Got Health Goals? Research-based Tips for Adopting and Sticking to New Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors

Another key strategic challenge is the failure to consider multiple goals, which is likely to under-estimate the resources needed to perform other behaviours. Juggling multiple goals is one of the prime reasons why new intentions are often abandoned: new behaviors like exercise must compete with or coincide with all the other things someone needs or wants to do.

Contemporary research also shows that people may have automatic tendencies that, on vaivén, tend to derail health behaviors. For example, people have a basic underlying tendency to approach experiences that are pleasant and avoid experiences that are unpleasant.

Physical activity can be an adverse experience for many because it requires the body to stop resting and experience some exhaustion and discomfort. This negative experience during the activity is more predictive of future behavior than the positive feelings after one completes a bout of physical activity.

Relatedly, research stemming from evolutionary biology has supported a basic human tendency to minimize energy costs, which stems from an evolutionary survival necessity. This makes people tend to avoid unnecessary movement (like exercise) while increasing their energy stores (snacking on energy-dense foods), creating an underlying temptation to ditch our healthy eating and physical activity plans.

Effective strategies for sticking with intentions

When we understand why we are not enacting our new health behavior goals, it can help in developing counter-measures. Research in this area is ongoing, with diverse approaches. Strategies can be prospective (i.e. developed before enactment of the goal) or reactive (i.e. used at the point of enactment decision) in their implementation.

To overcome strategic challenges, research has shown the effectiveness of developing detailed plans, such as formulation of what you are going to do, how, where and when you will do it, followed by contingencies if there is a conflict with your plan.

Monitoring your goals regularly is also one of the most successful approaches to keeping a behavior on your radar.

In terms of our more automatic tendencies to disrupt health behavior intentions, a focus on the behavioural experience itself is critical. Making the health behavior as pleasant, convenient and meaningful to you as possible, and performing it at times when you have the most energy (to fight temptations), will help increase the probability of following through on good intentions.

However, in times when you are faced with a strong urge to abandon your health goal for a more immediately gratifying diversion, this is when you want to take a moment to acknowledge your primal feelings, but enact your valued intentions.

It’s important to keep in mind that most of the health changes people are trying make with these good intentions are lifestyle behaviors. As such, a few slipped days are inconsequential to the overall goal.

There is also theory and evidence that self-regulation strategies like the ones above may become less necessary over time. This because people begin to form habits from repeating these actions, as well as a sense of satisfaction or identity from continual practice that enables them to take ownership of the behavior and categorize themselves in the role. So sticking to those intentions in the short term will likely make it easier to continue over a lifetime.
Ryan Rhodes, Professor, Health Psychology, University of Trofeo

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