or made up for and does not resolve a habit of eating past fullness that is also
somewhat dysfunctional.
Whenever you find yourself straying from your plan, stop and assess how you are justifying that
choice. Write down your logic and decide if it will sound rational to other people. You can even
have a loved one who supports your goals give you their opinion. Very often just seeing your
rationalization written down is enough to change your mind if your justifications are not valid.
Strategies to target during the behavior
Temptation bundling (pairing wanted behavior with immediately gratification)
Though this strategy is best to encourage a desired behavior, it can put an unwanted habit to
better use by only allowing that behavior as a reward. Let’s say you are trying to initiate a habit of
studying a new language three times per week. You can use your chip vice to fuel the new habit. If
you are only allowed to eat chips when you study, it can reduce chip consumption and increase
studying. You will likely enjoy the chips more because they are a reward for hard work that you
don’t get every day.
Shaping (make very small alterations to behavior at a time)
Rather than trying to eliminate chips, you can start by buying smaller bags of chips. Next you can
move on to buying only smaller bags of low-fat baked chips, then start reducing the number of
chips you eat from the bag. Slowly lowering the impact of your habit as you work on changing it
acts to change some of the context of the habit as well, further supporting eventual change.
Maintain awareness
Reminding yourself to eat chips mindfully is a way to lower the mindless aspect of the eating. If you
are paying attention to your body, you will be less likely to eat past fullness or to continue eating
when you are not getting much enjoyment. You could try eating chips while doing nothing else
and make a point to assess and experience each bite thoroughly. This might make the experience
more enjoyable and allow you to stop eating before you are overly full.
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Replace an unwanted behavior with something that satisfies similar needs
To address the issue of eating for distraction, you can alter your work breaks to disallow eating and
provide an alternate distraction. Something such as finding a podcast or audiobook you like and
taking a walk to listen to them is an option. Or you could have a cup of coffee and jam out to your
favorite songs in the courtyard where food is less accessible. Another option might be to replace
eating with chewing gum in order to have a treat related to mastication that lacks the unwanted
calories.
Strategies to target after the behavior:
Positive reinforcement
Developing a way to reward successful avoidance of an unwanted behavior reinforces the changes
that you are trying to make. If you allow yourself something else that you enjoy every time you
avoid eating chips when not hungry, your behavior will begin to change faster than if you did not.
This reward can be as simple as five minutes browsing clothes online or five minutes fantasizing
about a future vacation. It can be putting a satisfying check mark in your behavior change log. Your
social support system can be part of your reward. If your instances of mindless eating become less
frequent by a specific number this week, your friends will take you to a movie. Recall that your
reward should be something you can live without, but would much rather have, in order to be
motivating.
Negative reinforcement (removing consequences for a desired behavior)
In our example, the desired effect is eliminating an unwanted behavior. Negative reinforcement can
work with a little bit of mental acrobatics––for the sake of example we will walk through this. Your
desired behavior to not eat chips has negative consequences (you don’t get the stress relief from
eating chips). Removing this means finding a way to reduce your stress in other ways, so that the
need for chips is fulfilled with something more productive. This could be a walk, browsing the
internet, talking to a friend, or anything else that will relieve stress.
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Self-assessment and logging of new insights regarding why you act as you do
You will undoubtedly still engage in unwanted behavior many times before you successfully
change. Each instance of unwanted behavior is another opportunity to learn more about it. As you
begin to change, you might find there are some situations that are particularly difficult for you.
Perhaps you have a relatively easy time replacing your “I need a break” chip-eating and your “work
stress” chip-eating, but when you encounter emotional stress, chips are the hardest to resist. This
can be instructive for continued plans for change. Careful assessment of your emotions and what
triggers them might help you rewrite your entire plan with more emphasis on emotional habits.
Try walking through a behavior change plan like the one outlined above for a relatively small
change goal. This will help you practice with an easier habit change target and gain self-efficacy for
this process––another example of the ubiquitous need for baby steps in behavior change!
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CHAPTER 9
Trouble Shooting
Identifying Difficulties and Problem Solving
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in
overalls and looks like work.”
Unknown
Hiccups, mistakes, and even complete failures are expected when attempting to change your
behavior. The path to success is not linear. Knowing not to expect perfection supports your selfefficacy and patience. You will encounter areas of struggle on your journey of self-change, and will
have to reconsider strategies that are not working. There are three main points where trouble can
arise; getting started with your plan, sticking to your plan, and maintaining your success once you
have achieved your goal.
Problems Getting Started on Your Plan
Inadequate preparation
Experiential and learning goals can be a part of preparation, so that you understand what needs to
be done. If you find yourself consistently struggling in the early stages of your outcome goal
seeking process, you might consider going back to the start (goal delineation). It may be that you
were not ready to make an outcome goal and that you would benefit from starting with learning
goals and working your way up from there. Another key part of preparation where mistakes are
often made is trade-off assessment; examining what sacrifices you will be forced to make in order
to achieve your goal. With proper preparation, you will have decided whether the suffering is worth
the reward. Sometimes we learn more about what those sacrifices will be during the goal seeking
process and have to go back to reassess trade-offs with this new knowledge. This can instruct a
more informed goal with which to start again. Use the tactics from this book to set yourself up for
success. Prepare your knowledge about the goal arena, your understanding of the sacrifices
involved, and make your plan as easy to execute as possible. If you have skipped any of these
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steps, go back to the beginning and include them all. Nothing that makes success more likely
should be overlooked!
Preparing too much: productive procrastination
Sometimes we get caught up in the preparation process and although we feel like we are being
productive, we never actually get started on working toward the goal. You might find yourself
ordering gym clothes and Tupperware® online, staving off initiation of your fitness plan until you
have all the perfect shoes and meal prep accessories. While being prepared is important, preparing
by itself won’t get results. You might even find out more about what you like in gym clothes and
prefer in food storage containers once you are training and meal prepping! This goes for any goal.
It is impossible to prepare perfectly. Once you have some knowledge and have gone through the
goal delineation and planning process, dive in and get to work. There is always room to refine and
the experience of the process better informs that refinement.
Looking for too perfect a time to start
Evaluating obstacles and trying to avoid them is important, but you should not eternally put off
working towards something you want while waiting for a flawless opportunity to execute. Life is
never obstacle free, so make sure you are minimizing potential obstacles and not avoiding your
plan. If difficulties seem like they keep piling up and getting in your way, go back to honing your
goal and adjust your target to better fit your current situation.
Second thoughts and rationalizing
When faced with the reality of needed sacrifices, many will try to rationalize not working toward
their goal afterall1. This can be due to a failure to accurately assess trade-offs and priorities; in this
case you should revisit the process with your new understanding of how difficult the trade-offs are.
You can then adjust your goal to better fit the sacrifices you are willing to make. Another option is
to force yourself through the first week or two before adjusting your target, to see if things get
easier. The first steps of a plan often feel the most difficult because they are new––the first mile of a
long run always hurts the most. What feels hard at the beginning often becomes easier over time. If
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your ‘why’ is strong and your trade-off assessments are solid, pushing through the initial discomfort
when initiating change will be more manageable.
Justifying behavior that does not support one’s goals is another a common problem when first
starting a habit-change program. People justify their actions to avoid guilt in a number of ways.
They determine that they deserve an indulgence or break from the rigor of their plan, that the
indulgence is an exception to the norm, or that they will compensate for it later2. Stronger
intentions to act in a goal-directed manner predict more of this type of justification; in one study,
participants who planned to cut back on eating a certain food were more likely to make
justifications about eating it than those who made no goals about food2. We must be wary of this
natural tendency and plan accordingly. When tempted to stray from our course, an option is to sit
down and write out how much more useful it will be to accumulate goal-directed behavior and
establish that as a habit than it will to treat ourselves in this instance. Another option is to consult a
supportive loved-one. An outside perspective can sometimes help us see the flaws in our logic
when we are rationalizing behavior that will take us further from our stated goals.
When you feel yourself making excuses to act off-plan, try deferring the excuse until later. If you
notice yourself rationalizing the idea of not going to the gym on one of your planned days, for
example, defer the ‘day off’ to a future gym session. Go to the gym anyway and tell yourself you
can skip the next session; or tell yourself that if you go three times this week you can skip one day
the next week. By the time “next time” rolls around, you will be feeling so self-efficacious about your
gym attendance that you probably won’t want to skip a day anymore. Even if you do skip that
future gym day, you will have logged more non-skipping days and made more progress towards
your habit formation goals than you would have.
Another way to get things going can be to find some outside accountability. Ask a friend to check
in with you on your habit goal progress regularly. It is easy to make rationalizations in your own
head, but they often don’t sound as reasonable to someone else––especially if they are recurring.
An accountability buddy is with you for the full process. A friend might agree that you deserve a
gym break when you ask them about it on a one-time check in. If you have an accountability
buddy who knows your goal is to train three times per week and who hears you try to rationalize a
day off the gym every week on the other hand, they will likely think your logic for skipping is less
sound. A friend with an idea of your goals and progress has the information and the outside
perspective to be of great help. All the better if you can return the favor. Almost everyone has at
least one little thing they would like to change about themselves. Find someone to go on the
journey with you (even if your target behaviors are different)!
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Problems Staying on Plan
Tracking
Skipping the self-monitoring aspect of the behavior-change process can lead to falling off plan.
Tracking might seem tedious, but it increases your chances of success3. Having to look at your
progress on a regular basis not only keeps you focused on your plan, it reminds you of the
discrepancy between your target and your current state; it signals to you that there is still work to
be done4,5. Make sure you are monitoring all the relevant parameters of your learning, behavior,
and outcome goal progress to keep yourself on track. The value of tracking cannot be understated.
While you do not need to track your behavior in detail forever, doing so until your desired behavior
is second nature or your unwanted behavior is a distant memory will greatly improve your chances
of success.
Forgetting to practice your plan
Before your new behaviors are automatic, it is easy to forget to practice. One study shows that after
a delay of 15 seconds, participants forgot to carry through with a simple intended behavior of
pressing a button in response to a red screen, especially when they were also working on other
tasks6. Although pushing a button in response to a screen is simple and a value driven intention
might not be as easily forgotten, this study highlights the fragility of our intended behaviors in the
face of distraction. Tracking is helpful, but you also have to remember to track! Setting reminders
for yourself, posting notes where you will see them, or making your phone’s screen saver a picture
that reminds you of your ‘why’ can keep your intention at the forefront of your thoughts. Schedule
emails to yourself so that you get a weekly reminder to keep working and stay focused. Set alarms
to remind yourself to fill out your tracking sheets. Leave no leaf unturned in supporting yourself in
your efforts!
Getting derailed by emotion
Anxiety can contribute to avoidance of intended behavior. For example, worry about impending
therapy appointments is correlated with skipping those appointments and test anxiety is associated
with less studying7,8.
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If you find that anxiety about the behavior change and goal-striving process are inhibiting your
progress, create goals to manage your emotional habits first. Pause your current goal pursuit and
redo the goal delineation process with a focus on reducing anxiety. Emphasize your mindfulness
practice and self-monitor your emotional responses. Practice writing down a logical assessment of
what is happening and speak to yourself unemotionally about it (preferably in the third person!).
Once you have established behaviors that reduce your anxiety towards the pursuit of your goal,
getting back to your original goal pursuit will likely be much more productive and less painful!
Learning from addiction research
The literature on addiction can teach us quite a bit about habit relapse. A habit is easier to change
than an addiction, so strategies for preventing addictive relapse should be even more effective for
behavior change. For those overcoming addiction, developing self-efficacy by practicing abstinence
in less challenging situations increases their chances of refraining in high-relapse-risk situations9.
For example, if someone with an alcohol addiction who’s drink of choice was liquor practices
skipping wine at lunch or beers at a work get together, they will develop self-efficacy regarding
their ability to refrain. This self-efficacy will increase their chances of abstaining from much more
tempting situations and stronger triggers. If they feel good about their ability to refrain, they will be
less likely to stop for mixed drinks when they pass by their favorite bar where they used to drink
nightly for example.
In habit change, as in addiction, our chances of “falling off the wagon” in tempting situations are
reduced the more we rehearse and successfully execute a plan for those situations. Each high
relapse-risk experience is an opportunity to practice and gain self-efficacy, but start with less
difficult situations first and work your way up. As you carry out the process of amending your
behavior, you will discover more about the timing and reasoning of your actions. You will learn
which situations challenge you the most and what strategies make habit change easiest for you. It is
important to adapt your plan as this knowledge accumulates. Baby steps are important. After some
practice at attempting to change your habits, make ranked a list of your least to most challenging
scenarios. Then you can resolve to tackle the easiest first, avoiding the more difficult ones until the
former have been overcome.
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In the example of eating chips mindlessly, you might find that these are the times that you struggle
from least to most challenging:
1. At home on weekdays / when relaxed
2. At the office / when stressed with work
3. Traveling / when stressed with work
4. Anywhere when under emotional stress
You would eliminate mindless eating when at home with minimal stress. Once you develop a solid
habit of only eating when hungry or when you will truly enjoy it in this situation, you can move on
to trying to minimize mindless eating when stressed in your workplace. Self-efficacy and knowledge
gained from making the easier changes will support you in overcoming the more difficult
challenges. Make sure to use your implementation intention planning and rehearse what you will
do in the face of this temptation as well.
Troubleshooting problem areas also becomes easier as you assess what has worked and what has
not. It is perfectly fine to abandon strategies that do not work for you. If you find that posting your
goals publicly results in anxiety that impedes your ability to build strategies––stop posting your
goals. If you try to self-reward and end up rewarding yourself whether or not you behave in
agreement with your goals, focus more on other approaches. If temptation bundling works
wonders, spend time thinking of all the possible ways that you can use this tactic. There is no onesize-fits-all behavior-change plan. Behavior is too personal and too complex. The only way to find
what fits you is to try on all that is available and refine as you go.
Problems Maintaining Results
Failure to establish sustainable habits
Your behavior change goals should be sustainable. Even if the specific actions that will get you to
your goal are not sustainable, the basic behaviors should be something you can do for life. If your
goal is weight loss, for example, you certainly cannot remain in a calorie deficit forever. However,
the basic principles of eating protein consistently throughout the day, having more carbs after
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training, and being moderate with rich, densely caloric foods is sustainable. You maintain the same
eating habits when the diet ends, but eat a bit more and relax the precision of your food
measurements. This example illustrates the problem with fad diet trends. If the hot diet of the
moment involves eating only from 9am to 12pm each day and avoiding bread, dairy products, and
restaurants; you are unlikely to develop any sustainable eating habit during weight loss. Those
restrictions would be difficult to handle for a couple months, much less life. Once that diet is over,
even if you had successful weight loss, you will likely revert back to whatever your previous eating
habits were and regain the lost weight.
A sustainable foundation of behavior should be at the core of any of your new habits. You can
reach a goal many ways, but if the path there requires unsustainable behaviors, maintaining your
achievement is less likely.
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727 (2008).
Taylor, C., Webb, T. L. & Sheeran, P. ‘I deserve a treat!’: Justifications for indulgence undermine the
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Harkin, B. et al. Does Monitoring Goal Progress Promote Goal Attainment? A Meta-Analysis of the
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restraint. Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci. 18, 247–252 (2009).
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(2016).
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Witkiewitz, K. & Marlatt, G. A. Relapse prevention for alcohol and drug problems: That was zen, this is
tao. American Psychologist 59, 224–235 (2004).
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CHAPTER 10
The Role of the Coach
Tips for Helping Others with Behavior Change
“Know how to listen and you will profit even from those who
talk badly.”
Plutarch
Helping Your Client Outline Goals
As a coach, there are a few things to keep in mind. The first is that your client’s goals, obstacles,
and values might be different from your own. It is not your job to impose values on your client. You
might see the value in skipping alcohol and sweets to maintain year round abs, but your client
might not be interested in those trade-offs. You might feel that maximizing muscle growth is worth
training six days a week, but perhaps your client is willing to grow less in order to have more free
time. Your job is to help the people you coach find their balance of sacrifice to outcome according
to their own values and ideals. Second, the behavior changes you would need might be different
from those needed by your client even for the same goal. When you need to lose weight, you
might need a highly structured, six-meal-a-day plan. Your client might not need or want this and
would do better with three meals a day and a total daily macro amount to stick with. Help them
find their path to victory and don’t try to force your path on them. Finally, competence is modular–
–just because your client is successful in some arenas does not mean they are competent in all.
Your client might be an excellent businessman with amazing relationships, but have no good habits
or understanding in the fitness arena. People can be experts at managing their behaviors in some
parts of their lives, but absolute beginners at behavior management in others. Do not assume you
can extrapolate.
A good coach guides rather than dictates––you must be a resource, not a boss or parent. Help
your clients decide what internal values are driving their goals and determine their limitations. Walk
them through the process outlined in this book without judgement. If your client is new to their
goal arena, your input is particularly important. You will need to assess their competence in the
goal arena. Most people do not realize the value of starting with learning goals when they are
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beginners. Providing this information not only helps your client learn, but it establishes reasonable
expectations. This results in less disappointment and better results.
“Behavioral Needs Analysis” and “Behavior-Change Volume
Landmarks”
If you have some knowledge of sport science, you probably know how to create a needs analysis.
For those unfamiliar, a needs analysis is an assessment of what qualities are required for athletes in
a given sport and of where an individual athlete falls with respect to normative standards for those
qualities. This analysis then dictates what specific training must be done, what diet phases are
needed, how to periodize both diet and training, and what skills and tactics must be practiced for
the athlete to improve. These are specific to both sport and to individual athlete. Any given sport
will generally require the same set of qualities––in the case of endurance sport, for example, low
body fat, moderate muscularity, and excellent cardiorespiratory capacity. However, different
athletes will have different strengths and weaknesses which will determine what their training focus
must be to improve. Some endurance athletes will need to lose fat to perform better, some will
need to improve their aerobic capacities, and others will need to work on strategic pacing to run
their best.
When setting behavior change goals, you can treat it much like a needs analysis. Instead of
assessing what is generally required to excel at a sport and what qualities your athlete needs to
improve, you will determine what is generally required to reach your client’s goal and the specific
behavior changes they need to get there. You can then break down behavior change subgoals just
as you would periodize athletic training and nutrition.
What are known as the training volume landmarks are also a good analogy for behavior-change
parameters. For any kind of physical training, there are limits to the volume that can be done. Too
little is ineffective and too much is counter-productive (for a detailed dive into these concepts in
training, see How Much Should I Train)1. The basic landmarks are as follows:
Maintenance Volume (MV): The minimum volume of training an athlete can perform
that will still maintain their abilities. This amount of training will prevent them from getting worse,
but is not enough for improvement.
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Minimum Effective Volume (MEV): The minimum volume of training an athlete can perform and
still measurably improve.
Maximum Recoverable Volume (MRV): The maximum volume of training an athlete can perform
and still recover. This amount of training pushes the limits of recovery, but also leads to the most
improvement at a given time.
Maximum Adaptive Volume (MAV): The amount of training that, in any one unit of time, yields
the greatest adaptive response. This is the volume of training that yields the most gains relative to
the amount of effort put in.
In sport training, progressive overload describes the idea that we must train progressively harder in
order to continue to stimulate adaptation (improvements). We start on the lower end (around MEV)
and work up to the maximum (MRV), shooting for any given training session to be around MAV in
order to the get the most change over time. This results in the most efficient improvement of the
attribute being trained. A good coach learns these landmarks for their athletes and imposes just the
right amount of training. As the athlete improves and can handle more training, the coach adjusts.
This is an apt analogy for how a behavior change coach can help their client.
Behavior change volume landmark adaptations:
Behavior Maintenance Volume (BMV): The minimum volume of behavior repetition
that will still maintain a habit. This amount of practice will prevent the current behavior from
disappearing, but is not enough to increase it.
Behavior Minimum Effective Volume (BMEV): The minimum volume of behavior change that will
lead to measurable progress.
Behavior Maximum Recoverable Volume (BMRV): The maximum volume of behavior change
someone can handle without burning out. This amount of change pushes the limits of the person’s
capacity, but also leads to the most improvement at a given time.
Behavior Maximum Adaptive Volume (BMAV): The optimal ratio of effort and life impact to
behavior change results. Given real world constraints to practice behavior change, the BMAV
represents the ideal balance of work put in and resulting, sustainable improvements.
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Behavior change functions in a similar way to training. It is training for the mind after all! The
amount of change a person can make at a time is limited by many things, but each person will
have a different behavior change “volume” that is enough to alter outcome, but not so much that
the person becomes overwhelmed and stops making progress. At any given time there will be an
ideal volume of change that will result in the most sustainable results for the least effort cost. This
volume can shift over time with practice, so that more changes can be made as your client gains
expertise. Similar to sport training, shooting for BMAV at any given time will result in the most
efficient progress over time, without overreaching.
The Coach’s Influence
Motivational interviewing
Motivational interviewing is a client-centered coaching process in self-determination theory2. This
process was developed originally in the 1980’s in the treatment of alcoholism, but has been refined
and remains a useful tool for behavior change3. In motivational interviewing, the coach’s role is to
help the client examine intention-behavior gaps and discrepancies between their current and
desired states. This type of approach facilitates better results and better coach-client relationships.
Using this method, a coach should refrain from telling clients what to do and instead help them
creatively find solutions. They should also be empathetic, listen without judging, and empower
those they are helping. In short, walk your clients through the process outlined in this book so that
they develop value-driven goals and an individualized program for change that will best bring
them satisfaction.
Avoid “campaigning”
When directing someone’s learning process, it can be tempting to pour information on a less
knowledgeable client––correcting everything they have gotten wrong and making them aware of
your expertise. This not only decreases the person’s confidence and self-efficacy, but it can lead to
a knee-jerk rejection to you and your ideas. An excess of new information that is different from a
person’s current understanding elicits defensive reactions. Examples of this include large-scale anticrime campaigns that resulted in failures to decrease crime and anti-smoking advertisement
crusades that resulted in an increase in youth smoking4,5. These campaigns pushed ideas that
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differed from people’s experience (exaggerated scare tactics) or involved trying to force certain
choices. People who consumed this material were unable to develop an internal drive to alter their
behavior (and in some cases rebelled against the idea).
When your client holds beliefs that are incorrect, take an open-minded approach when you correct
them. If you are an evidence-based diet coach and your client explains how a debunked
supplement has changed their life, don’t tell them that they are wrong and that this is impossible.
Doing so damages the client’s confidence and if they still strongly believe in the supplement, it will
impact their impression of you. A gentle coaxing is a better choice––tell them you are happy that
supplement seems to have worked for them. Make them aware that there is controversial data
published about the supplement and that there might be better options, but that if they feel good
about it, they are welcome to keep using it. This strategy makes your client feel supported,
believed, and understood. It gives them some autonomy and makes them feel that you believe
them capable of self-assessment. The placebo effect is real and it is possible that your client has
had great results with the supplement because they believed in it. Either way, both great results
and the perception of great results are beneficial to the person’s satisfaction. As long as the
supplement is not detracting from their program or causing harm to the client there is no reason to
shame them out of using it. You might even find with some introspection that the desire to shame
someone about their ill-informed choices comes from your own insecurities––examining these
impulses might be worthwhile for your growth as a coach as well! Slowly providing insight and
building trust is more important than showing your client how correct you are and will likely lead to
your client taking advice about future supplements. This is better for both of you in the long-term.
Coaches should also refrain from assuming that they are correct. No one has more intimate
knowledge of your client than your client. Trust that they can, at the very least, tell you what makes
them feel good and supports their success. Being open to the idea that your clients might know
things about themselves that you don’t and can contribute to your success as a team is a vital part
of being an effective coach.
Coach reactions to the client’s process
In self-determination theory, competence, autonomy, and relatedness are all important. If you pit
these needs against one another, motivations are forced to compete rather than allign6–10. Being
kinder when your client succeeds and distant when they fail can force them to choose between
autonomy and relatedness. This can lead to decreases in motivation. Early studies found that when
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parents were controlling, their children had reduced intrinsic motivation and that when healthcare
providers were controlling, their patients had poorer adherence to weight loss programs11,12.
Current autonomy research confirms these early findings. Multiple reviews conclude that support
for autonomy from doctors, parents, and other mentors benefits those they care for or lead13–15. As
a coach, you can do this by helping your client develop intrinsically driven goals. You can also give
them the resources to learn for themselves and tools they need to self-monitor. This way you are
helping them develop autonomy by making their own decisions and doing their own learning and
work. Congratulating their wins and understanding their failures will support relatedness. The
successes they achieve thanks to your coaching will support competence.
Coaching to support autonomy (and eventually competence) while lending support (relatedness)
might look something like the following. You have a client seeking weight loss and she is struggling
with adherence to a diet plan. She has three children, a full time job, and a partner who travels for
work. She’s overwhelmed, missing workouts, and is not losing weight. You might ask her if she
wants to take a break from her weight loss program. Ask her if she wants to work on building some
exercise and meal prep habits. Help her understand that her stress is not a weakness. Explain how
developing some other solid habits now might make weight loss easier in the future. Give her
information and options, and remind her there is no shame in either choice. Then allow her to
decide without pushing her in either direction. Giving her options rather than telling her to work
harder or keep her eye on the prize will make her feel autonomous. Successfully developing
workout and meal prep habits will make her feel competent even if she is not losing weight yet.
Demonstrating a non-judgmental stance will support feelings of relatedness. All of these things are
correlated to better long-term outcomes. Giving her the tools to choose to step away from a
weight-loss outcome goal temporarily can support long-term success in weight loss later as well.
“Goal-based” versus “client-centered” coaching
There is some controversy about whether “goal-based” or “client-centered” coaching is better. The
former is criticized for not taking the whole person into consideration when outlining goals––for
choosing targets without assessment of the individual’s complex motivations and feelings. In the
latter, the coach helps the client change their behavior without outlining end targets. This method is
critiqued for being less results-oriented. A marriage of the two ideas is probably the most
productive16. Most of the failings of goal-based coaching can be resolved with appropriate goal
assessment and consideration of the complex motivations that comprise any person’s intention to
change. As a coach, the better your understand the thoughts, feelings, and motivations of the
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whole person you are helping, the better you can serve them. Client-centered coaching can involve
concrete outcome goals, so long as all of these considerations are in place. Research shows that
clients both find more success and attribute this to good coaching when their coach helps them
achieve outcome goals using a client-centered approach––client-centeredness and results do not
have to be mutually exclusive16. Remember how individual goals, behavior change needs, feelings,
habits, and responses can be! The best coaches customize all aspects of their coaching to the
individual.
A one-size-fits-all plan for behavior change is about as effective as a generic diet or training plan.
What works for some will not work for others and could even be detrimental to some. If you are
skilled at organization and are given a beginner’s guide to cleaning your house, you are unlikely to
benefit. If you are new to training and try to run a professional bodybuilder’s training program, you
might end up worse off than you started. People have different starting levels and different
capacities for change. Approach your clients like you approach your mindfulness training––with
openness, curiosity, and a lack of judgement. Then act as a trouble shooting guide throughout the
coaching process. Provide knowledge and let clients make their own decisions. Your clients will
have better outcomes and better experiences this way. As an added benefit, your coaching practice
becomes a learning experience for you. Learning about clients’ struggles and collaborating on
solutions will enrich your own behavior change capacities as well as your ability to coach a variety
of people.
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A Final Note from the Author
However you define success, accomplishing your goals will require behavior change.
Behavior change is a skill and just like becoming an expert skier, a black belt, or an
elite chess player, it will take time and consistent practice. The more you work on
forming goal-aligned habits, the better you will get at it and the easier success will be.
Remember that self-efficacy is highly impactful, so take small steps and celebrate
every tiny accomplishment––set yourself up to succeed and take ownership of those
victories. Re-read this book whenever you need reminders of all the work that goes
into sustainable change. Keep records and look back on how far you’ve come
whenever things seem difficult or you feel you are not making progress. You will
stumble, you will revert, you will not change overnight; but if you are persistent, you
will achieve your goals and it will be time to set your sights on even loftier targets!
I sincerely wish that this book helps you find your way to greater success and
happiness!
Dr. Mel
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