Stuart Munro is a performance and wellbeing psychologist, who works with those in high
performance environments. He is currently supporting international Paralympic alpine ski racers, develops performance psychology content for corporate sectors, and runs
mindfulness-based sessions for performance and wellbeing. Stuart offers you some
guidance on setting new behaviours into long-term habits……
New Year Resolutions vs Lifetime Habits
Have you started thinking about what you’re going to change about you or your life in 2023? Stepping into a New Year offers you that clean slate. To write off all the things you felt that you didn’t achieve in 2022 and start afresh in 2023. Getting fitter, being slimmer, spending more time with family, being more productive. Yet, for most people, after an initial, enthusiastic burst of doing the new behaviour, the efforts begin to wane and they drift back into previous habits. However, when you understand motivation and how habits are formed, how you can develop new habits and maintain them, it offers you an opportunity to
keep your New Year goals going, perhaps even for the rest of your life!! To help you develop new behaviours that are going to stick, it is important to understand two processes related to behaviour change:
Motivation/willpower & the Reward Process
Part 1 – Motivation & willpower
6 Steps to help give you the motivation and willpower to get started
Step 1 – How much do you want it?
Your new behaviour (e.g. getting fit) is going to have to compete with other existing habitual
behaviours (e.g. being inactive). Therefore, any new behaviour is going to need motivation and willpower. So, your desire to change must be strong to counteract the automatic pull of your existing habits.
- How important is this behaviour change?
What you are trying to do here is inform the brain that you have a new behaviour that you think is going to be more rewarding than your existing behaviours. This step is crucial!!! When you are starting a new behaviour the brain doesn’t know that this new behaviour can be rewarding – so you need to tell it! If you can’t convince yourself that the new behaviour (e.g. getting fit) is important and will be rewarding for you then the brain will choose what it thinks will be most rewarding in the present moment. For example, without expressing the desire that going for a morning walk is going to offer you heaps of benefits and be
rewarding in the long-term, your brain will come up with all sorts of rewarding reasons for staying in bed in the short-term.
Step 2 – State your reasons for change in the positive
It’s easy here to get caught up in things you don’t want. In other words, creating reasons to avoid certain outcomes – (i.e. not being overweight, wanting others to approve of your shape). Herein, lies a major problem behind making change. Avoidance-driven motivations, where you are striving to prevent a negative outcome, are strongly related to negative emotions. For example, you don’t want to be overweight, which may be associated with emotions of guilt or shame. Each time the new behaviour comes to mind then – guess what? – your brain gives you guilt and shame. Your brain associates the new behaviour with these emotions. If your motivation is founded in insecurity, then this new behaviour will be habitually associated with negative emotions. Not only does this consistently impact your wellbeing, but has a de-motivating influence on keeping the new
behaviour going.
- Consider the benefits that this new behaviour will offer you
- Imagine ‘You’ in 6 months’ time having done this new behaviour – what would that be like? Not many people will do this next bit, but the science demonstrates that this has a strong
motivational impact and will boost your willpower. - Write down the positive reasons why this behaviour change is important to you
- Share it with people that you care about
Step 3 – Find someone to do the new behaviour with
You are going to encounter moments of weakness. That is inevitable. A huge motivational influence during these difficult times is knowing that someone else is going to be doing the new behaviour too. If your motivation is low, but you know that a friend is definitely going to be walking, for example, then you are more likely to find the motivation.
Step 4 – Take away the decision points
You want to start walking in the mornings. You wake up, and you contemplate getting your walking gear on. You’re not quite sure what route you will do. Will you do 20 mins or 30 mins? How cold is it? What will I wear? Shall I eat before walking? These are all decision points.
Each time you face a decision point it presents the opportunity for a competing behaviour to kick in – i.e. to stay in bed. As best you can, take away these decision points. In the example above, have your walking gear ready, know the route you’re going to do, decide the night before the time you will do, know the weather so that you prepare before.
With less decision points you can literally get up, get the gear on and go. By the time you are outside you’ve gotten past the toughest obstacle.
Step 5 – Consistency – The 5 minute rule
Most new behaviours fail because they never reach a stage of consistency. This means that the brain does not adapt and create the connections associated with the new behaviour. So, each time you try the new behaviour it is always a big hurdle.
You are going to have lots of times when you are feeling unmotivated, and the new behaviour will seem like the last thing you want to do. When this occurs, tell yourself you’ll do 5 mins. Even if you only do 5 mins, that’s okay, because the brain is creating those connections associated with the new behaviour. On most occasions 5 mins turns into longer simply because you have gotten past the obstacle of starting. These 5 mins may seem inconsequential, however, you have started activating the areas in the brain that create the
connections for habits.
Many people get stuck at this first hurdle because they incorrectly think they need more motivation if the new behaviour takes time (e.g. 20 min walk). This is not true!! Most of your motivation is required only at the start.
To build consistency and build the brain connections that form habits, make it easy for yourself and start with small timescales that you know you can do regularly. On some days you will just feel like doing more. Your regular small timescales will become larger and larger. And when you are faced with time pressures, or difficult life events, take it back down to small timescales again. The key to creating new habits is simply consistency.
Step 6 – Have a back-up plan that supports your goal
When you’re not feeling at all motivated it is easy to start beating yourself up that you are not achieving your ambitious goals. You’d set out a plan of doing a 30 min walk or run on this day, but you are in a low motivation state, and tired. This is where having a back-up plan is useful. If it is exercise related, consider what other short activities support your goal of being fitter, for example. You could do some yoga, some weights or band work, simply walk up the stairs for 10 mins.
The low motivation days are inevitable. And these days can roll into each other to break the consistency you’ve created, and in that time you are negatively criticising yourself. Having the back-up plan allows you to feel that you’ve achieved something that supports your goal.
People tend not to have these back-up plans because they associate not doing their initial plan as a failure. However, having no back-up plan only provides you with an hard-line approach – do the initial plan or do nothing.
Think of these 6 steps as providing the impetus to kickstart your new behaviour. To help give you motivation and the willpower to actually begin the new behaviour. That may get you going initially, but you are going to need the power of your brain’s reward pathway to make this new behaviour a lifelong habit.
And that’s what is discussed in Part 2. Click here to read Part 2.
Stuart can be contacted by email: stu@minds2perform.com
Stuart is an expert in mindfulness-based training for performance and wellbeing having extensive training and experience working with various client groups. He will be offering an online group session in 2023. Please contact Stuart if interested.
