Behaviour change... It can feel like an elusive process. We set a goal or maybe multiple goals with the best of intentions, but I think we’ve all probably had some experience with that goal just not quite working out. Yet, we’ve seen other people do it. Are we just failures or is there something that we’re missing?
Well, there is actually quite a bit of research on goal setting and what helps us to achieve our goals. Nothing is bullet-proof but I think we can agree that anything that can nudge us in the right direction is probably worth looking at.
Now before I dive in, let me give credit where credit is due for the content I’m about to share. I signed up for the Yale course ‘The Science of Well-Being’ taught by Dr. Laurie Santos. As my graduate research was in the area of motivation and well-being, I’m always drawn to Dr. Santos’ work. She has a great way of translating the research into plain language and I encourage everyone to sign up for the free course available on Coursera.
1) Make your goal specific
Now we often hear about the importance of goal specificity to provide a way of measuring whether our goal was actually attained. A goal of ‘sleeping better’ is really hard to measure unless we add a way of measuring it such as ‘I want to sleep for at least 7 uninterrupted hours, 5 out of 7 nights per week…’ Now we know what we’re targeting which means we’ll know when we get there.
However, there is more to goal specificity than just making your goal measurable. Research shows that when we make a goal specific, it actually encourages our brains to figure out how to attain the goal and results in better performance on the goal. Crazy, I know but hey if it works, don’t knock it!
2) Visualize your goal
I’m a science girl so when I hear visualization, my eyes tend to roll just a teensy bit but again, I can’t knock the evidence. Dr. Santos speaks to the importance of two aspects of visualization. The first is to visualize the awesomeness that will come from achieving your goal. How awesome would you feel if you achieved your goal of exercising 4 days/week? Think about the extra energy you would have, think about the reduced aches and pains that might result. Imagine sleeping better and handling your stress better. Really indulge in all the good stuff.
Now once we’re got those great feelings flowing, it’s time to switch gears. We’re going to think about all of the obstacles that might prevent us from achieving this awesome goal achievement that we’ve just dreamt up. Just like the indulging we did when dreaming up how great it would be to achieve our goal, we have to put in just as much effort and intention into thinking about the obstacles that might get in our way. This pattern of thinking about the great outcome followed by the obstacles is called mental contrasting and in studies where participants were asked to use mental contrasting, they were actually more successful in implementing the desired habit of eating more fruits and vegetables than those in a control group that did not have this instruction AND this difference was maintained for 2 years!
So first we indulge in the good stuff and then we identify all of the obstacles.
3) Make a plan
The last thing we need to do is plan. We’ve dreamt up these obstacles so now we need to make a plan as to how we’ll overcome them, and we do this planning in a very specific way by using what’s called an implementation intention. We create specific conditional statements that dictate when we’ll actually do our desired behaviour in order to slot it into our week. Here are a few examples:
- When I get home from work, then I will go for a run.
- If it is raining when I plan to run, then I will do a yoga video.
- When I turn on the coffee maker in the morning, I will meditate for 5 minutes.
- When I finish my morning coffee, I will plan my meals for the day.
- If I get home too late from work to cook, then I will defrost a meal from the freezer (a better option than hitting the drive-through).
What the research indicates is that implementation intentions work best for more difficult goals which is good news for those of us trying to improve our health. The changes we need to make sometimes feel difficult at first so having a tool at our disposal to increase our success is great.
The WOOP Method
WOOP stands for wish, outcome, obstacle, plan.
W – Wish This is where you set out your specific goal e.g. I’m going to meditate 5 days/week for 10 minutes
O – Outcome This is when we get to dream up all the great stuff that is going to come from us achieving this goal e.g. more patient with our co-workers or family; sleeping better at night; lower blood pressure; more focused during the day…
O – Obstacles These are the challenges that may come between you and that goal behaviour. For example, you sleep in instead of meditating because your child was sick in the night. You completely forget. You have an early morning flight leaving you with no time for meditation.
P – Plan This is where you set out your specific plan for making this habit a reality e.g. When I finish getting dressed, I will meditate for 10 minutes. If I have an early morning flight, I will meditate for 10 minutes on the plane. If I sleep in, I will meditate as soon as I get home from work.
For more information on the science and the researcher behind WOOP (Dr. Gabriel Oettingen), consider visiting https://woopmylife.org/en/home for all things WOOP including courses, a WOOP toolkit, links to the WOOP app, etc.
If you’d like help in making your goals a reality, consider health coaching. There are lots of tools that can help you reach your health goals. Sign up for a free 30- minute consultation to find out if health coaching is right for you.
