Not Doing Very Much

knittedbreast Mon 06-Jun-11 12:13:18

"I can’t be the only one who has a list the length of my arm for things I really need to do but just haven’t done.... am I the only one?What’s on your list?"

Taken from one of the many internet discussion boards, the above extract probably sounds quite familiar (aside from the name perhaps). Most of us have a set of goals and aims in life that we at least say we want to achieve and themajority of the time I would guess we really do mean what we say. Weight loss, revision, exercise, healthier eating, charity work, redecorating. Rationally speaking we can and should be able to achieve the majority of the goals we set ourselves. Examples of others doing much more than losing a few pounds, exercising or redecorating the second bathroom are in abundance. An inspection of some of the bizarre and endurance based records that have been set in the Guinness Book of World Records underlines this. Furthermore, we all personally know people who have lost a few pounds, exercise regularly or have a well decorated second bathroom.

Why is it then that we sometimes find we don't we ever get round to achieving these important goals? Very occasionally the goals or challenges we set ourselves are ridiculous and we fail epically because they are past our means (http://failblog.org/2008/12/08/coconut-breaking-fail/), but looking over the usual candidates on New Year’s resolution lists, most seem more than do-able. Yet, most turn out to be beyond us. Is there something that can be done? Can psychological research help us?

I believe so. One reason we don't achieve what we desire is that we can fall into a tendency of believing that merely wanting to do something and having some vague idea about when ('sometime next week') and how ('I will look it up beforehand') things will happen is enough to facilitate change. We devise very basic and open ended plans (or don't plan at all) and although we might have intentions to keep to them, this doesn't seem to be enough. If one doesn't have concrete plans set out, with specifics such as what, where, when and how, it is very easy to put things off or find yourself not doing it. A body of research underlines this in psychology; 'Implementation Intentions' (we will call them II's).

An unnecessarily long winded and unclear name, II's basically mean the practise of ensuring one creates extremely specific plans. At the start of the week, if you have set aside a specific day, time and have planned a location and activity that is in fitting with your goal, this makes doing this a whole lot easier. There are lots of convincing sounding reasons as to why this should work; the process should make sure you remember to do it, ensures you have set aside the appropriate resources (time) and thought about the practicalities. In addition, having spent some time planning and having these hand written plans on your wall or desk, reminds you of how much you want the goal and probably makes ducking out just a little more embarrassing to oneself.

A study by Luszczynska and colleagues (2007) shows the power of the II. Here researchers visited a Weight Watchers group and assigned half of the group to receive a very short amount of training and guidance from a researcher about how to use II's and were given some nice looking sheets on which to make their II's for the next 8 weeks. For weight loss, one II might be something along the lines of (Aerobic exercise – body pump class, 7pm – 8pm, Monday night, Munroe Sports Centre, getting there by car, leaving at 6.45, meeting friend Lucy at 6.55 outside, have done this class before, is challenging but I can do an hour). The other half carried on with their weight loss programme as usual without receiving any training about II's. At 2 months the control group had lost 2.1kg (just short of 5 pounds). A truimph for Weight Watchers.

But it is of course the II group we are more interested in. They had lost 2 times the amount the control group lost (4.2 kg). This is quite a finding, as the participants in the control condition were actively trying to lose weight also. They just lacked the power of foresight and strategic planning through II's. Furthermore, the more participants had taken to the programme and made II's frequently the more weight was lost. The power of planning ahead through some careful consideration at the start of a week is impressive.

A further reason why we might have the best intentions at new years but have little to show come March time is because of a tendency to view our future selves in an overly optimistically light. Often you will hear friends saying that they will start next week, do it in a fortnight or next month 'will the big one'. A series of studies have shown how time can change our perceptions of our abilities. When an exam is several weeks in the future people tend to be overly optimistic about their performance and are probably not too worried. However, move the time point when you ask them about how hard they think the test will be and how well they will do, to a day or two before the exam and you get different results.

What this might suggest is that when things are far off in the future it is very easy to think about them abstractly and with rose tinted glasses. Hence, when people are putting plans off till next week or next month, there is likely to be a genuine belief they will do them. But they are more often than not kidding themselves. They don't know their future selves very well. If you haven't done any exercise this week, what is going to happen next month that makes your future self so keen to hit the gym? Of course, you might find excuses for why you didn't do it this week or attribute your failings elsewhere (we like doing this a lot – http://psychologyshared.blogspot.com/2010/11/im-great-fact.html), but as creatures of habit, the best predictor of what you'll be doing next week is what you’re doing this week. To stop looking hopefully into the future and make plans in the present would seem to be a sensible idea.

A final consideration as to why we often don't achieve what we hope to is our fear of hard work. Sometimes we believe what we have to do (i.e. exercise, eat healthily) won't be particularly enjoyable. However, a lot of studies have shown that we aren't particularly great at knowing what we will and won't enjoy. A recent study by Ruby et al. (2011) examined how this might influence intentions to exercise. Using all sorts of different exercise classes (Pilates to Yoga to Weight training) and all sorts of work out difficulty levels, the researchers asked members of these classes to estimate how enjoyable these activities would be, as well as measuring how enjoyable they actually were when they were partaken in.

Participants tended to significantly under-estimate how enjoyable the exercise would be. This is especially interesting as the participants they sampled were often regular exercisers, so if they don't know how good it is, what chance do those without such experience stand?The authors also argued that this misprediction occurs because people naturally focus on the early difficult stages of an exercise session which can often be uncomfortable, but once you’re over this hill, the rest of a work out is often enjoyable. Furthermore, the feel good factor of having exercised is likely to stretch for hours after the session. Indeed, the researchers also showed that reducing this bias of focusing on the negative parts increases individuals intentions to do more exercise.

Similarly, in a number of studies my research group have recently published, we showed that getting participants to recall a pleasant memory of eating a healthy food not only increases their expected enjoyment of eating that food, but also results in them eating a lot more of it when later making food choices (Robinson et al. 2011). More often than not what we have to do in life isn't all that bad, but we might not necessarily realise this. There are enjoyable parts to most things. Trying to take a more optimistic and rounded view of the good as well as the bad should help us make that exercise class, revision session or opt for the salad rather than burger. Knowing you need to do something is one thing, but knowing it will have pretty enjoyable aspects of it might be the difference.

It is worrying how many short cuts and biases we possess that enable us to slack off, but awareness and harnessing alternative strategies should be helpful. Here are some useful and useless thoughts:

Start looking at the facts and making honest appraisals of how many hours you've put in and whether you really should be excusing yourself.