Lynne S. Gots, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist
Building Healthy Habits: Visualizing Positive Outcomes Works Best
By Lynne Gots, posted on October 3rd, 2012.
I recently heard a popular media doctor talking on the radio about making dietary and exercise changes to promote optimal health. He gave some sound advice.
“Write down your goals. Think about why you want to lose weight and get more fit.”
So far, so good. But then he added a suggestion which flies in the face of what we psychologists know about behavior change: “Thinking about what you want to avoid is the best way to motivate yourself.” He went on to explain that a family history of diabetes keeps him on the straight and narrow. In other words, he’s motivated by fear.
Maybe this approach works for him ( though given his success, I suspect he’s more disciplined naturally than most of us anyway, so he probably doesn’t need much of a motivational boost). But it’s not the most effective way for most people to stick with a diet or exercise plan.
If scare tactics worked, wouldn’t those gruesome, anti-smoking PSAs impel more smokers to quit? Knowing something isn’t good for us—potentially fatal, even—usually isn’t enough to make us stop.
Thinking about what we want to achieve is much more motivating than envisioning the dire consequences of unhealthy habits. So if you want to get in shape, don’t imagine yourself in ten years, three sizes larger and insulin-dependent. Instead, picture yourself six months from now, crossing the finish line of your first 5K.
If you point yourself in the direction of where you want to go, you’ll get there faster than if you run the other way.
Tags: goal-setting, habit change, motivation, weight control
Posted in Behavior Change, Goals, Motivation, Self-help, Techniques |
How to Keep Trying in the Face of Obstacles: Lessons from a Dog
By Lynne Gots, posted on August 13th, 2012.
My dog Baxter is at it again. As I’ve mentioned before, he’s crazy for vegetables, and he’ll do anything to get to the few gnarled green tomatoes and warty cucumbers in my pathetic garden. Given the opportunity, he’ll even go after the jalapeños. Nothing deters him—not the triple-reinforced plastic fencing, not the gates and makeshift barricades, not even the noxious sprays guaranteed to repel deer and other wildlife.
We could all take a page from Baxter’s book. I’d call it The Little Dog that Could. Watching him case the perimeter in search of a breach in the fortifications, I imagine him saying, “I think I can, I think I can, I KNOW I can!” until he breaks through, triumphant, and scarfs as much produce as he can before I drag him out by the collar.
Even when he snatches the only ripening tomato off the vine, I can’t help but admire his tenacity. Call it the unbridled optimism of the simple-minded, if you will, but I choose to see it as sheer determination. He never gives up.
Unlike Baxter, many of us humans tend to get discouraged when obstacles stand in our way. I’ve seen lots of recent college graduates (my own daughter included) who want to throw in the towel after ten, twenty, or fifty job applications meet with rejection—or worse, get no response at all. Of course it’s profoundly disheartening for a former academic superstar to find herself unemployed with no clear prospects for the future. But summoning the wherewithal to keep plugging away with no immediate rewards in sight is a life skill worth cultivating—and one with the potential to yield a far greater payoff than any entry-level job.
Being a dog has its advantages. I doubt Baxter has to deal with a running stream of self-defeating thoughts telling him he’s not smart enough or strong enough or young enough or canine enough to break through the fence. He’s surely not predicting he’ll never eat another tomato again. He just keeps digging and scratching away. Even getting his head stuck in the plastic netting hasn’t scared him off. He was back at it the very next day.
Yesterday I harvested the first tomatoes from my garden. I’m planning to enjoy them tonight with a drizzle of olive oil, a sprinkle of sea salt, and a handful of my own homegrown basil.
And I’ll be sharing a few bites with Baxter.
Tags: cognitive-behavioral therapy, dogs, motivation
Posted in Dogs, General, Motivation |
Don’t Let the Perfect Be the Enemy of the Good
By Lynne Gots, posted on July 17th, 2012.
If you’re like me, you have no shortage of ideas about how to improve yourself. Eat more vegetables. Cut down on sweets. Meditate. Get more sleep. Lift weights. Drink more water. Learn to cook Thai food. Practice the piano. Brush up on conversational French. [Insert your own favorites here.]
And if you’re like me, and many others, you also may have trouble following through with your plans.
Why is it so easy for us to think of all the ways we’d like to create newer, better versions of ourselves and so hard for us to make the changes happen?
I think it’s because we don’t just set out to develop healthier habits or find new creative outlets. We imagine no less than a total transformation and deem anything short of a complete makeover as insufficient—not worth the effort.
Take a writer I know. She lives alone. She works from home and can follow any schedule that suits her. She’s a night owl and has a surge of energy after 10 pm, often staying up until 2 or 3 in the morning when her creative juices are flowing. As a result, she usually sleeps until noon unless she’s scheduled a morning meeting. But she always sets her alarm for 8 because she views herself as lazy for spending half a conventional workday in bed. She starts every morning with the fantasy of getting up when she “should” and always winds up hitting Snooze five times before she turns off the alarm in disgust and goes back to sleep. When she finally does drag herself out of bed, never fully rested due to the interrupted sleep, she feels upset with herself. Not the best way to start the day.
Yet when I suggested she just face the fact that she’s not a morning person and set the alarm for a more realistic time (say, 11:30), when she actually might be able to get up, she looked aghast.
“I couldn’t possibly do that. That’s so late!”
Sure she’d like to bound out of bed at 8. But right now she’s not starting her day until noon. So why wouldn’t it make sense to try rising just a half hour earlier?
Because she’s letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Seems silly, doesn’t it? But when it comes to ourselves, we often can’t see as clearly how our visions of The Perfect keep us from even beginning to make a dent in the patterns we’d like to change.
Think about one of those self-improvement ideas you’ve had for a while but never seem to carry out. If the undertaking seems overwhelming, you might just be letting your vision of the perfect you block your path forward. So instead of focusing on where you want to be (which may seem impossibly distant), look at where you are right now, and start by taking just one ridiculously small step in the right direction.
Tags: habit change, perfectionism, self-improvement
Posted in Behavior Change, Perfectionism, Self-help |
