Dr. Heidi Grant

3 Proven Ways to Change a Bad Habit

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Each year, we see January 1st as a time for fresh starts – for tackling our bad habits head on and replacing them with new, healthier ones.  Maybe you want to start exercising regularly, quit smoking, lose a few pounds, or remember to call your mother more often.   Now Spring is here, and many of us are no closer to changing our bad habits than we were three months ago.  But don’t give up yet!  No matter what it is you would like to do differently, these simple, scientifically-tested strategies will help you to finally make the real, lasting changes you’re looking for.

 

  1. 1. Get Specific.  Very Specific.

One of the most common mistakes we make when trying to reach a goal is not being specific enough about what we want, and what we we’re going to do to make it happen.  We say things like “I want to lose some weight” – but how much exactly do you want to lose?  Studies show that it is much easier to stay motivated when we have a very specific end point in mind, and can know at any moment exactly how far we still have to go.

Next, make sure you think about the specific actions you’ll need to take to succeed.  Don’t just say “I’ll eat less.”  Less of what?  And how much less?   Don’t just say “I’ll save more money each month.”  Decide exactly what will you spend less on to make that happen.  The more detailed you make your plan, the more likely you are to actually stick to it.

  1. 2. Embrace this Fact: It’s Going to Be Hard.

People will tell you that it is important to stay positive and be confident in order to reach any goal, and that’s perfectly true.  But there’s an important difference between believing you will succeed, and believing you will succeed easily. When you are tackling a difficult challenge, like losing weight or stopping smoking, you will be much better off if you accept the fact that it’s not going to be smooth sailing.

Studies show that people who are realistic about what it will take to succeed naturally plan more, put in more effort, and persist longer in pursuit of their goals.  They expect to have to work hard, so that’s exactly what they do.

For example, in one study, women in a weight loss program who believed that it would be hard to resist the temptation of snack foods lost 24 pounds more than women who believed they could easily ignore the allure of doughnuts and potato chips.  Because they accepted that it would be hard, they avoided being anywhere near tempting foods, and were much more successful because of it.

  1. 3. Willpower is Like a Muscle.  Plan What You’ll Do When It Gets Tired.

Research shows that your capacity for self-control is very much like the muscles in your body – it can grow stronger with regular exercise.  But just as well-developed biceps sometimes get tired and jelly-like after too much use, coping with the daily stresses of career and family can exhaust your supply of willpower.  When you tax it too much at once, or for too long, the well of self-control strength runs dry.   It is in these moments that the doughnut wins.

If you’ve spent all your self-control handling other challenges, you will not have much left at the end of the day for resisting bad habits.  So it’s important to think about when you are most likely to feel drained and vulnerable, and make a plan to keep yourself out of harm’s way.  Be prepared in advance with an alternate activity or a low-calorie snack, whichever applies.

 

You Won’t Stick To Your Diet – Unless You Know These 3 Facts About Willpower

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Most of our New Year’s resolutions have one thing in common: resisting temptation.  Trying to ignore the powerful allure of the forbidden cigarette, doughnut, or latest budget-blowing buying impulse requires willpower.  You might expect very successful people, who presumably have boatloads of willpower, to be particularly good at not giving in.  But if anything, they seem to be even more susceptible to temptation than the rest of us.   Quick – name a famous or powerful person that doesn’t have a well-known weakness for something.   I’ll wait.

Having the willpower to govern a country, yet lacking the willpower to resist cigarettes or french fries may seem like a contradiction, but it actually isn’t, according to research on the nature of self-control.  So if you want this to be the year that you finally stop smoking, slim down, or stick to your budget, it’s a good idea to start by understanding how willpower really works.

Your capacity for self-control is not unlike the muscles in your body.   Like biceps or triceps, willpower can vary in its strength, not only from person to person, but from moment to moment. Just as well-developed biceps sometimes get tired and jelly-like after a strenuous workout, so too does your willpower “muscle.”

Even everyday actions like decision-making or trying to make a good impression can sap this valuable resource, as can coping with the stresses of your career and family.  When you tax it too much at once, or for too long, the well of self-control strength runs dry.   It is in these moments that the doughnut wins.

So the first thing you are going to want to do, if you are serious about resisting temptation, is make peace with the fact that your willpower is limited.  If you’ve spent all your self-control handling stresses at work, you will not have much left at the end of the day for sticking to your resolutions.  Think about when you are most likely to feel drained and vulnerable, and make a plan to keep yourself out of harm’s way.  Be prepared with an alternate activity or a low-calorie snack, whichever applies.

Also, don’t try to pursue two goals at once that each require a lot of self-control if you can help it.  This is really just asking for trouble. For example, studies show that people who try to quit smoking while dieting, in order to avoid the temporary weight gain that often accompanies smoking cessation, are more likely to fail at both enterprises than people who tackle them one at a time.

The good news is, willpower depletion is only temporary.  Give your muscle time to bounce back, and you’ll be back in fighting form and ready to say “no” to any doughnuts that come your way.  When rest is not an option, recent research shows that you can actually speed up your self-control recovery, or give it a boost when reserves are low, simply by thinking about people you know who have lot of self-control.   (Thinking about my impossibly self-possessed mother does wonders for me when I’m about to fall off the no-cheesecake wagon.)

Or, you can try giving yourself a pick-me-up.  I don’t mean a cocktail – I mean something that puts you in a good mood.  (Again, not a cocktail – it may be mood-enhancing, but alcohol is definitely not willpower-enhancing).    Anything that lifts your spirits should also help restore your self-control strength when you’re looking for a quick fix.

The other way in which willpower is like a muscle (and the really great news for those of us trying to lose a few pounds) is that it can be made stronger over time, if you give it regular workouts.  Recent studies show that daily activities such as exercising, keeping track of your finances or what you are eating – or even just remembering to sit up straight every time you think of it – can strengthen your capacity for self-control.  For example, in one study, people who were given free gym memberships and stuck to a daily exercise program for two months not only got physically healthier, but also smoked fewer cigarettes, drank less alcohol, and ate less junk food.  They were better able to control their tempers, and less likely to spend money impulsively.  They didn’t leave their dishes in the sink, didn’t put things off until later, and missed fewer appointments. In fact, every aspect of their lives that required the use of willpower improved dramatically.

So if you want to build more willpower, start by picking an activity (or avoiding one) that fits with your life and your goals – anything that requires you to override an impulse or desire again and again, and add this activity to your daily routine.  It will be hard in the beginning, but it will get easier over time if you hang in there, because your capacity for self-control will grow.

Armed with an understanding of how willpower works, and how you can get your hands on some more of it, there’s no reason why this can’t be the year that you cross those troublesome resolutions off your list for good.

(For more on tips on building willpower and resisting temptation, check out my new book Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals)

Five Ways to Increase Your Productivity

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From HRM Today

You just have too much on you plate.  Chances are, your employees do as well.  You suspect that you could all be making better use of your time, completing more projects and achieving more goals.  You want to be more productive, and to help your team be more productive, but you aren’t sure where to start.

You are far from alone in your confusion. Even the most successful, highly accomplished people have difficulty pinpointing why they are so productive.  The intuitive answer – that you are born predisposed to having the intelligence, creativity, and willpower to get the job done – is really just one small piece of the puzzle.  In fact, decades of research on achievement suggests that successful people reach more of their goals not simply because of who they are, but more often because of what they do.   Here are five scientifically-tested strategies that successful people use, proven to help you reach your goals and make the most of your time.

 

#1   Get Specific. When setting a goal, try to be as specific as possible.  “Meet with every member of my team once a week” is a better goal than “meet more often with my team,” because it gives you a clear idea of what success looks like.  Knowing exactly what you want to achieve keeps you motivated until you get there.  Also, think about the specific actions that need to be taken to reach your goal.  Just promising you’ll “communicate more” is too vague – be clear and precise.  “At our meeting, I’ll ask about each project they are currently working on” leaves no room for doubt about what you need to do, and whether or not you’ve actually done it.

 

#2 Seize the Moment to Act on Your Goals. Given how busy most of us are, it’s not surprising that we often miss opportunities to act on a goal because we simply fail to notice those opportunities.  Did you really have no time to work on that assignment today?  No chance at any point to return that phone call?  Achieving your goal means grabbing hold of these opportunities before they slip through your fingers.

To seize the moment, decide when and where you will take each action you want to take, in advance.  Again, be as specific as possible (e.g., “When it’s 3pm today, I’ll stop whatever I’m doing and work on that report.”) Studies show that this kind of planning will help your brain to detect and seize the opportunity when it arises, increasing your productivity by roughly 300%.

 

#3  Know Exactly How Far You Have Left To Go. Achieving any goal also requires honest and regular monitoring of your progress – if no one else is looking over your shoulder, then you’ll need to monitor yourself.  If you don’t know how well you are doing, you can’t adjust your behavior or your strategies accordingly.  Check your progress frequently – weekly, or even daily, depending on the goal.

 

#4  Be a Realistic Optimist. Believing in your ability to succeed is enormously helpful for creating and sustaining your motivation.  But whatever you do, don’t underestimate how difficult it will be to reach your goal or complete your project.  Studies show that thinking things will come to you easily and effortlessly leaves you unprepared for the journey ahead, and significantly increases the odds of failure.   Express confidence in your employees, while always being honest with them about the challenges they’ll face.

 

#5  Focus on Getting Better, Rather than Being Good. Believing you have the ability to reach your goals is important, but so is believing you can get the ability.   Many of us believe that our intelligence, our personality, and our physical aptitudes are fixed – that no matter what we do, we won’t improve.  As a result, we focus on goals that are all about proving ourselves, rather than developing and acquiring new skills.

Fortunately, decades of research suggest that the belief in fixed ability is completely wrong – abilities of all kinds are profoundly malleable. Embracing the fact that you can change will allow you to make better choices, and reach your fullest potential.  People whose goals are about getting better, rather than being good, take difficulty in stride, and appreciate the journey as much as the destination.   And telling your employees that you expect them to make a few mistakes as they learn is, ironically, the surest way to elicit their very best performance.

 

Want to Double or Triple Your Own Productivity? Here’s How.

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From my Fast Company blog:

Very few of us are as productive as we could be. We want to be focused with laser-like precision on critical tasks and make the best, most efficient use of our time.  Instead, we get distracted by coworkers, lost in our Inboxes, and too absorbed by unimportant aspects of a single project when we’d be better off turning our attention to other things.

Wanting to be more productive isn’t enough to actually make you more productive.  You need to find a way to deal effectively with the distractions, the interruptions, and the fact that there is just way too much on your plate.   Fortunately, there is a very simple strategy that has been proven to do the trick.

If you’ve already read my book Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals, then know that I am a big fan of planning.  If-then planning, in particular, is a really powerful way to help you achieve any goal.  Well over 100 studies, on everything from diet and exercise to negotiation and time management, have shown that deciding in advance when and where you will take specific actions to reach your goal (e.g., “If it is 4pm, then I will return any phone calls I should return today”) can double or triple your chances for success.  Making if-then plans to tackle your current projects, or reach your 2011 goals, is probably the most effective single thing you can do to ensure your success.

If-then plans take the form:

If X happens, then I will do Y.

For example:

If I haven’t written the report before lunch, then I will make it my top priority when I return.

If I am getting too distracted by colleagues, then I will stick to a 5 minute chat limit and head back to work.

If it is 2pm, then I will spend an hour reading and responding to important emails.

How effective are these plans? One study looked at people who had the goal of becoming regular exercisers.  Half the participants were asked to plan where and when they would exercise each week (e.g., “If it is Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, then I will hit the gym for an hour before work.”) The results were dramatic:  months later, 91% of if-then planners were still exercising regularly, compared to only 39% of non-planners!

A recent review of results from 94 studies that used the if-then technique found significantly higher success rates for just about every goal you can think of, including monthly breast self-examination, test preparation, using public transportation instead of driving, buying organic foods, being more helpful to others, not drinking alcohol, not starting smoking, losing weight, recycling, negotiating fairly, avoiding stereotypic and prejudicial thoughts, and better time management.

Why are these plans so effective?  Because they are written in the language of your brain – the language of contingencies. Human beings are particularly good at encoding and remembering information in “If X, then Y” terms, and using these contingencies to guide our behavior, often below our awareness.

Once you’ve formulated your if-then plan, your unconscious brain will start scanning the environment, searching for the situation in the “if” part of your plan.  This enables you to seize the critical moment (“Oh, it’s 4pm!  I’d better return those calls”), even when you are busy doing other things.

Since you’ve already decided exactly what you need to do, you can execute the plan without having to consciously think about it or waste time deliberating what you should do next.  (Sometimes this is conscious, and you actually realize you are following through on your plan.  The point is it doesn’t have to be conscious, which means your plans can get carried out when you are preoccupied with other things, and that is incredibly useful.)

So if you are finding, day after day, that too many important tasks have gone unaccomplished, and you are looking for a way to introduce better habits of time management into your life, look no further:  try making a simple plan.  By starting each morning making if-thens to tackle the day’s challenges, you won’t actually be adding hours to your day, but it will certainly seem like you did.

Nine Things Successful People Do Differently

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Cross-posted from the Harvard Business Review

Why have you been so successful in reaching some of your goals, but not others? If you aren’t sure, you are far from alone in your confusion. It turns out that even brilliant, highly accomplished people are pretty lousy when it comes to understanding why they succeed or fail. The intuitive answer — that you are born predisposed to certain talents and lacking in others — is really just one small piece of the puzzle. In fact, decades of research on achievement suggests that successful people reach their goals not simply because of who they are, but more often because of what they do.

1. Get specific. When you set yourself a goal, try to be as specific as possible. “Lose 5 pounds” is a better goal than “lose some weight,” because it gives you a clear idea of what success looks like. Knowing exactly what you want to achieve keeps you motivated until you get there. Also, think about the specific actions that need to be taken to reach your goal. Just promising you’ll “eat less” or “sleep more” is too vague — be clear and precise. “I’ll be in bed by 10pm on weeknights” leaves no room for doubt about what you need to do, and whether or not you’ve actually done it.

2. Seize the moment to act on your goals. Given how busy most of us are, and how many goals we are juggling at once, it’s not surprising that we routinely miss opportunities to act on a goal because we simply fail to notice them. Did you really have no time to work out today? No chance at any point to return that phone call? Achieving your goal means grabbing hold of these opportunities before they slip through your fingers.

To seize the moment, decide when and where you will take each action you want to take, in advance. Again, be as specific as possible (e.g., “If it’s Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, I’ll work out for 30 minutes before work.”) Studies show that this kind of planning will help your brain to detect and seize the opportunity when it arises, increasing your chances of success by roughly 300%.

3. Know exactly how far you have left to go. Achieving any goal also requires honest and regular monitoring of your progress — if not by others, then by you yourself. If you don’t know how well you are doing, you can’t adjust your behavior or your strategies accordingly. Check your progress frequently — weekly, or even daily, depending on the goal.

4. Be a realistic optimist. When you are setting a goal, by all means engage in lots of positive thinking about how likely you are to achieve it. Believing in your ability to succeed is enormously helpful for creating and sustaining your motivation. But whatever you do, don’t underestimate how difficult it will be to reach your goal. Most goals worth achieving require time, planning, effort, and persistence. Studies show that thinking things will come to you easily and effortlessly leaves you ill-prepared for the journey ahead, and significantly increases the odds of failure.

5. Focus on getting better, rather than being good. Believing you have the ability to reach your goals is important, but so is believing you can get the ability. Many of us believe that our intelligence, our personality, and our physical aptitudes are fixed — that no matter what we do, we won’t improve. As a result, we focus on goals that are all about proving ourselves, rather than developing and acquiring new skills.

Fortunately, decades of research suggest that the belief in fixed ability is completely wrong — abilities of all kinds are profoundly malleable. Embracing the fact that you can change will allow you to make better choices, and reach your fullest potential. People whose goals are about getting better, rather than being good, take difficulty in stride, and appreciate the journey as much as the destination.

6. Have grit. Grit is a willingness to commit to long-term goals, and to persist in the face of difficulty. Studies show that gritty people obtain more education in their lifetime, and earn higher college GPAs. Grit predicts which cadets will stick out their first grueling year at West Point. In fact, grit even predicts which round contestants will make it to at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

The good news is, if you aren’t particularly gritty now, there is something you can do about it. People who lack grit more often than not believe that they just don’t have the innate abilities successful people have. If that describes your own thinking …. well, there’s no way to put this nicely: you are wrong. As I mentioned earlier, effort, planning, persistence, and good strategies are what it really takes to succeed. Embracing this knowledge will not only help you see yourself and your goals more accurately, but also do wonders for your grit.

7. Build your willpower muscle. Your self-control “muscle” is just like the other muscles in your body — when it doesn’t get much exercise, it becomes weaker over time. But when you give it regular workouts by putting it to good use, it will grow stronger and stronger, and better able to help you successfully reach your goals.

To build willpower, take on a challenge that requires you to do something you’d honestly rather not do. Give up high-fat snacks, do 100 sit-ups a day, stand up straight when you catch yourself slouching, try to learn a new skill. When you find yourself wanting to give in, give up, or just not bother — don’t. Start with just one activity, and make a plan for how you will deal with troubles when they occur (“If I have a craving for a snack, I will eat one piece of fresh or three pieces of dried fruit.”) It will be hard in the beginning, but it will get easier, and that’s the whole point. As your strength grows, you can take on more challenges and step-up your self-control workout.

8. Don’t tempt fate. No matter how strong your willpower muscle becomes, it’s important to always respect the fact that it is limited, and if you overtax it you will temporarily run out of steam. Don’t try to take on two challenging tasks at once, if you can help it (like quitting smoking and dieting at the same time). And don’t put yourself in harm’s way — many people are overly-confident in their ability to resist temptation, and as a result they put themselves in situations where temptations abound. Successful people know not to make reaching a goal harder than it already is.

9. Focus on what you will do, not what you won’t do. Do you want to successfully lose weight, quit smoking, or put a lid on your bad temper? Then plan how you will replace bad habits with good ones, rather than focusing only on the bad habits themselves. Research on thought suppression (e.g., “Don’t think about white bears!”) has shown that trying to avoid a thought makes it even more active in your mind. The same holds true when it comes to behavior — by trying not to engage in a bad habit, our habits get strengthened rather than broken.

If you want change your ways, ask yourself, What will I do instead? For example, if you are trying to gain control of your temper and stop flying off the handle, you might make a plan like “If I am starting to feel angry, then I will take three deep breaths to calm down.” By using deep breathing as a replacement for giving in to your anger, your bad habit will get worn away over time until it disappears completely.

It is my hope that, after reading about the nine things successful people do differently, you have gained some insight into all the things you have been doing right all along. Even more important, I hope are able to identify the mistakes that have derailed you, and use that knowledge to your advantage from now on. Remember, you don’t need to become a different person to become a more successful one. It’s never what you are, but what you do.

What the Science Says is Right, and Wrong, with “Chinese Mothers”

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In her recent Wall Street Journal essay, Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior, Yale law professor and mother-of-two Amy Chua provides a recipe for the kind of parenting that produces “successful” children of the math-whiz and music-prodigy variety.   Her depiction of the strict and domineering Chinese mother (Chua’s own children were never allowed to have play dates, choose their own extracurricular activities, watch TV, or get any grade less than an A) is deliberately provocative and unapologetic. It has elicited strong reactions from its largely Western audience – some applause, but mostly shock and outrage.

As a psychologist and scientist specializing in achievement (and as a mother of two myself), I must admit that some of what Ms. Chua is saying is perfectly true and worth taking to heart – particularly when she writes about the importance of emphasizing effort and persistence as keys to success, rather than innate ability.

Both in the laboratory and the classroom, I’ve seen people with very high IQs (children and adults) give up on a new task the moment it became difficult, and I’ve seen people of seemingly lesser ability fight their way through to the end and master the material.  When you study achievement, one of the first things you learn is that innate ability (to the extent that there is such a thing) has surprisingly little to do with success, while effort and persistence have everything to do with it.

Unfortunately, American students (and their parents) tend be big believers in innate ability – as if some people are just born capable of long division.  These kids aren’t reaching their full potential because they give up on themselves way too soon.

Asian students aren’t making the same mistake, because they are explicitly taught to blame their poor performances (and credit their successes) on the effort they put in to them.  It makes sense that Asians would excel in subjects like math, science, and musicianship, which require determination and long hours to master. Teaching Western kids to hang in there, and helping them to understand what it really takes to succeed, would go a long way toward closing that achievement gap.

I also happen to agree with Ms. Chua that we have a bit of a problem these days when it comes to emphasizing self-esteem protection over honest feedback. I know firsthand that it’s not easy to tell your child that he screwed up, knowing it will cause him anxiety, disappointment, or embarrassment.  But when we protect feelings at the expense of the truth, when we say  “you tried your best” when in fact they did nothing of the sort, we rob them of a sense of personal control over their own achievements.  Nothing is more de-motivating than feeling powerless to improve.

Calling your child “garbage,” or “fatty” (two examples given by Ms Chua),  on the other hand, is really not a great idea – nor is it even remotely necessary.   Guilt and shame can be motivating, but they can also be highly disruptive to the learning process. The most motivating and effective feedback focuses not on what your child is, but what he does, and what he can do differently in the future.

Where I part ways completely with Ms. Chua (and here the science is clearly on my side) is in her insistence that enjoyment, interest, and freedom of choice are somehow incompatible with hard work, persistence, and success. She writes:

“What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you’re good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences.”

This is factually false, on all counts.  Again and again, research has shown that when children feel they have choices, it creates intrinsic motivation – the desire to do something for it’s own sake.   With choice, they enjoy what they are doing more.  They are more creative, process information more deeply, persist longer and achieve more.  Intrinsic motivation is in fact awesome in its power to get and keep us going.   Your kids will work hard of their own free will, and even have fun doing it, when you don’t completely override their preferences.

In the end, we would be wise to take what is beneficial about the “Chinese mother” approach – the dogged emphasis on effort, the encouragement to not give up too soon, the willingness to be critical when necessary – without the aspects that have given Western readers of Ms. Chua’s essay so much pause: the total absence of autonomy and choice, the lack of play, and the borderline-abusive insults.   There is very little evidence that these provide children any benefit, and clear evidence that they can undermine not only intrinsic motivation, but self-confidence and well-being.

Parents really don’t need to choose between having motivated, hard-working children, and happy, autonomous children who have lots of fun.   Combine the best of what Ms. Chua’s “Chinese” and “Western” mothers do, and you can help your children to be successful in every sense of the word.