Are you feeling a dip in motivation for your New Year goals already?
If you’re like the 8 in 10 people who don’t achieve their New Year resolutions, some of the initial excitement might already be wearing off.
What if you – and your motivation - aren't the problem? And more importantly, what if there was a better way to set your brain up for success?
An answer lies in forming long-term habits that don’t rely on motivation to achieve your goal – with a little help from neuroscience.
How motivation works in the brain
The human brain is hardwired to seek pleasure and reward. Our very survival as a species has depended on the fact that it feels good to eat, drink and reproduce – we are rewarded with a hit of the ‘feel good’ chemical dopamine when we do these activities.
This is why you might reach for a chocolate bar when you feel sad!
Motivation (the urge to eat that chocolate) and reward (the ‘mmmmmmm’ feeling that comes when we eat it) are governed by many structures in the brain such as the mesolimbic system, basal ganglia and ventral striatum. These parts of the brain, along with others, work together to regulate dopamine activity. In turn, this influences how motivated or rewarded we feel.
Unfortunately, there is no magic ‘button’ that we can press in those parts of the brain, when we need a hit of motivation.
Motivation is a fickle friend – essential for seeking out things that help us in the short-term, but not as well-suited for doing difficult things that require a longer-term commitment to benefit us in the future.
Even pro athletes and high-performing people don’t feel motivated all the time. Yet they’ve figured out a way to consistently do hard things, even when they don’t feel like it.
The good news is that we can too.
How to create healthy habits (instead of relying on motivation)
Achieving your goals is likely going to need a change in behaviour, right?
The key is to turn a new behaviour - which requires conscious effort – into a habit as quickly as possible.
Habits are behaviours we do automatically, without too much thinking or willpower. Once established, they guide our behaviour even when we feel unmotivated. Habits also save us energy by offering shortcuts in our daily decision-making.
From your brain’s perspective, this is because habits are prompted by an automated behaviour system, rather than a deliberate, conscious-thinking system. Think about how you reach for your phone or brush your teeth every day. You don’t need to consciously think about doing this! With repetition, the brain will allow you to perform other actions without deliberation, too.
Research shows that much of our daily actions are habitual, so human beings are excellent at forming habits. And the news gets even better.
Neuroscience tells us that we can form new habits more effectively, if we join it to an existing one. The new habit ‘piggybacks’ the brain circuits that are already in place, making the transition from new behaviour (high effort) to habit (lower effort) so much easier. Here’s how it’s done:
Four steps to create healthy habits and stick to them
Step 1. Pick one new healthy habit that can support your goal. Keep it small, simple, specific and achievable.
‘Walking 15 minutes five days per week.’
Step 2. Choose a habit that you already do without thinking.
'Taking a half hour lunch break.’
Step 3. Use the craving for that habit (hunger) as a prompt to remind you to do the new habit.
‘When I feel hungry for lunch, I will go for a 15-minute walk first’.
Step 4. Stick to the habit – even if you don’t carry out the full new behaviour.
For example, it may not be possible to walk on a rainy day. Stick to the habit of putting on your walking shoes and stepping outside the building – even just for a moment– rather than staying at your desk. Remember, it’s the habit of heading out to walk before lunch that we need to focus on to establish the new habit in the brain, even if the full walk doesn’t happen.
Step 5. Reward yourself immediately.
‘Enjoy a nice coffee with a yummy lunch.’
Step 6. Repeat – until this is something you do without thinking!
Step 7. When you feel ready, build onto the habit, or introduce a new habit, to get closer to achieving your goal.
For example, you might increase your walk’s duration or add a hill to your route. Or you might introduce a new habit following steps 1 to 6.
How long does it take to form a habit?
Research shows that how long it takes a new habit to form can vary, depending on the type of habit, how often it is repeated, and how it is rewarded, among other factors. However, some research has shown that new healthy habits such as walking can take up to three months to fully form. The key is a small step, consistently attached to something you already do!
What if I want to break a ‘bad’ habit rather than form a new one?
Given that habits guide a great deal of our behaviours, you may be wondering: ‘What do I do about the unhelpful ones?’.
As we’ve learned, habits are prompted by a cue in our environment; a ‘trigger’ that sets off a behaviour.
For example, it could be that our brain has associated watching TV with a habit of late-night snacking.
If we change the environmental cue, we can change the unwanted habitual behaviour that follows. This could mean changing the room in which you watch TV to be further away from the pantry to remove the cue. Or changing the reward – from a late-night snack to a cup of tea.
For an extra boost, ensure your end goal is effective
There’s one more secret to achieving goals that works. It’s simple but powerful:
Set a goal that is meaningful to you.
Research shows that goals are more effective when they have intrinsic value. In other words, align goals to your core values or things you care deeply about.
When there are bumps in the road, particularly when you’re still forming new habits, you’ll be more motivated to get back on track or pivot toward your goal, if you can remind yourself why it is intrinsically important to you. And remember, what you repeat over the long-term is more important than a single day. So if you miss your new habit for a day or two, don’t be discouraged – just start again the next day.
Why form habits?
If you have a big goal, the baby steps needed to form a long-term habit might seem slow in delivering results. After all, if we have a goal to achieve, we often want to reach it fast.
But forming habits that support a long-term healthy lifestyle are so important to reducing our risk of disease that our Healthy Brain Ageing research team at the Thompson Institute are investigating more ways to support people to form them.
One study by program lead Dr Sophie Andrews found that people who had stronger walking habits spent more time walking than people without those habits.
Just because we know that physical activity, for example, can increase our life span and quality, doesn’t mean we’ll dust off the running shoes.
In addition to the ‘motivation slumps’ we’ve already mentioned, best intentions can be interrupted by competing influences like time pressures, illness and family needs.
Habits help us continue a positive behaviour after a temporary interruption.
Beyond better physical health – and all the wonderful benefits that go along with that – striving for goals can support mental wellbeing. The process itself of striving towards something meaningful has been shown to improve life satisfaction. It is literally the journey and the destination that are good for us!
One final message
We need to stress that some of the behaviours we’ve mentioned in this article, like eating chocolate and snacking aren’t necessarily bad – they’re just examples.
The main aim is to think about what habits are helpful or unhelpful to you achieving your goals, and take action accordingly. And of course, always be kind to yourself in the process.
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