Has persistence or lack of motivation ever been a problem for you?
When you set yourself a task, for example a New Year’s resolution, particularly if it involves learning a new habit such as regular exercise or eating more healthy food, giving up smoking or cutting down on alcohol, which of the following tends to get in the way of success?
Difficulty getting started or, having got off the blocks, difficulty staying on track? Or is it because of competing distractions including those self-talk de-motivators associated with anxiety, tiredness or feeling “it’s just too hard”?
Perhaps you managed to ‘stick to task’ and although that particular routine didn’t deliver the outcome you wanted, you were loath to change it because in your eyes you would have failed, or worse you would have to endure some negative feedback from others.
Or lastly, despite a busy schedule you managed to build a new routine but it’s no longer an enjoyable routine and you are completely exhausted; perhaps you really have taken on too much.
Or looking at this another way: how do some people select a goal, commit to it and, even under duress, still remain motivated to carry it out with energy and determination?
The If-Then approach[1]
The IF-THEN strategy has a proven record of success in helping people achieve their goals and sticking to task whilst avoiding getting stuck in routines which are no longer helpful or enjoyable.
In short this is a powerful way of strengthening your will power muscle and remaining resilient enough for the new routine to become habitual.
Step 1: Choose a goal e.g. “I intend to reach/achieve x”.
Set the right personal goal. The content of your goal should meet some criteria such as those spelled out in acronyms such as SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time scheduled)
Step 2: Identify and focus on some change in behavior which will result from achieving this goal.
How? By using a technique called ‘Mental Contrasting’ which means combining planning what you want to achieve with what has been likely in the past, or might in the future, get in the way. Imagine when you have fulfilled the outcome of your dreams what will you be doing, thinking, and feeling like, that is different? Then add a reality check: What might get in the way of achieving that now?
This helps bridge the gap between just ‘indulging’ in the dream: “If only I could be fitter and healthier, I would be able to…” and just ‘dwelling’ on the negative aspects: “I can’t because I have no will power, it’s too hard, I haven’t got time, it costs too much etc.”
Step 3. Plan your response to the question: “If this/that happens then I will do x”.
How? Identify a particular situation, stimulus or cue and pre-plan your response. Hence If-Then. In other words pre-prepare what actions you will take to deal with any potential barriers. These are called implementation intentions (II). When they are combined with Mental Contrasting (MC) the approach is sometimes called MCII for short. By anticipating the barriers you have already ‘primed’ the brains response, by strengthening the links between the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC: the deliberation area) and the Basal Ganglia (the ‘habit’ area).
Is there evidence that this works under conditions where people’s previous experience has been of failure or lack of will power? Or does practicing to exert one’s will power in this way help select and more importantly achieve a chosen goal over an unwanted habitual response?
Yes and yes! For example Implementation Intentions positively affect previously learned social prejudices based on color, race or gender; they lower the level of a fear response in people with phobias, such as a fear of spiders, to the same level as non-phobic individuals; they have been used to change behavior such as unhealthy eating habits.
In another example from a study of candidates preparing to undertake Raven Intelligence Tests, performance was enhanced by preplanning an approach such as: “When (If) I start a new test question I will tell myself I can solve it” and this was better than “…I will solve as many items as possible” and better than “…I will tell myself I can do these questions”.
Indeed in one study, using functional MRI, when subjects were acting on their goal intentions, their brain activity increased in the lateral part of the back of the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC); when acting on their Implementation Intentions, brain activity increased in the medial part of the back of the PFC. Both these areas are part of their ‘cool’ top-down executive functioning.
Step 4: Strengthen the link? Success is enhanced if the Implementations Intentions are at least as strong as the strength of the habit response they want to change. This means creating strong links between the situational cues (The IF x happens….) and the goal directed responses (Then I will…).
One way of rehearsing the link is to use your imagination to see yourself behaving, thinking and feeling, if, and when, that situation arises. In other words: What will I be doing/behaving like when that happens (as if) I had already done that (successfully) before?
Combining this visualization with ‘Smart Practice’ will also help with strengthening the areas of the brain which have been involved in the ‘priming’.
So your intentions will be doubly strengthened, firstly by a commitment to your overriding goal, and secondly, by how you have planned to respond specifically in a given situation.
Next: H4H. Question: Are you too old to learn how to strengthen your self-control? Answer: No because it’s child’s play!
[1] Gullwitzer PM Oettinger G in The Oxford Handbook of Human Motivation
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