Ninety five percent of new years resolutions are never achieved, why are we so terrible at sticking to goals?
In a way achieving goals goes against our natural biological drivers. Our natural program is to avoid and move away from things that cause us stress and discomfort. Unfortunately most types of change and the majority of goals require a certain level of stress and discomfort. Studies have shown that the most common emotions people feel during the goal achievement process are frustration, anxiety, fear, boredom and apathy.
Therefore we have to realise that altering any habit or achieving any goal flies in the face of our normal biological desires and behaviour. Put another way its not going to be easy!! This statement is supported by research, which indicates that 85% of all goals set are never achieved.
The following research is taken from the PhD work of Dr Stephanie Burns an absolute guru in the area of goal achievement. It’s broken up into theory and strategies.
Theory is the background to goal achievement and will help you have a greater understanding of how change comes about. Action items are things you can practically do to increase your chances of sticking to a goal.
Theory
1. The amount of time you have to dedicate to a goal has nothing to do with your chance of achieving it. You can wipe someone’s day completely so they are free and this will not improve their chance of achieving that goal.
2. Having a high level of self-esteem does not improve your chance of sticking to a goal. A lot of people who have high self esteem often talk about all the grand things they will do, but don’t do them. The only thing self esteem affected was the size of the goal, the greater your self worth the grander the goal you set.
3. The main determinant of goal achievement was frequent and consistent action.
4. When people stopped taking action towards their goal they rationalised it by making up a story around why they couldn’t do it. Most of the time they said it was not their fault. They said things like, “I am just not an exercise type person”, “the family is more important and I really need to be there for them”, When analysed their stories were inaccurate and delusional. Also often people who stoped taking action towards their goal, said that they were merely putting it off and would get back to it later, which they never did.
5. When they compared themselves to other people who kept working towards their goal, those that quit perceived those that kept going as having a much easier time of it. They saw the other person’s goal as being easier, or their life as being better than theirs, or that the other person liked their goal more than them. None of these things were true. In fact those that stuck to their goals were as challenged, bored, frustrated with their goals as those that quit. They just didn’t see those things as a reason to quit.
Actions
1. Just start! Research shows that once we start the activity, momentum tends to make us keep going. For example to get people to exercise researchers got them just to walk for 10 minutes a day, however once they were out and exercising they continued to walk much longer than 10 minutes.
2. Don’t think too much! People that didn’t achieve their goals tended to think about it a lot. For example say their goal was to go to the gym, those that didn’t get there would sit on the lounge and debate over and over again in their heads if they should go or not. Finally they ran out of time and couldn’t go. Those people that did achieve their goal didn’t analyse it too much, when it came time to do their chosen activity, they just did it rather than thinking about doing it. In a way their heads were quieter.
3. Most goals are abandoned after 3 weeks. One key to achieving goals is to sustain the action long enough to see a result.
4. Consider the little stuff. When people set a goal they only thought about the outcome they will get at the end of it. For example if it was to lose weight they fantasised about how good they will look when they achieve their goal. Unfortunately they have not thought about all the little steps they needed to take along the way and all the little challenges they will have in order to get their goal. For example many people who had the goal to get fit stopped that goal because it was a pain to drive to the gym or they couldn’t get parking near by. It was the little things that they did not even consider that derailed their goal.
5. Create tension in your environment. Often children stick to new hobbies or sports because they have a lot of tension in their environment to make them keep going. Tension from parents, coaches, fellow students and teachers. All these sources of tension keep them accountable. Announce your goals to people and set up tension in your environment to keep you accountable to your goals.
Dr Adam's Blog
Watch this space for Dr Adams latest research findings and presentation topics
How do we stick to making a change?
Adam Fraser - Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Neutral Plasticity: Can we change poor behaviour patterns?
Adam Fraser - Wednesday, April 27, 2011
One of the top selling books in Australia recently was “The brain that changes itself”; which is all about how the brain can alter its structure. Up until a couple of years ago it was thought that the brain was set and we could not alter how it was configured. What we now know is that the brain is very plastic and is constantly remodeling itself. The key to changing how your brain is wired is to change how you use it.
The brain is made up of a series of neural connections, which are simply a group of brains cells that work together. Every action, feeling and thought has a specific neural connection that makes that action, feeling and thought possible. As I sit here typing this article a series of neural connections fire to make my fingers select the right keys in the right order. When we feel anger and act inappropriately it is once again due to the triggering of a set number of brain cells acting as a team. Similarly, the way the brain stores information is that when we learn something new, say a word in French, a number of neurons are dedicated to that one piece of information and they are encoded with it. If you never revisit that word, over time those neurons split up and go off and fulfill other jobs. However if you regularly go over the word, that pattern will be re-enforced and the neural connection will be cemented down.
Think about when you were learning how to drive. If you started in a manual car chances are you would have been terrible – bunny hopping and crunching gears. The reason is that there was no neural pattern in your brain for driving; your brain simply wasn’t set up for it. You would also notice that it took a lot of effort and concentration to drive. Now, reflect on the last time you drove home? Did you think about it? No, you just drove home. Why? Because the neural pattern of driving is so engrained you don’t even have to think about it.
Strong neural patterns are like freeways in your brain, solid, deep, wide and easy to travel on. Weak neural patterns are like dirt roads narrow, shaky and difficult to travel down. It is simply easier for our brain to use the freeways and because of this they tend to direct the traffic down that route.
We are all born with certain talents and skills as well as a thinking style and an emotional bias. Some people are good at sports; some people are great at music; others are optimistic; some handle stress easily, while others fly off the handle when the slightest thing goes wrong. Think of these natural tendencies as freeways. Unfortunately humans tend to focus on the things they are good at and shy away from things that they struggle with. If we take music lessons and we don’t pick it up easily we will quit after a short period of time. All this does is reinforce our natural abilities or put another way, the freeways in our brain get all the traffic. The good news is that we can develop the dirt roads, it just takes time and effort.
Back to the driving analogy, driving starts out as a dirt road but with consistent practice and time it turns into a freeway. Neural plasticity does not only apply to motor skills. Studies have shown that pessimists (people who have a lot of freeways for negative thoughts) can alter their brain so that it begins to have a tendency for optimism. How did they do this? Normally when an event occurred they naturally thought a pessimist thought, however this time they recognised that thought, challenged it and then chose to think of it in an optimistic light. In other words they put a detour sign on their freeway and directed the traffic down the dirt road. After enough time of doing this, the dirt road starts to get wider, smoother and easier to drive on. In the meantime the freeways starts to get cracks in it and it loses its structure.
Martin Seligman took children who had a natural style of pessimism. Each evening he got their parents to ask the children 3 questions:
What did you do really well today?
What did you really enjoy today?
What are you looking forward to tomorrow?
Over a period to time they found that the children started to have a bias for optimism. They simply changed their dirt roads into freeways.
How do we do this?
Choose a behaviour, belief or thinking style that you want to change.
Start to recognize when you do this behaviour, belief or thinking style.
Challenge it and introduce a new behaviour, belief or thinking style.
Reinforce this pattern, over and over.
The difficulty with this is that it takes effort, but when was the last time that something worthwhile was easy?
Case study
Gordon Cairns was the CEO of Lion Nathan. In 1997 the company was losing market share and the share price was dropping. The HR department did a 360-degree feedback (where people at different levels give feedback on your behaviour) on the leadership team.
The results of the feedback showed that Cairns had a very aggressive/defensive style, he wielded power, was a perfectionist, demanding, task orientated and did not see value in staff development or culture. This attitude seeped down into his leadership team who mimicked his behaviour.
The HR manager Bob Barbour called them on their behaviour and said, “Your behaviour needs to change.” Can you imagine what he would have faced? However he stood his ground and this was obviously very confronting for the leadership team. Over time they realised that in order for the organization to change, they had to change. They took personal responsibility and accountability for their behaviour. With coaching, they started to instill a new culture around a style of education and encouragement. The result was a shift in their constructive styles, an increase of 53%. Cairns went from a tyrant to an empathetic and thoughtful leader.
When asked how he made this leap, Gordon Cairns gave the following advice.
Step 1: Get feedback on your behaviour
Step 2: Park your ego and take that feedback on board without being offended
Step 3: Have a clear idea of what behaviours you want.
Step 4: Get help – coaches, consultants, books etc.
Step 5: Keep measuring
Step 6: Understand that relapse is normal.
A great example of neural plasticity!
The brain is made up of a series of neural connections, which are simply a group of brains cells that work together. Every action, feeling and thought has a specific neural connection that makes that action, feeling and thought possible. As I sit here typing this article a series of neural connections fire to make my fingers select the right keys in the right order. When we feel anger and act inappropriately it is once again due to the triggering of a set number of brain cells acting as a team. Similarly, the way the brain stores information is that when we learn something new, say a word in French, a number of neurons are dedicated to that one piece of information and they are encoded with it. If you never revisit that word, over time those neurons split up and go off and fulfill other jobs. However if you regularly go over the word, that pattern will be re-enforced and the neural connection will be cemented down.
Think about when you were learning how to drive. If you started in a manual car chances are you would have been terrible – bunny hopping and crunching gears. The reason is that there was no neural pattern in your brain for driving; your brain simply wasn’t set up for it. You would also notice that it took a lot of effort and concentration to drive. Now, reflect on the last time you drove home? Did you think about it? No, you just drove home. Why? Because the neural pattern of driving is so engrained you don’t even have to think about it.
Strong neural patterns are like freeways in your brain, solid, deep, wide and easy to travel on. Weak neural patterns are like dirt roads narrow, shaky and difficult to travel down. It is simply easier for our brain to use the freeways and because of this they tend to direct the traffic down that route.
We are all born with certain talents and skills as well as a thinking style and an emotional bias. Some people are good at sports; some people are great at music; others are optimistic; some handle stress easily, while others fly off the handle when the slightest thing goes wrong. Think of these natural tendencies as freeways. Unfortunately humans tend to focus on the things they are good at and shy away from things that they struggle with. If we take music lessons and we don’t pick it up easily we will quit after a short period of time. All this does is reinforce our natural abilities or put another way, the freeways in our brain get all the traffic. The good news is that we can develop the dirt roads, it just takes time and effort.
Back to the driving analogy, driving starts out as a dirt road but with consistent practice and time it turns into a freeway. Neural plasticity does not only apply to motor skills. Studies have shown that pessimists (people who have a lot of freeways for negative thoughts) can alter their brain so that it begins to have a tendency for optimism. How did they do this? Normally when an event occurred they naturally thought a pessimist thought, however this time they recognised that thought, challenged it and then chose to think of it in an optimistic light. In other words they put a detour sign on their freeway and directed the traffic down the dirt road. After enough time of doing this, the dirt road starts to get wider, smoother and easier to drive on. In the meantime the freeways starts to get cracks in it and it loses its structure.
Martin Seligman took children who had a natural style of pessimism. Each evening he got their parents to ask the children 3 questions:
What did you do really well today?
What did you really enjoy today?
What are you looking forward to tomorrow?
Over a period to time they found that the children started to have a bias for optimism. They simply changed their dirt roads into freeways.
How do we do this?
Choose a behaviour, belief or thinking style that you want to change.
Start to recognize when you do this behaviour, belief or thinking style.
Challenge it and introduce a new behaviour, belief or thinking style.
Reinforce this pattern, over and over.
The difficulty with this is that it takes effort, but when was the last time that something worthwhile was easy?
Case study
Gordon Cairns was the CEO of Lion Nathan. In 1997 the company was losing market share and the share price was dropping. The HR department did a 360-degree feedback (where people at different levels give feedback on your behaviour) on the leadership team.
The results of the feedback showed that Cairns had a very aggressive/defensive style, he wielded power, was a perfectionist, demanding, task orientated and did not see value in staff development or culture. This attitude seeped down into his leadership team who mimicked his behaviour.
The HR manager Bob Barbour called them on their behaviour and said, “Your behaviour needs to change.” Can you imagine what he would have faced? However he stood his ground and this was obviously very confronting for the leadership team. Over time they realised that in order for the organization to change, they had to change. They took personal responsibility and accountability for their behaviour. With coaching, they started to instill a new culture around a style of education and encouragement. The result was a shift in their constructive styles, an increase of 53%. Cairns went from a tyrant to an empathetic and thoughtful leader.
When asked how he made this leap, Gordon Cairns gave the following advice.
Step 1: Get feedback on your behaviour
Step 2: Park your ego and take that feedback on board without being offended
Step 3: Have a clear idea of what behaviours you want.
Step 4: Get help – coaches, consultants, books etc.
Step 5: Keep measuring
Step 6: Understand that relapse is normal.
A great example of neural plasticity!
Why Change is so hard to do!
Adam Fraser - Thursday, February 17, 2011
When I was an academic (in a previous life) I noticed that people in this environment were drawn to complexity. They would always find the most complicated way to explain something and always gravitated towards the most complex solution to a problem. My take on the driver for this behaviour was two things:
1. It formed an intellectual barrier that did not allow the average person to access that world. Intellectual snobbery at its highest level
2. They saw simplicity as a sign of intellectual laziness and this work was of poorer quality.
The problem was that this attitude made the material mind numbingly boring. I must have sat through over 300 academic presentations and never stayed awake in any of them. However most importantly it hampered their ability to teach and pass on concepts. I never had a lecturer help me learn and understand concepts - they just threw information at me.
However when I moved into the business world as an educator, I discovered the amazing power simplicity has. In a meeting with Ralph Norris the CEO of the Commonwealth Bank, I asked him what the biggest mistake we make in business was? His reply was - “We overcomplicate it. I run this bank on five simple principals. Simple principals allow people to learn them fast, remember them and have clarity about what behaviours they have to exhibit”.
My obsession with understanding how people change recently led to a psychologist from the University of Virginia, Jonathan Haidt. He has a change model that I think is one of the best that I have ever come across, because of its simplicity. The model consists of three parts, a rider on an elephant walking along a path. Sounds weird? Let me explain.
The rider is our logic, our rational side.
The elephant is our emotional side.
The path is the environment in which we are changing.
Within this model you can see that the logical side has very little control. The rider can pull on the reins as hard as they like, but if the elephant wants to go in another direction the rider can do little to stop it. An example is that you know you shouldn’t text your ex at 3am but you still do. The elephant has the most power in this model.
According to Jonathan, to facilitate change you have to do 3 things:
1. You must give the rider clear instructions about what change needs to occur. What are the exact behaviours you need them to exhibit? If the rider does not know exactly what they need to do they can wander off all over the place.
2. You must appeal to the elephant. You have to make it so that the elephant has a desire to go in that direction.
3. Lastly you have to clear the path. You need to make it easy for the elephant to go there. Ensure that there are no roadblocks.
I have been using this model in my work with companies with amazing results.
Guide the rider
I was with a department of a bank. As a group they came up with a goal to become number one in customer service. While that is a great goal what I pointed out is that there is no clear behaviours attached to that goal. How will people change their behaviour to achieve that goal? Upon reflection they then came up with a clear behaviour. ‘Never pass a customer on, do not transfer them to another department and you must solve their problem on the spot’. Since the introduction of this clear behaviour they have seen a sharp rise in their client satisfaction.
Motivate the elephant
I was working with a manufacturing group who were having problems getting people to stick to safety policy. The problem was that the employees saw safety as unnecessary because they thought they were bullet proof and would never get hurt. In my research on the company I found out that the major accidents people had in the company were due to another person cutting corners. In other words when an individual did not stick to the safety policy they put their co-workers at risk. Then I presented to them and talked about how they would feel if their actions lead to a mate being injured or even killed. How would they feel if they took away their livelihood and left their family struggling to survive. I then had a guy in the group talk about when he did not follow policy, which led to a co-worker being seriously injured.
They went from thinking that not paying attention to safety was a cool/brave thing to do. To my actions could hurt my mates. Their elephant was seriously motivated.
Clear the path
A number of years ago I was engaged by a law firm to put in place a work life balance strategy for the senior associates and lawyers. I presented the strategy to the partners and they were on board. Six months later when we reviewed the project it had had little impact. Why? Well the strategy was simple and they knew the exact behaviours they had to do, so it wasn’t that. The elephant was engaged because they all wanted to see their families more and to reduce their stress. The reason it failed was that the partners penalised them when they exhibited those behaviours. The problem was that the partners put barriers on the path.
From now on when you are trying to change anything in your life or leading others through a change process ensure that you:
1. Guide the rider with crystal clear behaviours.
2. Appeal to their elephant.
3. Clear the path.
For a copy of this article, go to Why change is so hard to do
1. It formed an intellectual barrier that did not allow the average person to access that world. Intellectual snobbery at its highest level
2. They saw simplicity as a sign of intellectual laziness and this work was of poorer quality.
The problem was that this attitude made the material mind numbingly boring. I must have sat through over 300 academic presentations and never stayed awake in any of them. However most importantly it hampered their ability to teach and pass on concepts. I never had a lecturer help me learn and understand concepts - they just threw information at me.
However when I moved into the business world as an educator, I discovered the amazing power simplicity has. In a meeting with Ralph Norris the CEO of the Commonwealth Bank, I asked him what the biggest mistake we make in business was? His reply was - “We overcomplicate it. I run this bank on five simple principals. Simple principals allow people to learn them fast, remember them and have clarity about what behaviours they have to exhibit”.
My obsession with understanding how people change recently led to a psychologist from the University of Virginia, Jonathan Haidt. He has a change model that I think is one of the best that I have ever come across, because of its simplicity. The model consists of three parts, a rider on an elephant walking along a path. Sounds weird? Let me explain.
The rider is our logic, our rational side.
The elephant is our emotional side.
The path is the environment in which we are changing.
Within this model you can see that the logical side has very little control. The rider can pull on the reins as hard as they like, but if the elephant wants to go in another direction the rider can do little to stop it. An example is that you know you shouldn’t text your ex at 3am but you still do. The elephant has the most power in this model.
According to Jonathan, to facilitate change you have to do 3 things:
1. You must give the rider clear instructions about what change needs to occur. What are the exact behaviours you need them to exhibit? If the rider does not know exactly what they need to do they can wander off all over the place.
2. You must appeal to the elephant. You have to make it so that the elephant has a desire to go in that direction.
3. Lastly you have to clear the path. You need to make it easy for the elephant to go there. Ensure that there are no roadblocks.
I have been using this model in my work with companies with amazing results.
Guide the rider
I was with a department of a bank. As a group they came up with a goal to become number one in customer service. While that is a great goal what I pointed out is that there is no clear behaviours attached to that goal. How will people change their behaviour to achieve that goal? Upon reflection they then came up with a clear behaviour. ‘Never pass a customer on, do not transfer them to another department and you must solve their problem on the spot’. Since the introduction of this clear behaviour they have seen a sharp rise in their client satisfaction.
Motivate the elephant
I was working with a manufacturing group who were having problems getting people to stick to safety policy. The problem was that the employees saw safety as unnecessary because they thought they were bullet proof and would never get hurt. In my research on the company I found out that the major accidents people had in the company were due to another person cutting corners. In other words when an individual did not stick to the safety policy they put their co-workers at risk. Then I presented to them and talked about how they would feel if their actions lead to a mate being injured or even killed. How would they feel if they took away their livelihood and left their family struggling to survive. I then had a guy in the group talk about when he did not follow policy, which led to a co-worker being seriously injured.
They went from thinking that not paying attention to safety was a cool/brave thing to do. To my actions could hurt my mates. Their elephant was seriously motivated.
Clear the path
A number of years ago I was engaged by a law firm to put in place a work life balance strategy for the senior associates and lawyers. I presented the strategy to the partners and they were on board. Six months later when we reviewed the project it had had little impact. Why? Well the strategy was simple and they knew the exact behaviours they had to do, so it wasn’t that. The elephant was engaged because they all wanted to see their families more and to reduce their stress. The reason it failed was that the partners penalised them when they exhibited those behaviours. The problem was that the partners put barriers on the path.
From now on when you are trying to change anything in your life or leading others through a change process ensure that you:
1. Guide the rider with crystal clear behaviours.
2. Appeal to their elephant.
3. Clear the path.
For a copy of this article, go to Why change is so hard to do
1
Recent Posts
- Leadership Has not changed in 20 years
- Why everything you thought you knew about happiness is wrong!
- You're better off smoking pot than multitasking!
- Work-Life Balance
- It's not me, it's you!
- How to set up your day for better productivity!
- How to Maintain your energy levels
- How do we stick to making a change?
- How to avoid burnout in a world where work-life balance is dead!
- Workforce Dynamics: The Greater Fallout from the Global Financial Crisis
Tags
Relationships emotion focus performance work place performance well-being energy high performers creativity Behaviour Change brain goals work place productivity attention Change high performer increase workforce productivity self awareness high performance mental performance culture Third Space work performance happiness productive multitasking wellness work life balance stress concentration mental health social networks Flow productivity workplace culture
- attention (2)
- Behaviour Change (7)
- brain (10)
- Change (3)
- concentration (2)
- creativity (3)
- culture (3)
- emotion (3)
- energy (1)
- Flow (1)
- focus (4)
- goals (3)
- happiness (1)
- high performance (4)
- high performer (2)
- high performers (1)
- increase workforce productivity (2)
- mental health (4)
- mental performance (2)
- multitasking (4)
- performance (10)
- productive (3)
- productivity (11)
- Relationships (1)
- self awareness (3)
- social networks (1)
- stress (6)
- Third Space (1)
- well-being (2)
- wellness (5)
- work life balance (5)
- work performance (2)
- work place performance (3)
- work place productivity (4)
- workplace culture (4)