The Secret to Habits Part II

“Motivation is what gets you started.  Habit is what keeps you going.”

Jim Ryun

A recent meta-analytic study involving almost 200 studies indicated the power of using Practice Plans (what psychologist call implementation intentions) on goal achievement in a variety of domains (e.g. interpersonal, environmental, health) on top of the effects of mere goal intentions ((Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69–119)).  Indeed, Practice Plans, as an approach to goal setting, appears to be very powerful and useful.

A Habit Trigger is simply a plan in which you link a situation or context with a response that will bring you closer to fulfilling your goal . To do this, all you have to do is reframe your goals as “if-then” or “when-then” statements. The “if “or “when” part is the situational cue and the “then” part is your planned response or behavior to that cue.

Practice Plans  help to facilitate the successful development of new habits.  Some habit triggers will be situation based (e.g., “When I feel anxious, I will practice mindfulness meditation to calm me down” or “When I notice the other person speaking, then I will seek to understand what they are saying before I share my own ideas”) and others are time based (e.g., “When it is Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning at 7am for the next month then I will attend my 50 minute yoga class” or “At each weekly staff meeting, I will solicit the ideas of my staff and summarize them before sharing my own thoughts and suggestions”). Both types might be relevant to use depending on the specific goal being targeted.  Alternately, you might consider building a new habit trigger based on an already existing routine or habit you already have in place (see more information at the fantastic website by BJ Fogg at Stanford University).

Indicators of Goal Progress

The most common indicator for a “best day” is any progress in the work by the individual or team.  A total of 26 project teams comprised of 238 individuals were asked to report daily on moods, motivations, perceptions of the work environment, what work was accomplished and what events stood out in their mind (nearly 12,000 diary entries). Steps forward (progress) occurred on 76% of people’s best mood days and setbacks on only 13% of those days.  Therefore, progress—even a small step forward—is highly correlated with the number of days talent report being in a good mood ((Amabile, T. & Kramer, S. (2011).  The power of small wins.  Harvard Business Review, 89, 70-80)).

Motivation is Minimized in the Middle

When people work toward goals, they monitor their progress in two ways —what they have achieved so far and how much they have left to do. It appears that individuals switch between the methods depending on how close they were to reaching their goal.  Research with university students asked to pursue a specific goal (e.g., correcting errors in an essay) were less motivated halfway through the tasks, which likely reflects the point where they switch their focus from how much they achieved to how much they had left to do.

Additional research suggested that a shift in attention from the starting point to the end point occurred halfway through the task so this might be one of the most important times for coaches to follow up with their clients ((Bonezzi, A., Brendl, C., & De Angelis, M. (2011).  Stuck in the Middle: The Psychophysics of Goal Pursuit, Psychological Science, 7, 2011, doi: 10.1177/0956797611404899)).

Motivation to “do things right” follows a u-shaped pattern, such that it is higher at the beginning and end of goal pursuit (sometimes called the Zeigarnik Effect) than in the middle ((Toure-Tillery, M. & Fishback, A. (2011).  The course of motivation.  Journal of Consumer Psychology,doi:10.1016/j.jcps.2011.04.004)).

Since beginning and end (vs. middle) positions are often arbitrarily determined, one thing everyone can do is to reduce the length  the “middle” by dividing long goal pursuits into sub-goals requiring smaller actions.  This should increase the likelihood that all of us will continue to successfully maintain our efforts towards goal completion.

What Kind of Practice is Best if You Want to Improve?

A practical test of this “10,000″ rule is being done by Dan McLaughlin who quit his job at the age of 30 and has been practicing his golf game six days a week, living off savings and some wise stock picks and by renting his house.  He has about 4,000 more hours of practice to go in order to see if he will get good enough to play in the Masters Golf Tournament.  His results to date–4,000+ hours have lowered his handicap to 7 which means he is better than 85% of the male U.S. golfing public.  Dan keeps an interesting Blog which highlights his journey.

Dan is using the latest research on improving skill, motor performance and memory in how he practices.  He uses a training approach called interleaving which is “mixing up” the things you do instead of deliberately doing the same thing over and over (e.g., hitting 100 drives, shooting 50 free throws, giving 100 motivational speeches).  Instead he mixes up his clubs, targets and difficulty of his challenges.

Like the research suggests, interleaving causes performance in the short term to decrease but enhances overall success over time.  Therefore, practicing tasks in an interleaved (random) order generally results in inferior practice performance but induces superior retention compared with practicing in a repetitive order.  So, if you want your kid to become a better hitter in baseball, having them see a variety of pitches in an hour (e.g., slider, fastball, change up, curve) is better than just practicing trying to get the hang of dealing with one pitch for a prolonged period of time (now I find this out).

Researchers from UCLA using brain imaging called functional MRI that measures sensomotor connectivity of specific regions of the brain demonstrated that neural circuits are strengthened using interleaved practice versus a repetitive condition ((Lin, C., Chiang, M., Knowlton. B., Iacoboni, M., Udompholkul, P. & Wu, A.  (2012).  Interleaved practice enhances skill learning and the functional connectivity of fronto-parietal networks. Human Brain Mapping, DOI: 10.1002/hbm.2209)).

These results strongly hint that if you want to develop better skills, memory and psychomotor performance it is really better to spice up your deliberate practice with variety and not just spend a chunk of time doing the same thing over and over (e.g., practice a variety of dives in an hour versus just focusing on one type of dive).  Expect your practice sessions to be bad but over time your performance will actually significantly improve.

How Long Does it Take for New Habits to Form?

Research by Phillippa Lally and colleagues from the UK suggest that new behaviors can become automatic, on average, between 18 to 254 days but it depends on the complexity of what new behavior you are trying to put into place and your personality ((Lally, P. et al. (2009). How are habits formed: Modeling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, DOI: 10.10002/ejsp.674)). They studied volunteers who chose to change an eating, drinking or exercise behavior and tracked them for success. They completed a self-report diary which they entered on a website log and were asked to try the new behavior each day for 84 days.

For the habits, 27 chose an eating behavior, 31 a drinking behavior (e.g., drinking water), 34 an exercise behavior and 4 did something else (e.g., meditation). Analysis of all of these behaviors indicated that it took 66 days, on average, for this new behavior to become automatic and a new “habit” that seemed pretty natural. The range was anywhere from 18 to 254 days.

The mean number of days varied by the complexity of the habit:

• Drinking / 59 days
• Eating / 65 days
• Exercise / 91 days

Although there are some limitations in this study, it does suggest that it can take a large number of repetitions for their new behaviors to become a habit.

Therefore, creating new habits requires tremendous self-control to be maintained for a significant period of time before they become more “automatic” and performed without any real self-control. For most people, it takes about 3 months of constant practice before a more complicated new behavior gets “set” in our neural pathways as something we are comfortable with and seemingly automatic. So, adopting a new physical workout routine or learning to become more participative as a leader might take quite a while with or without coaching to truly become more natural.

The Power of Deliberate and Challenging Practice Over Time

“Practice makes perfect” according to an old saying.  Or at least if you do it enough you will become an expert.

Or does it?

There is, in fact, a big difference between “experts” and those “who are expert” in what they do. In a 2006 book co-edited by Anders Ericcson called “The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance“, two of the authors conclude that great performance comes mostly from two things: Regularly obtaining concrete and constructive feedback and deliberate practice with difficult tasks ((K. Anders Ericsson , ed., The Road to Excellence: The Acquisition of Expert Performance in the Arts and Sciences, Sports and Games. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1996, pp.10-11)).

They found that the best skaters spent 68% of their practice doing really hard jumps and routines compared to those who were less successful (they spent about 48% of their time doing the same difficult things). Having raw talent is wonderful but it’s what you do with it that really seems to matter. “Only dead fish go with the flow” is an old saying–if you don’t work to get better it just doesn’t happen naturally.

Ericsson and others use the words “deliberate practice” to mean focused, structured, serious and detailed attempts to get better. That means it has to be challenging and difficult (i.e., practicing the most difficult tasks).

As it turns out, little empirical evidence really exists about the popularized “10,000 rule”–practice will indeed make you better but only up to your genetic set point!

If You Slip–Don’t Worry, Be Happy

According to new research, quitting may actually be better for your health. Psychologist’s Gregory Miller and Carsten Wroshch have found that people who are able to feel comfortable quitting when faced with unattainable goals may actually have better mental and physical health than those who persevere and push themselves to succeed ((Miller, G. & Wrosch, C. (2007). You’ve Gotta Know When to Fold ‘Em: Goal Disengagement and Systemic Inflammation in Adolescence. Psychological Science, 18, 773-777)). This study was based on their previous research which found that those persistent individuals experienced higher levels of an inflammatory protein called C-reactive protein (an indicator of stress) as well as increased cortisol. They also reported lower psychological well-being. On the surface, this might not seem like a big deal but inflammation appears to be an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease and other stress related conditions.

Contrary to what we might have been taught, it appears that it might be in our best interests to “cut our losses” in the face of unattainable goals and life challenges and actually disengage from the goal to ensure optimum well-being and potentially long-term health. This appears to be true whether we are in unsatisfying long-term relationships, working for leaders who are toxic or targeting a goal that is beyond our skill and ability “set points.”

So, any good things for those who persist? In other research Carsten and colleagues found that in the face of life challenge and disengaging from unattainable goals, those who redefined and set new goals were more likely to be able to buffer the negative emotions associated with the initial failure. Maybe “rebound” relationships and new entrepreneurial goals might actually serve to help us find closure to the past and re-engage us for future journeys ((Wrosch, C., Miller, G. E., Scheier, M. F., & Brun de Pontet, S. (2007). Giving up on unattainable goals: Benefits for health? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 251-265)).

Do you want to try our new goal setting and evaluation system for either the executive coaching work you do or to support the training transfer for workshops you deliver?  If so, we have created an online goal setting/evaluation system called Momentor to help you. Just contact me at support@envisialearning.com or by phone at 310-721-2918 for a demo or free trial…..Be well….

Ken Nowack

Kenneth Nowack, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist (PSY13758) and President & Chief Research Officer/Co-Founder of Envisia Learning, is a member of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. Ken also serves as the Associate Editor of Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research. His recent book Clueless: Coaching People Who Just Don’t Get It is available for free for a limited time by signing up for free blog updates (Learn more at our website)