Introduction
In this section of the series we are going to focus on adherence – how we can continue to hold ourselves accountable to our goals as well as preparing for and dealing with relapse.
Self-Regulation
Self-regulation is probably the most important way to effectively promote the long-term adherence of a behaviour or habit. Self-regulation is the ability to override and adjust undesirable behaviours in order to channel our limited resource of self-regulatory energy towards goal-directed behaviour. A key aspect of self-regulation is self-monitoring which is a form of consciousness raising that brings awareness to our progress to identify opportunity for adjustments – its purpose is to provide a ‘cue to action’. Some types of self-monitoring that we have touched on in earlier videos include forming implementation intentions or forming an action plan. You may be familiar with some common self-monitoring practices such as physical activity or food logs, journaling, wall charts, to-do lists, and the use of smart watches or apps for tracking behaviours. Self-monitoring promotes adherence through the positive reinforcement of your target behaviour, gives you feedback and enhances your self-efficacy. Check out the links/PDF below this video for some resources that might help you with self-monitoring.
Environmental Management
Environmental redesign and stimulus control is another way to facilitate self-regulation and monitoring and is very similar to priming which we discussed in an earlier video on habit formation. Your environment has a major influence on your behaviour. The goal here is to try and redesign your surroundings wherever possible to introduce cues that make it easier to act. This involves making activities that support your target behaviour more accessible and available, while also trying to raise the perceived ‘cost’ of the alternatives. For example, a strategy that you might introduce to raise your overall energy expenditure to support your weight loss is parking farther away from work so that you can get more steps in. Initially, walking those extra steps may seem to ‘cost’ you more than parking right outside work would in terms of time and energy saved. But by reframing the idea of ‘cost’ in terms of the health benefits you get from the extra steps, you’ll start to see how walking might outweigh the time and energy investment.
Monitoring Your Subjective Experience
To continue to promote the maintenance of a behaviour, not only is it important to periodically check in with yourself objectively through self-monitoring but also subjectively to reflect on your experience. We can consider four E’s related to the experience of enacting a new behaviour change: emotions, engagement, expectations, and extra support. First, reflect on how this experience has made you feel. Do you value it? Next, ask yourself if you still feel engaged in the experience? Is your engagement at a different level from what it was at the beginning? Does making this change continue to excite you? Importantly, how has the experience compared to your initial expectations? Do you feel like it is helping you? Finally, we want to consider if we are in need of extra help. Do you feel like you need more support or resources? Are you struggling? This kind of reassessment will help to identify if you need to make any changes to maintain your adherence to this behaviour change. A strategy that may have worked for you initially may no longer hold once you’ve made changes and adapted. Maybe you need to revisit your motives, see if your psychological needs are being met, or readjust your goals to ensure that you are continuing to effectively promote the long-term maintenance of your behaviour.
Relapse Prevention and Preparation
Finally, I want to touch on relapse. A lapse is a temporary interruption or slip in behaviour while relapse may be abandoning the behaviour completely. We want to try and reduce the chance of a lapse a behaviour while also planning ahead for how to deal with one if it does occur to prevent it from turning into a full relapse. We can’t always be prepared for all of the obstacles that life throws at us and we can’t beat ourselves up over getting off track sometimes. Relapse prevention is all about problem-solving – identifying barriers, generating alternative solutions to those barriers, and planning ahead. Identifying and planning for high-risk situations that may challenge your ability to self-regulate is crucial. For example, a big family holiday dinner may pose a threat to someone’s healthy eating efforts or even just having an extra hard day. Next, you want to develop strategies for dealing with these high-risk situations. For the holiday dinner this might involve bringing some healthy alternatives to make sure that you have options. For a crazy day where you are just wiped, planning ahead and having some frozen meals prepped in the freezer will take the effort out of cooking and lower the chance of you ordering take out.
Initiating a new behaviour can be difficult but maintaining it can be even more challenging. That’s why self-regulation is one of the most valuable tools we have to check in with ourselves and strengthen our capacity to adapt over the long-term. We can self-regulate through self-monitoring, environmental evaluation and redesign, and reflecting on our subjective experiences. These tools will help us to prepare for dealing with barriers and relapse. Common barriers that can conflict with the maintenance of a behaviour include: lack of time, resources, or knowledge, our existing behaviours and temptation, and competing priorities. When faced with these obstacles, we have to remember that it is not the behaviour or habit that we are chasing as the reward but instead the feeling or benefit you get from engaging in it. Often, it is the positive feelings of improved self-esteem or self-efficacy, the health benefits, stress reduction, or the pure enjoyment of the activity that keeps you going. Remind yourself of your WHY – what drives you – and this will help you to persevere through times of adversity.
Amanda Morch
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Is there a goal or change in your life that you've been wanting to make, but can't seem to get there? In this workshop, Amanda guides you through the mental component of making a positive change in your life. She will provide you with tools and workshops to effectively form new, meaningful, and lasting habits.
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