New Year’s goals are set every year from things like “I want to be healthier this year” to “I want to learn a new language.” But most of these goals go unachieved. If you find that this is your experience, know you are not alone. The intention-behaviour gap is extremely common. Aligning your goals with your behaviour is a skill that needs to be learned and I hope this article helps do that.
If you’ve tried to get more fit but failed, that’s normal. About 40% of ALL intentions fall short of becoming lifestyle habits (Health Psychology, 31(6), 724–727). This intention-behaviour gap can vary from person to person and from goal to goal. For example, if you workout twice a week and want to start working out three times per week, that’ll be much more likely to be successful than going from no workouts to five two-hour workouts per week. Smaller changes in behaviour over time can compound into large lifestyle changes with greater success of sticking.
Habits will play a big role in the behaviours we perform, regardless of our intentions, because habits are things we do automatically and without thought of the outcome of the habit. Think about driving your car. If your gear shift is in the middle console, it’s likely you’ll reach for it there even if you jump into a new car with a gear shift near the steering wheel. Reaching for the middle gear shift doesn’t get you closer to the goal of putting the car in drive, and you’ll probably do this more than once until you’re used to driving the new car.
You build habits by continuously repeating the behaviour. This can be made easier by tying the new habit to a cue, like when you wake up, you go pee. Once the repetition is performed enough, the path has been laid for your new habit to take hold.
How can habit building benefit you towards reaching your goals? Well, goals often take time and consistent work to achieve. If it’s a health related goal they might be ongoing for your whole life. Habits tend to be consistent under stress. This means that if your goal is a healthier lifestyle, when you are having a hard time at work you’ll be more likely to stick to your goal if it’s a habitual behaviour (PMID: 20071096).
A good way to build a new habit is to make a small change (I want to workout twice a week), have that habit tied to another cue (I will go to the gym right after work), keep a steady schedule (I’ll workout Monday and Wednesday), make it as enjoyable as possible (I’ll go to a class with people I like), and set yourself up so that there is as few obstacles as possible stopping you from repeating the behaviour as much as possible until it becomes automatic. This will take a different amount of time person to person.