Healthy Influence – Persuasion Blog

Don’t do it.

Don’t even think about it.

Why make promises you know you won’t keep?  It’s bad for your self esteem, your reputation, and your character.  Just keep doing those bad things you do, I mean, gee whiz, you survived another year doing It, so how bad can It be?

On the other hand, New Year’s Resolutions are smart, hip, and trendy.  All the Very Cool People do it.  They read books and blogs and interview experts, compare and contrast with respected peers, especially peers from different cultures and backgrounds.  How do you Buddist-Wiccan-Baptist-Metrosexual-Vegan-NRA Acolyte-Progressive-Survivalist-Muslim’s do It?  (As if bad habits reveal culture more than universal human nature.)

Okay.  Maybe you want It.  Start This or Stop That or Just A Little.

Here’s how you persuade yourself.

It’s called Implementation Intentions which, unusually for most persuasion theories, means pretty much what it says.  Do your plans or Implement your Intentions.

When people create rich, dense, elaborated, detailed, fine-grained . . . you get it . . . plans for their Resolutions they are more likely to Just Do It.

For example, imagine that you wanted to take a cross-country driving trip across America.  What would you need to actually do the trip?  A vehicle, a map, money and a credit card for expenses (and maybe savings to create them), clothes, food and drink, and on and on.  You pack the car, plan the route, check the weather, your work schedule, and on and on, just the normal details of Road Trip!

This is the process of Implementation Intentions.  It works with any volitional, controlled, planned, Intended action.  The more you plan on how to Implement, the more likely you will hit your Intention.

So, you want to lose 15 pounds . . . well, that means two things:  access to food and amount of exercise.  Plan to reduce your access to food and plan to increase your exercise.  Buy less food.  Remove extra food lying around in your house.  Don’t walk or drive by fast food joints or vending machines.  Get good exercise clothes and leave them lying around in view for easy access.  Make an exercise schedule and cross off each workout you plan on the schedule.  And on and on.  Make detailed plans.

Implementation Intention works because you think about process instead of the goal.  Just having the goal of losing 15 pounds won’t make it happen.  You also need the process that reaches the goal, all the stuff, the schedule, the details of action.  And the process is the hard part and is the reason we fail at our New Year’s Resolutions.  Process is why LeBron James is LeBron James and not riding the pine in a YMCA youth league.  Process is the grind, the action, the steps you take to make a goal pop out at the end.

But, never forget the Rule:  If You Can’t Succeed, Don’t Try.

So, just take out a piece of paper and a pencil.  At the top write your Goal.  Then on each following line write a detailed action step that is part of the Process for popping the Goal.

Or you could just get a good friend, share vodka Martinis, and revel in your human nature.