Don't Waste Time Negotiating With Yourself

There’s some interesting studies that I have read about recently, which talk to why some people manage to keep things going, whether that’s exercise, diet, or really any behaviour change, while others start with good intent and then it fades.

A group of non-exercising students were split into three groups as part of a study looking at how to increase participation in exercise.

The first group was simply asked to track their workouts.

The second group was given additional motivation, they were provided with information on the benefits of exercise, including how it reduces the risk of coronary heart disease and improves overall health.

The third group received the same information as the second, so motivation and understanding were held constant, but they were also asked to write down exactly when and where they would exercise over the following week.

The results were very enlightening.

In both the first and second groups, around 35 to 38 percent of people exercised at least once. In other words, learning about the benefits of exercise on their heart had no meaningful impact on behaviour. I guess that tracks right? Simply knowing something is good for you, doesn’t mean you will automatically do it.

In the third group, where people specified when and where they would act, that number jumped to a staggering 91 percent.

This can be referred to as the implementation intention and it’s a powerful technique. Similiar people with the same underlying motivation, just a shift from a general intention to something more specific and scheduled.

Implementation intention is in effect a plan you make before the event about when and where to act. It’s essentially how you intend to implement a particular habit. It’s no surprise James Clear writes a lot about how effective this is.

The same thing applies to nutrition.

When people plan exactly what they’re going to eat in advance, they are far more likely to follow through than when they rely on making “good choices” in the moment, and finally in one of the more extreme examples, another study looked at individuals coming out of drug rehabilitation, where energy and self-control are already under pressure, and found that when one group was simply asked to complete a job resume by a certain day, not a single person followed through. That’s right,  zero percent, but when another group was asked to specify exactly when and where they would do it, 80% of them got it done. Remarkable really.

So what does it tell us?

It’s not that people lack motivation, or even that they don’t understand the benefits, it’s that they are relying on willpower at the exact moment it is least reliable.

Where I tend to see this land in a really practical way is with people who have things mapped out in advance, they’ve already decided when something is going to happen and where it’s going to happen, so when the moment arrives they’re not spending any time negotiating with themselves.

It’s something I say to clients quite a bit, don’t waste time negotiating with yourself. We spend enough time negotiating with other people in our lives, we don’t need to be doing it with ourselves as well!

Let me give you an example of how this can play out.

You wake up, you start thinking about exercise, but you’re a bit tired and before long you’re weighing up options, pushing things out, telling yourself you’ll get to it later, and then you roll over and that’s the moment gone.

Whereas when it’s already been locked in, when there is a clear time, a clear place, and you know exactly what you’re doing, you’re not relying on how you feel in that moment, you’re simply following through on something you’ve already committed to.

The specificity and precision of that plan also makes it far more likely you’ll stick to it when things aren’t perfect, which, if we’re honest, is most days.

Once that foundation is in place, you can strengthen it further with an if/then plan to deal with the inevitable curveballs.

For example, if I have an early client meeting that interferes with my normal routine, I already know what happens next, if that meeting is in the morning on a run day, then instead of my usual yoga and full sprint session I’ll do some stretches and a shorter sprint session. It’s also reassuring to know that you still get most of the benefit from a shorter session, often north of 90%. In fact the variation is often great for you.

And on the days where a session just isn’t possible, that’s fine too, it literally becomes a few stretches, maybe some brief bodyweight work, and then I pick it back up the next day rather than throwing the whole programme out.

So if there’s something you’ve been meaning to get going, or something you’ve started a few times and haven’t quite stuck with, it might be worth a small shift.

Instead of focusing on motivation, just get really clear on what you are doing and when and where it’s going to happen.

Give it a time, give it a place, and take the decision out of your hands when the moment arrives. No more negotiating with yourself.

It’s a simple change, but it tends to make a disproportionate difference.