I have been making a lot of effort to cut off sweets. I abstained from dessert for a month. On a Friday, though, I could not help but stop by my favourite bakery and get a slice of strawberry gateau. On another Wednesday, I visited a new bakery and had their pear and almond tart; it was delicious! Since then, I have gone back to my old habit of having dessert after every dinner. Does this sound like anything familiar?
This phenomenon, known as the ‘what-the-hell effect’, is a threat to your willpower. It describes the cycle you experience after overindulging, regretting what you did, and returning for more. Your mind justifies your actions by thinking - Since you already failed to stick to your objective of merely eating two slices of cake, you might as well eat the entire pan. Even after a minor setback, many people quit their goals. Fortunately, there might be a way to overcome such disappointments.
Stanford Professor and author of the book The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It Kelly McGonigal claims that giving in makes you feel horrible about yourself, which inspires you to take action to make yourself feel better. What is the quickest, least expensive way to feel better? The answer is often the very thing you feel awful about.
So how do you break that what-the-hell effect and gain some control over your goals?
Emergency Reserves
Research conducted by Marissa Sharif, an assistant professor at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, suggests a way of overcoming such setbacks. A technique that can help you to become more motivated: include a type of flexibility called an emergency reserve into goals.
People love flexibility, in particular just-in-case type of flexibility. According to Sharif, an emergency reserve is a pre-defined flexibility around a goal that people can use if needed but at a small cost. Small costs associated with these reserves might be purely psychological (trying to not use the emergency reserve unless necessary), opportunity costs (if you use it today, you can't use it tomorrow), or future costs (if you use the reserve today, you might have to do something to make up for it tomorrow).
How to use emergency reserves?
In one of her studies, Marissa Sharif asked over 240 participants to track and record their steps using a pedometer application for five weeks. One group had to hit their goal seven days per week, another five days per week. A third group was allowed an emergency reserve; participants in this group were asked to hit their target on seven days but they were allowed two skip days every week to use as they saw fit. If they did not use them in a given week, these emergency skips did not roll over to the following week.
We tend to work harder when we are given difficult goals because we want to get there. But, we are more likely to fail at them, which is a drawback. The group that was given a challenging goal in Sharif's step target experiment, the one that had to hit their target seven days a week without any skip days, was more inclined to give up entirely if they failed on one day. On the other hand, easier goals are more achievable, but once we accomplish them, we are less likely to want to go above and beyond. In Sharif's study, members of the five-day target group rarely pushed themselves.
Interestingly, the emergency reserve strategy seeks to maximise the benefits of both simple and complex objectives. People took up to 20% more steps and reached their individual step goal up to 40% more days if they had goals with emergency reserves than if they had other types of goals.
There are two factors at play here. The first is that people try to avoid drawing on their emergency reserves. They feel guilty using them if it's not an emergency. People are holding these reserves for emergencies. The second is that people can use these emergency reserves and feel less awful if they do fail to meet their goal, for whatever reason.
The emergency reserve acts as a forgiveness button. By using it, you feel that you have failed less. This feeling increases your commitment to your goal and encourages more persistence.
Fresh-start Days
The emergency reserve approach can be used in conjunction with another technique. We are likely to handle setbacks better when we are given a chance to start over. January 1 is almost always a hopeful day. Every New Year, people tend to make resolutions and work harder to achieve their goals.
But research by Wharton Professor Katherine Milkman and colleagues has shown that it's not only about the beginning of the year despite it being the most obvious example. Instead, it's about temporal landmarks, days that signal the beginning of many cycles. For example, people step up their efforts to accomplish their goals at the start of a new week, a new month, after a birthday, the first day of a new semester, or after a vacation from work.
How do fresh-start days work?
According to research, the fresh-start days make people feel they are having new beginnings. You feel more disconnected from your past failures. You change your self-evaluation: the failures are the old you, this is the new you. You know that your past isn’t as perfect as you’d like. But you are looking at a clean slate now. You feel capable of carrying out plans and reaching goals. Experiencing this helps you overcome the feeling that you’ve failed before so you’ll fail again. As a result, you make new resolutions and pursue goals with extra effort.
Some fresh-start moments, however, are more effective than others for motivating change - the bigger the event, the more encouraged we feel. Aim to take advantage of fresh starts like birthdays, new semesters, and anniversaries by starting something new, but be careful not to revert to your old, established patterns.
You will face setbacks when pursuing goals. But when you experience them, don’t be too hard on yourself. Instead, consider them as just excusable missteps. You’ll have a chance to start fresh again. Keep yourself motivated as we are yet to discover a one-off intervention that lasts forever.
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