Michelle Segar's Blog

The New Year is a natural time for self-reflection, an organic space in which we can assess what works and what doesn’t in our lives, and then act on those insights.

Whether you’ve already made your resolutions, ditched them in perpetuity, or are still in contemplation – this newsletter is for you.
 
By now we have learned that most (if not all!) New Year’s resolutions fall by the wayside. So how can we harness this meaningful moment in ways that might actually help us make changes that we can sustain? The science-backed answer is deceptively simple: Give yourself permission. The question now becomes, why is giving ourselves permission influential for our choices?
 

How Permission Works

To answer that question, I look to the research by Ethan Kross on “self-distancing,” stepping outside of our thoughts and actions to observe ourselves as an outsider.
 
Thinking about our decisions, actions, and permissions as an observer gives us a wider perspective on the issue under consideration. Research suggests that this psychological tactic helps us use our rational mind, reduces emotional reactivity, and facilitates better behavioral and emotion regulation. So, in its very essence, when we “give ourselves permission” we automatically create that desirable cognitive distance.

Now that you understand the value of giving yourself permission, what might you want to put on your Permission Slip?
 
You should write your Permission Slip according to the mindset shift you’d like to create in the coming year. However, in this newsletter I invite you create your Permission Slip using what I call The Motivation MAP: a scientifically supported exercise-message framework I’ve been using with my coaching clients for decades, as described below.
 

Using The Motivation Map to Create Your Permission Slip

Over thirty years ago, I dedicated my career to using research and practice to help people escape the vicious cycle of lifestyle-change failure that keeps people from enjoying the multitude of mind-body-spirit benefits that sustainable behavior delivers. In honor of that anniversary, I recently published a paper for academics summarizing my three-part message methodology for creating a comprehensive shift in mindset to support sustained exercise motivation.
 
The Motivation MAP is a simple message framework that guides individuals to internalize three specific motivation-supportive messages: Meaning, Awareness, and Permission to Prioritize – MAP!
 
I designed this message triad to help people internalize 3 core beliefs underlying sustainable motivation and behavior change. (If you’ve read No Sweat, these will be very familiar to you.) These messages are now being used in new NIH-funded research, including how to achieve similar mindset shifts with eating. I’ve seen the consistently positive response these messages have gotten for exercising so it’s been exciting to see the similar response they are getting in our new App + Coaching eating intervention.
 
Message #1: “Move in ways that feel good to you.”
This message directly challenges our natural, but non-optimal, tendency to choose physical activities that feel like “shoulds” because they aim to burn calories or to achieve some gold standard criterion that we’d prefer to avoid. It supports high-quality motivation through cultivating autonomy and positive affective associations with movement. When we like what we’re doing, research suggests we want to do it again and again.
 
Here is an example of how I would create my own Permission Slip for this message. (Note that by addressing myself in the third person, I automatically create self-distance):
 
“Michelle, you can choose to move in ways that feel good to you. There is mounting research that positive feelings during exercise and movement foster high-quality motivation that drives decisions to keep exercising. So you can stop picking the punishing physical activities that science suggests (and you know!) make you dread exercising. Make 2025 the year that you discover ways to move that feel good to you. And Michelle, remember that this is process of experimenting and learning, so have fun trying out different physical activities.”
 
Message #2: “Everything counts. It all adds up.”
This seemingly simplistic message is dense with science-based permission. Decades of socialization (think: brainwashing) has educated many of us to believe that in order for exercise “to count” it has to take high effort, make us sweat, and lead us to hate doing it. It’s a bullet train to the all-or-nothing thinking I wrote about in The Joy Choice. However, mounting data suggest that (for the most part) any movement is better than none, especially for those who are not regularly active.
 
Here is an example of how I would create my own Permission Slip for this message:
 
 “Michelle, life can be chaotic and you won’t always be able to take the time you need to do what you planned to do. So when you can’t take the full walk you intended to take, or go to the class you signed up for, just remind yourself that everything counts – it all adds up; take the 4, 11, or 17 minutes that you do have to move in the ways that feel good to you.”
 
Message #3: “Give yourself permission to prioritize self-care.”
My very first study in 1994 showed me how critical it is for people to think about physical activity as self-care, and to give themselves permission to prioritize their self-care. In fact, it was this unintended discovery that launched my entire career, one that I celebrate today. While it might seem simple, this third message is more complicated than the other two because it taps into our deeper feelings of self-worth and core priorities. Still, we can start to address this issue with strategic messages.
 
Here is an example of how I would create my own Permission Slip for this message:
 
“Michelle, it’s time to give yourself permission to better prioritize your own self-care. Yes, there’s always an unending to-do list and people you love and want to help. You are not opting out of any of this by caring for yourself. In fact, you will have more energy for all of the projects and people that you love when you take time to renew yourself, even just for small moments. And Michelle, it doesn’t have to be perfect! Remember that message #2 gave you permission to do anything and count it, because it all adds up.”

Turning New Year’s Resolutions on Their Head

The messages we tell ourselves are far more than just words: They are the gateway to our perceptions, beliefs, and experiences.
 
Let’s take a huge step back and think about why giving ourselves permission might be so radically different than making New Year’s resolutions?  According to Uselessetymology.com, the word “resolution” comes from the Latin solvere “to loosen, release, explain”. In seeming contrast, the term ‘resolution’ used in “New Year’s resolutions” draws from “resolute”, the determined, teeth-gritting meaning of the word.  In 2023, I wrote about the potential downsides that come from feeling like we need to grit and commit to make a change. In a nutshell, when we feel like we ‘have to’ do something, it easily converts that something into a chore that our rebellious brain is motivated to ditch.

Although the messages in The Motivation MAP were designed to be used together, they do represent distinct concepts. So as you begin to write up your Permission Slip, feel free to experiment with one, two, or all of them. If these three areas are not of interest to you for your 2025 personal project, then identify another one that is, and design your Permission Slip for that.

In contrast to contracting around a resolution that we are determined to achieve this year (finally, damn it!), when we give ourselves permission to grow something new in our lives, we loosen up both our psyches and our lives, creating a wholehearted opening within which our new Permission(s) can enter and take root.
 
Ironically as I was writing this newsletter, I received an email from someone named Julia that couldn’t be a better exemplar for this New Year’s newsletter. She gave me permission to share part of her email with you:

Just the other day I was really struggling to find the motivation to work out. All I wanted was to curl up in a ball on the couch. The barrier to getting myself in motion seemed far too high. Then I remembered and gave myself permission to think that everything counts – and I realized I could just take a walk. A walk! It sounds simple, but I don’t just take walks. I’m always forcing myself to do a “real” workout, something that will build muscle or my aerobic capacity. And 99% of the time I love it. But walking and fresh air were exactly what I needed in that moment to pull myself out of the negative headspace I was in. The feeling I had as I laced up my sneakers and headed out the door was a freedom that I didn’t know I was missing out on. As a very active person with a love for exercise, I still find it hard to get moving sometimes. I listened to what my body really needed in that moment, and I will continue to open up my options in all scenarios. [If you don’t know this by now, I love getting emails about how these science-based-sustainable-change strategies are working (or not) in your life and/or the lives of your patients or clients.] 

Your Permission Slip

Whatever you choose for your Permission Slip, write out your own personal script, one that is authentic to you. Make sure to insert your first name at least once in your script to engage the observer within yourself and create that science-backed strategic distance.
 
Print out your Permission Slip or make it your screen saver, and regularly read it with intention.  Because our behavior follows our beliefs, learning to believe these internal scripts is a fundamental part of creating changes in behavior that can be sustained. Above all, give yourself permission to be patient and kind toward yourself as you move through this process, and to have fun experimenting with these ideas!
 

My New Year and the Next 30!

As I begin the next 30 years on my path of understanding and creating sustainable changes in lifestyle behaviors and self-care I have taken stock: My personal charge is to keep learning as I continue to use research to impact relevant policy and scale research-backed systems and strategies for use by consumers, practitioners, and other researchers.
 
To amplify the impact of The Motivation MAP, it is being widely circulated among behavioral scientists and physical activity researchers. In addition, I’ll be speaking at a number of conferences in the coming years to help further disseminate this scientifically supported message triad and its underlying mindset-shifting methods. First up in 2025, I will be doing featured presentations at the American College of Sports Medicine in Atlanta and at the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity in Lake Tahoe. If you attend, please come by and say hi! I’d love to meet you or reconnect.
 
Thank you for your continued interest in reading my newsletter. In the coming year, keep your eyes out for exciting new research on a topic that has profound implications for the way we and others think about and maintain changes in behaviors!
 
Please forward this blog post to others who share your interest in the science-based “how-to’s” of creating lasting changes in behavior that can survive in the real world.

Copyright © Segar, Michelle.

The post Your New Year’s Permission Slip: How to Create a Mindset Shift in Yourself and Others first appeared on Michelle Segar.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been in touch but I’ve got some provocative thoughts to share.

I recently returned from delivering a keynote address for the newly formed Wellness Alliance* in Chicago, and I am so energized by the response from people after the talk that I want to share it with you.

In this keynote, one of the things I do is lay out an extensive critique of habit formation as a viable real-world strategy for complex lifestyle behaviors like healthy eating and exercise. Most of the audience had never considered this critique before. While many resonated with the science-based reasons I presented about my concerns, hearing this perspective appeared to be completely eye-opening.

But it’s not only these audience members who are open to rethinking the value of habit formation, it’s even the very habit formation researchers doing the research! I was honored that my “unhabit” critique, published for academics, got noticed by some of the leading habit researchers in the world. In fact, a recently published responding article by Gardner, Rebar, de Wit, and Lally (2024) showed that they have begun to think a little more critically about the very real real-world barriers that automatic habits encounter with more complex behaviors, like exercising.

That was the purpose of my critique, and I am pleased that it got their attention. But I fear that they didn’t quite get the full picture.

In their article, they used “taking a shower” as the behavioral example and delineated two phases of habits: The habitual instigation is the pre-action phase of the shower habit, such as turning on the hot water. The second phase is the habitual execution phase – the action phase, where people soak their body and lather up. (I know this is quite jargony, please stay with me here.)

Most importantly, they defined behavioral complexity as “the intricacy of executing an action, not instigating it.” They further suggested that rather than aim to fully automate complex behaviors (that is, automating both the instigation and execution phases), we should aim to form instigation habits for both simple and complex behaviors. Their rationale is that the instigation phase is not as complex as the execution phase, lending itself to automate.

I could not disagree more! Unfortunately, their proposed solution ignores the commonsense reality that the context of instigation habits for complex behaviors is still the real world. And it is our complex real-world context that so often blows up our attempts to form complex habits.
 
It’s the context of the behavior that complicates habit formation, not the phase. Exercising is a far more complex behavior than showering. So beyond using a simple behavior to make a point about a complex one, this example misses the point that the complexity of behavior is very much also about the complexity of the context(s) surrounding the instigation of behavior. Bathrooms? Not such a complex context. Home, work, traveling, changing plans, families, urgencies . . . these score exponentially higher on the scale of complexity of context domains.

Creatively navigating context – in this case, our challenging daily lives – is everything when it comes to sticking with complex lifestyle behaviors. Research suggests (and you know this too) that the value of any one choice always depends on the context of all our other choices and needs, which are constantly changing. The weather, a sick child, a rescheduled meeting, and any number of new needs can break down a carefully planned habit loop, the popularized concept for the more technical “cue-behavior association learned from consistent repetition” phrase used by habit researchers. And, of course, the context of behavior also includes our internal world: the self-talk, potential discouragement, low motivation, etc. that’s never silent between our ears.

Happily, I know from listening to podcast interviews with other behavioral scientists and practitioners that my concerns about habit formation for complex behaviors are being heard.  In addition, Ryan Rhodes, the “how-to-close-the-intention-behavior gap” guru, aligns with my contention that habit formation is not recommended for those who do not have routine and predictable lives, such as those juggling many responsibilities during life stages like parenthood and midlife.

So, let’s ask this question: If rigid, automatic habits don’t do the trick for healthy eating and exercise for so many who score high on unpredictability, then what is the secret life of creating sustainable change…that we should be trying to create in our own lives and those of the patients, clients, employees and communities our professional work targets?

The answer, perhaps unsurprisingly, is the opposite: pivoting, bending, and flexing that have been overshadowed by the extreme – non-evidence-based – popularity of automatic habits.
 
Let’s focus on flexibility!
As many of you know, I believe that behavioral resilience underlies sustainable behavior change. But according to the dictionary, resilience has two meanings: the strength aspect, “the ability to withstand or adjust to challenges”; and the flexibility aspect, the ability of something to return to its original shape after it has been stretched, pressed, bent.

I feel that our field has been over focusing on strength when the real hero of this story is flexibility. And it’s not just semantics. The research on how we respond when challenges arise to our lifestyle plans is pretty clear: Exercise, eating, and weight-related outcomes tend to be better with flexible coping (looking for another, perhaps less perfect solution in pursuit of our overall goal) rather than rigid responding (trying to stick to the plan no matter what, and perhaps giving up when we can’t).

A comment from a past audience member brought this wisdom home to me bigtime. Last year, I spoke to physicians and their spouses about these same ideas at a private Permanente Medical Group event in Monterey, California. Afterward, one of the spouses told me that as an engineer, he found that my presentation aligned with his training. He explained that engineers are trained to make products flexible because “if they don’t bend, they break.”  Amen brother!

As we enter the fall season, gearing up for work and school and a succession of family holidays, I ask you to try to keep this truth in mind for you or the clients, patients, and employees your work helps: For most, successful sustainable change is not about “sticking to the plan” or hitting the gym for a target number of hours per week. As I said in No Sweat, and have repeated many times over, “It’s consistency over quantity.”  And also, while I haven’t written about this in a while, try to remember that any behavioral tactic, even flexibility, is likely to fail if it’s not in service of The Right Why.

Do most people need to create conscious intentions and plans for their complex self-care behaviors? Yes. But it’s what we do next, when that plan bumps into something unexpected, that influences about ability to sustain that behavior.

Rather than trying to aim for the bullseye every time, and feeling bad about yourself when you so often miss it, try something new: Aim instead to more consistently support your greater health and self-care goals by making daily decisions that can bend, press, and stretch within your changing context to achieve just that. and. Ironically, when you aim for consistency over perfection, you hit the mark every time!

As always, I welcome pushback (email me!) and I welcome learning new things (send me research!).
 
* The Wellness Alliance
WELCOA and NWI have recently merged to form the Wellness Alliance. Both organizations have a long history of being leaders in individual and workplace wellness education. As an affiliate of the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans, the Wellness Alliance serves the diverse community of professionals who influence and shape the health and well-being of individuals and workplaces.

Feel free to share this post with others who share your interest in the science-based how-to’s of creating lasting changes that can survive in the real world.

Copyright © Segar, Michelle.

The post Habits for Creating Sustainable Change? Think Again.  first appeared on Michelle Segar.

This past February marked my thirtieth anniversary studying how to create sustainable exercise motivation and participation, and coaching clients in the system I designed and evaluated to achieve those goals. So imagine my discomfort when I found myself struggling with an issue similar to those I’ve coached so many people through over the course of my career: feeling unmotivated by my own exercise.

Let me explain.

I’m at that age when, like so many women and men, I found myself wanting to learn more about bone health and how to prevent osteoporosis. My grandmother had osteoporosis, and we all know genetics counts for a lot. I had always assumed that my lifelong (since my early teens!) running, which in recent years had transformed into daily walking, would be sufficiently protective.
 
But in studying the ins and outs of this life phase, and reading research and popular media articles, I learned that my lovely, leisurely daily walk actually might not be as protective for bone health as I had presumed. In fact, some research suggests that a better choice for my bones would be to walk at a firm pace to ensure higher impact, a type of stressor that helps build bone mineral density. So, good student that I am (and going against three decades my own research, insights, and experience), I said to myself, “Michelle, let’s start walking at a good clip so you can better promote bone health in your later years!”
 
A couple of weeks into my new regimen, however, I started feeling a little less enthusiastic about my walks. My dog didn’t seem as excited about them either. Instead of feeling, “Oh! It’s time for my walk!” I felt, “Oh, I should take that walk now …” Instead of the burst of energy I always got from my slower, more centering walks through the changing seasons and landscapes, I felt ambivalent, quite meh.
  
Yes, this was ironic! One of my biggest messages to clients (which you’ve heard time and again as a subscriber to this newsletter) – and one based firmly in science – has been to move in ways that feel good, that fuel you, that are meaningful to you, and that help you reset and renew. This is what I’ve come to know works from decades of sustainable-change research and coaching. And this influence has been seen across the lifespan, including among teens, parents, and older adults.
 
Back to the story. I was fully aware of why I had made this different choice to push myself on my daily walks, and I knew that this decision was grounded in a truly valuable reason. But I also couldn’t deny the non-optimal results on my daily walking motivation and well-being. That realization took me right back to an early research project of mine, and the counterintuitive and frankly startling findings that helped shape the rest of my career.
 
 
Why Exercising for Future Goals Doesn’t Motivate Most People Long-Term
 
In the early 2000s I published some studies suggesting that being physically active in order to gain future health benefits was associated with lackluster motivation, non-optimal self-regulation, and decreased participation when compared to activity that aimed for immediate benefits like energy and renewal. In fact, when I first analyzed those data it shocked me. At that time I had assumed (and formally hypothesized) that improving health would be a potent lifelong motivator for exercising. But those surprising findings were not so surprising after I dove into other scientific areas to better understand what was going on.
 
There seemed to be three primary reasons explaining why health goals don’t motivate most people long-term. First, aiming for better health outcomes (e.g., bone health, avoiding diabetes) results in a myriad of demotivating outcomes. In particular, if today’s exercise aims to benefit us in ten, twenty, or forty years, it doesn’t stand much of a chance of remaining a daily priority in the Busy Here and Now!
 
Second, the data also suggested that exercising for improved health all too easily takes us to “Should Land,” a punishing destination that easily leaves many of us unmotivated to move regularly. The reasons health-promoting and aging-optimizing exercise goals often lose their motivational power for so many is because of the dilemma I found myself in: They leave us feeling meh about actually doing the exercise. If we feel like we can take it or leave it, we generally leave it.
 
Third, when our activities follow an exercise prescription based on optimizing how intensely and long we must exercise in order to optimize the health benefits, it can easily generate the negative experiences associated with inactivity because we don’t like moving our bodies in that way.
 
And this brings us right back to my conundrum, one that so many other people face on a daily basis: I wanted to exercise for those amazing health benefits, but I just didn’t like the experiences I had while exercising in the ways that I knew I should, that I was forcing myself to do.
 
If you don’t like how you feel when you exercise following prescribed exercises, if focusing on pushing yourself to walk at a faster clip robs 75% of the well-being benefits you get from your walk and curbs your enthusiasm for stepping outside (as it did for me), then it’s critical to step back and reflect. Using self-awareness, analyze your prior years of experience to proactively discern what is right for you. Like all decisions, what’s right for one person isn’t going be right for another.
 
It may be that this act of introspection leads you to keep up that faster pace, or alternate slower with faster bouts. My reflection showed me that sacrificing the nurturing, positive experiences I derived from my typical walking pace wasn’t worth it. And I mindfully gave myself permission to revert to the slower movement that fuels and renews me on my daily walks.
 
But that’s not the end of the story. I still wanted to give my bones the attention I know they need, so I continued my journey of learning. This time, I was looking for other ways to strengthen my bones that don’t drain my well-being and – this is critical – that I could also easily integrate into my daily life.
 
 
Moving toward Movement for Better Bone Health
 
To jump-start my process, I enrolled in a practical strategies for bone-health webinar put on by Monica Reinagel, a nutrition and behavior change colleague I highly regard, and Joanne Fagerstrom, a new bone-health-promoting exercise role model. What I learned during this brief time was game changing for me. They  delivered easy-to-use information that I have been successfully, and happily, building into my days. If this piques your interest, you can find more information by following the link above. (Please note: I am not associated with this program and do not benefit from your participation.)
 
I’ve been choosing Opportunities to Move (OTMs, as my clients sometimes call them) – talking the stairs instead of the elevator, for example – for decades. Now I also seek out opportunities to incorporate simple (and fun!) bone-health and balance-building movements, such as standing on one leg or doing heel drops while waiting for the water to boil for tea. As I learn to make changes in my physical activity, I am now following my own advice: focusing on adding just one or two new exercises at a time, and regularly checking in with myself about how they are working for me before adding anything else.

And, full disclosure: Now that I’m outside of the Shadow of the Should, sometimes when I feel like it (or my walking partner urges me to pick up the pace), I do speed up and actually enjoy it.
 
Prescribing the Middle Way in Medicine

I typically don’t write about my own experiences with exercise, but I also don’t tend to get stuck in issues I’ve built my career around solving for others, either. And believe me, this journey was humbling, reminding me that when I say “most people” I am also talking about myself. But I am also talking about a much bigger story than just my own.
 
Most of us, when we get concerns about our health, truly do want to follow best practices and recommended treatments. The problem is that this targeted, bulls-eye approach genuinely can’t be sustained by most. Because while it might be the ideal, it’s just not realistic for the long haul. We find ourselves disliking it (as I did), or life repeatedly interrupts our best intentions, or the point we are aiming at just seems so far off that it stops making sense. And then what happens? So many of us go from the extreme of trying to follow the health advice to the letter to not doing any health promoting activities at all. After all, why bother if we can’t do it right?
 
Fortunately for me, once I put my expert hat back on, I was able to resolve my low motivation and quickly turn things around. But most individuals, patients and clients, and most clinicians, don’t know a system that efficiently guides people to navigating their true medical behavior-change needs within their personal desires and daily scheduling needs.
 
Navigating this path between extremes is what I refer to as The Middle Way in Medicine. It is a journey of discovery; one where patients (and their clinicians, too) learn how to balance and integrate their very real and often urgent medical behavior change/self-care needs with the realities of their personalities, preferences, caregiving responsibilities, and work-related needs.
 
Most individuals will not and cannot sustain health promoting and disease management behavior without finding The Middle Way. Why? Because even when its critical for our health, it’s nearly impossible to maintain a behavior that doesn’t fit with our unique hearts and lives.
 
My new (not yet published) research with patients is bearing this phenomenon out, and efficient ways to guide us in The Middle Way in Medicine are easier to design than people think. My hope for the future is that there will be greater incentives within the health system to more highly value this mindset and these methods. And I sincerely hope that learning about my personal motivation challenge and how I resolved it is helpful in some way to you personally or professionally. 

Feel free to share this post with others who share your interest in the science-based how-to’s of creating lasting changes that can survive in the real world.

Copyright © Segar, Michelle.

The post Motivation to Maintain Walking first appeared on Michelle Segar.

Where I live in Michigan, winter (typically) means snow and plenty of it! But even if you don’t have snow, the shorter, colder winter days can mess with outdoor exercise plans.

Of course, you can always choose to work out indoors. But I don’t see winter as  a reason to stop exercising outdoors. Instead, I see it as a challenge and opportunity to change up your outdoor routine.

If you’re an ice skater or a downhill or cross-country skier, you’ve likely been looking forward to winter fun. But for the rest of us, I want to share a handful of winter exercise tips that clients and I have discussed over the years. I hope these ideas will inspire you to keep creating sustainable physical activity in your life this winter! The strategies below are especially for those who live in a climate that gets very cold and/or snowy during the winter months, but feel free to adapt them to your own bad-weather needs.

1. Reset your winter exercise expectations.
We all knew winter was coming. But instead of feeling bummed or taking it personally, it’s helpful to reframe this  seasonal shift as what it is: a natural occurrence that will, eventually, pass. This allows us to get flexible with our expectations about what exercise can look like during this time and even be pleasantly surprised by what we discover.

2. Make exercise times shorter.
All-or-nothing thinking drives the belief that we have to do the exact same exercise or workout all year round.  In fact, we don’t! If feeling cold is not your thing but being outside is, then shorten the duration of your exercise to make it more palatable, and remind yourself that it’s generally only a switch up for a few months. If you need more active exercise, add some indoor exercise or an online class. If you’ve got stairs in your house, this is their time to shine! (See Tip 6 below for more indoor ideas.) 

3. Have fun with your exercise outdoors but stay safe. 
It should come as no surprise that walking + icy weather can equal falling. Eek! So what does that mean for winter walkers? Many years ago, one of my clients was determined to keep up her new and enjoyable practice of walking to and from work even during the very cold and snowy winter that had recently arrived. Determined to make it work, she purchased some walking traction cleats that attached to her boots and allowed her to walk safely. This was so helpful to her that I have continued to pass this tip on to all who are interested!

4. Be a role model for “unfashionable” but protective exercise gear.
Hypothermia will defeat any exercise program. When frigid weather arrives, wearing whatever pants, hat, mittens, etc. keeps you warm enough to be outside always wins over being fashionable but freezing. On very cold days I even wear a balaclava — a toasty warm, full-face ski mask. In fact, I recently saw a neighbor wearing the same ninja-like mask while biking. She informed me that it had been seeing me wear one that made her realize she could wear one too.

5. Find a winter exercise buddy.
As you know from prior newsletters, I’m not a big fan of the idea of an “accountability partner” for many, and this tip isn’t recommending that! I am, however, a great believer in social exercise buddies as great motivators, especially in unwelcoming weather. If you find another person who’d also like to try cold-weather activity, either inside or outside, you may find that your winter exercise is a lot more fun than you anticipated.

6. When all else fails, move indoors.
For some, ditching outside exercise for a few months is the better option. Beyond the old standbys, gyms and apps, the sky’s the limit for ways to be active. Here are a few:

Online exercise classes: Aerobics, weights, creative movement, yoga … there is something for everyone here!Dancing to your favorite music: By yourself or with a friend!Playing with kids: Put their energy to good use! See this gift NYT article about different ways you can be active with your kids.Walking around inside: In your house, your workplace, a big-box store, the mall. It counts!

If you have an indoor or outdoor winter exercise tip you’d like to share with me, please email me and let me know!

Feel free to share this post with others who share your interest in the science-based how-to’s of creating lasting changes that can survive in the real world.

Copyright © Segar, Michelle.

The post Tips to Keep Active and Maintain Exercise in Winter first appeared on Michelle Segar.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Every time we pick the Joy Choice — the perfect imperfect option that lets us do something instead of nothing —  we are not just making a momentary decision that supports our greater intentional eating or exercise goals. We are actualizing who we truly are.

So I could not be more excited to report that newly published research – in six studies and among 3,000 people – from renowned social psychologist Robert J. Vallerand supports this big idea big time!

Vallerand studies what he terms passion and persistence, and his new study conducted with his colleagues is both fascinating and exciting. In this new science, they propose the existence of two types of persistence: rigid and flexible. Whereas they found that both types of persistence can lead to positive outcomes within an activity of focus, only flexible persistence also leads to adaptive outcomes in other areas of one’s life.

Simply put, in this study, rigid persistence* – striving toward a singular goal to the exclusion of everything else – appears to bring people toward their goals. But it came at the expense of our other life areas. 

In contrast, flexible persistence goes with the flow, allowing the rest of your life – the people and things you care most about – to exist harmoniously with your important behavioral pursuit, while still achieving the focus goal. 

While Vallerand’s study wasn’t focused on how people adopt and sustain a lifestyle behavior, as a sustainable-change scientist and trainer (with a focus on exercising), “flexible persistence” (his term) is what I’ve seen work among individuals for decades.

Exercise has traditionally been accompanied by a prescriptive mindset within science, health care, and gyms, so when people first learn about the value of flexible pursuit, they find it counter-intuitive (and even dangerous) — despite the rigid alternative never having worked for most people across our history.

Yet, after I explain the science underlying the value of flexibility for creating more sustainable approaches to exercising — with individuals, organizations, and professionals, — everyone gets it.

They get it because the evidence underlying this idea matters. But they also get it because the principle of flexible persistence, which has become a hot topic, simply reflects the way we live the rest our lives.

Whether we are parenting, partnering, working, or adult-childing, we naturally make schedule adjustments to accommodate these important life arenas. In other words, when we need to, we quickly pivot and change course without giving the flexibility we just enacted any thought.

I couldn’t be more excited to share this new science with you. And I predict we’ll continue to see similar study findings across many behavioral and life areas showing that flexibility beats out trying to “do it right” when circumstances mandate.

Believe it: The perfect imperfect option, what I call the joy choice, isn’t just the easy or effortless choice: It’s the strategy and tactic that will enable you to maintain momentum in your healthy goals while still maintaining a harmonious balance with the people and projects that mean most to you. And that’s a formula for health and happiness.

*It is important to note that in contrast to Vallerand’s study, research on exercise and eating, per se, generally does not find rigid persistence to be helpful compared to flexible pursuit when it comes to behavioral decision making.

Books to help you cultivate flexibility and a harmonious life

Do you find yourself breathing a little more freely as you read about this cutting-edge science? Below are three books (2 brand new!) that embrace a similar philosophy.

MoneyZen: The Secret to Finding Your “Enough” by Manisha Thakor. This leading financial guru breaks down the personal, cultural, and societal forces that have led us to rigid thinking about what’s enough and shows us a fresh, joy-based, harmonious path toward “MoneyZen,” a life rich in both financial health and emotional wealth using moving stories and science.

Master of Change: How to Excel When Everything Is Changing — Including You by Brad Stulberg. A revelatory book on rethinking change and creating a rugged and flexible mindset amidst life’s intensifying flux, from the expert on sustainable excellence, coach, recently named a “National Bestseller”.

The Joy Choice: How to Finally Achieve Lasting Changes in Eating and Exercise by Michelle Segar. The Joy Choice helps readers change their mindset about exercise and eating so they can joyfully stay consistent with their goals without compromising their attention and energy for the meaningful people and demands in their lives. Named “One of the best health books experts read in 2022” by The Washington Post.

This blog post was initially published: Segar, M. Harmonize Your Life Through Flexibility. Psychology Today (September 19, 2023).

The post Flexible Habits Fuel Persistence and Lasting Change first appeared on Michelle Segar.

Let me lead with my bias: I’ve always cringed inside when people have told me that they need to find an “accountability partner” to succeed with exercise.

Last week, I was on a call with a new coach I started training to help his clients make sustainable lifestyle changes. Suddenly, he stopped to share how excited he was that he could offer the “accountability” that his new client had informed him she needed.

Uh-oh. Red flag!

In the 29+ years that I’ve been helping people transform their relationship with exercise from a chore into a gift, finding someone for my clients to be accountable to has never been a go-to strategy for lifetime sustainability.

I view needing “accountability” as one of the leading roles in the Old Story of Behavior Change, right alongside “willpower.” (Please note that this discussion is not about the value of accountability partners in addiction programs—we are talking here only about exercise!)

So what do we mean by “accountability”?
Needing “accountability” reflects needing an external motivator: Someone or something outside of you is designated to get you to exercise because you are not sufficiently motivated yourself. This strategy can often get us (or our clients, patients, or employees) to get started. But there’s a huge divide between what gets people started and what keeps them going. When it comes down to sticking with a physically active life, extrinsic motivators or rewards are not a good bet.
 
Believing we need an accountability partner underestimates our own capacity to motivate ourselves.
Newly published research in the Journal of Motivation and Emotion supports this idea. Across seven studies in different countries, participants were informed that they would do a long and repetitive task without getting any extrinsic incentives. However, before they started the task, they were asked to predict their level of motivation to complete the task.

The findings were striking: Across the different experiments and using a variety of tasks, participants were more consistently and actively engaged in the tasks than they predicted they’d be. The authors concluded that people tend to under-appreciate their capability to sustain their motivation in the absence of external motivators.

This study was not about exercise per se, yet I believe it has implications for our own exercise motivation and for those we try to help in our professions.

If having an accountability partner has cultivated sustainability within your life, fantastic. But decades of experience suggests that long term, externally motivating strategies just doesn’t work for most.

Here’s what I’ve been wondering: Is a successful “accountability” partnership actually due to something other than external motivation?

Uncovering connection: a hidden resource for lasting behavior change

What if the “accountability partner” strategy is actually hinting at something deeper? What if, among those for whom it works, this strategy is actually obscuring a core resource that actually the potency to support lasting behavior change among many?

In a study I co-lead with Heather Patrick and April Oh, funded by the National Cancer Institute, we looked at what factors people reported as leading them to feel happy and successful. Among a handful of answers, connecting with others was the only thing participants described as facilitating both success and happiness for them. Our finding was consistent with other science showing that being connected to others is associated with happiness and meaning.

But we also learned something else: Participants reported that connecting with others while being physically active transformed it into a positive experience. And positive experiences during exercise are considered very important for predicting future decisions to exercise.

The term for the motivating benefits from human connection during movement: relational motivation. This turns the very idea of an “accountability partner” on its head, re-framing it as feeling connected to and enjoying the companionship of others while moving our bodies. And this, my friends, is full-on intrinsic motivation!

Here are some questions to help you and/or your clients or patients discern whether they could be motivated by accountability or connection:

1. If you have an exercise partner: Think about what actually gets you to exercise with them. Is it enjoyment of their company, or a sense of obligation, or both? (If obligation is dragging you down, try to hone in on the positive experiences of camaraderie.)

2. When you think about exercising with someone you enjoy: Do you feel dread or want to smile? If your lips are curving upward, grab your phone and make a plan!

3. Do you thrive in extrinsically motivating situations across life contexts? If so, then an accountability partnership might be a thing to try.

When it comes to creating sustainable exercise behavior, the terms we (and our clients/patients/employees/consumers) use deeply matter. They influence our perceptions and experiences, which ultimately influences whether we sustain a physically active life.

In reality, “accountability partnerships” is not a black and white issue, it’s nuanced, and packed with different ingredients for different people, including things like support and being there for others. 

Despite this, I can’t help but wonder if perceiving our exercise partners as those who give us “accountability”, instead of those we enjoy being with and talking to, robs us (and those we work with) of fully experiencing and benefiting from motivating ourselves to move because of the connection and camaraderie we know we enjoy.

What do think about accountability partners? I’m curious! Feel free to email me your feedback and reactions. (You know I always welcome push-back. It helps me think more deeply, and sometimes even gets me to rethink.)

I’m excited to announce that . . .
The paperback version of The Joy Choice just became available. And I’m doubly thrilled that this new edition now includes my Joy Choice Book Club discussion guide.

Every year, I virtually attend a select number of book clubs that read The Joy Choice and offer live coaching and problem solving to book club attendees, If you are in a book club and want me to consider your book club for the upcoming season, click here.

And if you are curious to hear a thought-provoking conversation about why I think habit formation misses the boat for complex behaviors like exercise, check out my very recent conversation with Monica Reinagel, host of Change Academy, here.

Finally, since I started posting across multiple platforms, people have started asking me how they can cite my writing to share with others in their professional work. I’ll make it easy! Here’s how to cite this content:

Segar, M. Is an “Accountability Partnership” Setting You Up to Succeed or Fail? You might be underestimating your ability to motivate yourself to exercise. (August 2, 2023). Psychology Today.

Feel free to share this post with others who share your interest in the science-based how-to’s of creating lasting changes that can survive in the real world.

Copyright © Segar, Michelle.

The post Is Needing to Be “Accountable” to Someone for Exercise Setting You Up to Fail? first appeared on Michelle Segar.

If Marie Kondo Can’t Do It, Who Can? What a Disciplined Guru Teaches Is about Lifestyle Behaviors Like Exercise  Not long after the new year, I read this quote in a Washington Post article that stopped me in my tracks: “Marie Kondo, 38, has caught up with the rest of us, trying to corral the doom piles on our kitchen counters while on hold with the plumber and trying not to burn dinner.”

I was shocked to discover that someone I had assumed was a person who had it all together when it came to organizing was having trouble doing just that because of the same real-life distractions that that the rest of us have! Even for the experts, and also similar to exercising, creating “good” habits for household organizing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Let me say it one more time: It’s not about habits, it’s about life.

I had understood Kondo as a true habiter, very disciplined and able to create the conditions that result in effective tidying habits – after all, she had built up a lifetime of doing just that. I based this assumption on the system she created and written about, and the way she was depicted in her Netflix series.

Yet she’s not just a wildly successful businesswoman, she’s also a human being who happens to be a partner and a parent of three. And the reality is that no matter who you are, the equation is the same:

as the number of roles we have goes up – the time we have available for daily activities goes down.

The article points out that when she went from two children to three, Kondo hit her tipping point. She humbly acknowledged that something had to give, and while counterintuitive, it turned out to be tidying! “My home is messy,” she explained, “but the way I am spending my time is the right way for me at this time at this stage of my life.” [Italics, mine.] Bravo Kondo!

Let’s think about it: The biggest tidying guru in the world publicly acknowledges that once she hit three kids she didn’t have the bandwidth to keep it up. We all have our own tipping point, whether it’s the new goldfish, a puppy, that new job, having one child or five.

So, inspired by Kondo’s honesty, let’s give ourselves permission to get real about our lives, and our expectations for the ways in which we aim to take care of ourselves and our lives, whether it’s through organizing or exercise, or something else.

As someone in the sandwich generation, I know I certainly need this permission.

For now, let’s focus on exercise and movement, and take a step back to start at the beginning!

Get Real about Exercise in 6 Steps

1. Ask yourself Why it’s actually important to you to have consistent exercise or movement in your life. 

2. Assess which physical activities can help you realize that Why. (Note: It may not be the ones you think! And in fact, on any given day your Why for exercise can change based on how the day is going or the night before.)

3. Make a kind and realistic Plan to fit those activities into your life the way it really is, mess and all.

4. Implement that plan!

5. Evaluate what worked and what didn’t.

6. Adjust your plan (and your Why) as needed and keep going!
Exercise is not tidying, and yet …

Think about it: Exercise is a self-care behavior, and so is tidying. We can be inspired to organize our closets and neatly fold our tee shirts by gurus like Marie Kondo, but most of us don’t expect to be able to do it as perfectly as Kondo. We understand we simply can’t be perfect in this way.  Yet, in stark contrast, many of us are not nearly as realistic or self-forgiving when it comes to following fitness gurus and/or their programs. But there is no reason why we should not be as self-compassionate about our exercise lives as Kondo is about her tidying life.

Here’s a final shout out to Marie Kondo for being vulnerable and modeling for us how to give ourselves grace. Before I sign off, I want to share what a blast I had getting my audience to laugh during my keynote at the Society of Behavioral Medicine’s annual conference last month. I am delighted and thankful for this really fun event!

And keep your eyes open for the announcement of the release of The Joy Choice paperback, coming to your inbox sometime soon.

Feel free to share this post with others who share your interest in the science-based how-to’s of creating lasting changes that can survive in the real world.

Copyright © Segar, Michelle.

The post If Marie Kondo Can’t Do It, Who Can? What a Disciplined Guru Teaches Is about Lifestyle Behaviors Like Exercise first appeared on Michelle Segar.

Exercise commitment – Part 2  And other Myths 

In January, I asked my readers to weigh in on which term they thought was a more potent frame for and promoter of exercising: commit or celebrate. I’ve never done a reader survey before, and it was gratifying to receive so many passionate responses and really fun to learn what everyone thought! I’ll cut right to the chase: Celebrate got 80% of the votes.

This large endorsement likely shows the bias of those of you who follow my work. Yet it’s important to note how big a shift this is from the traditional prescriptive narrative about exercising that is still alive and embedded within health care, wellness, and fitness centers.

Commiters vs. Celebrators

I was impressed by the impassioned responses people gave on both sides of this question. It reminded me again that the “right” way to exercise is never a one-size-fits-all deal. We’ll get back to this, but first I’d like to share a few of the comments by voters explaining their choice.   

The Committers fell into two main camps:

Those who felt it led to greater consistency (“It [commit] prepares you to be determined.” “ Commit… suggests that you will finish what you started.”) Those who found the very notion of using the word celebrate in the same breath as exercise abhorrent: (“The idea of ‘celebrating through exercising’ sounds like balderdash and pure nonsense to my ears.” “Celebrate by exercising just sounds like toxic positivity to me.”)

For the Celebrators, the  overarching theme was work vs. fun.

These responses explicitly contrasted the negative connotations associated with the idea of committing (like work, rules, and obligations) with the positive invitation associated with the idea of celebrating: “Committing makes it a duty or task and something I SHOULD do (I don’t need more of those!); celebrating makes it something I GET to do.” “I already have so many commitments, I don’t want to take on anymore. But I could use a few more celebrations in my life!”)

Not surprisingly, many more in the celebrate group noted the importance of having positive experiences from movement, like fun and being outside, while those endorsing commit were less likely to mention positivity with exercise.

And one new theme arose that I have not yet explored in my own messaging research:  the very idea that celebrating through exercise may imply gratitude of one’s body, ability to move, and even life: “Celebration is an extension of gratitude. A mindset of gratitude toward ourselves – mind, body, and soul – allows for entering a place of honor toward each of those domains.”
 
And the best promoter of exercise is . . . ?

Okay, let’s return to the original question: Which of the two options do you think better promotes exercising?

The simple answer is, it depends. The voters’ comments underline the fact that we are unique individuals who are motivated by different things. We need to honor what works for us as long as it doesn’t harm us or others.

This is undeniably true. Yet as someone who designs and evaluates systems for creating sustainable exercise motivation and consistent decision-making, I am most interested in which terms and concepts will be most impactful for most people.

While there is no “right” term, my work has taught me that there are words and concepts that are more compelling and positive. And these are the words that will better drive the consistent decision-making that underlies maintenance for those of us who haven’t yet figured out how to sustain physically active lives.

I am always open to experience and research teaching me that I’m wrong and need to rethink my beliefs. But currently “celebrate” gets my vote: Celebrating during, from, or with exercise and movement reflects a more strategic and positive script for more people who are inactive and truly want take better care of themselves but haven’t figured out how – yet.
 
Rethinking “leisure time”

You likely already know that my works suggests that exercise cannot become an automatic habit for most people, despite the hype.  Most of us need to consciously choose to move, day in and day out, in the face of a huge list of other potential, and often unanticipated competing activities. Which means that many of us need to fit in exercise and be physically active during our leisure time.

You might be saying to yourself, “What leisure time?!” And while there’s truth in that protestation, the amount of time people spend on social media and streaming entertainment is evidence that leisure time indeed exists for many of us.

Given that so many of us (or our clients, patients, employees) need physical activity to be a leisure activity, we better know more about the nature and needs of leisure time, per se.

Fortunately for us, there’s a hot-off-the press paper by researchers Seppo Iso-Ahola and Roy Baumeister addressing this very thing:
 
“Multiple studies have shown that leisure is a psychological entity overwhelmingly defined by people’s perceptions of freedom. . . . a sense of freedom more than anything else defines what leisure is to people. Importantly, leisure means freedom to choose to do or not to do something. Otherwise a sense of obligation arises and a sense of leisure is lost.”

Thus, when there’s no sense of freedom associated with a leisure activity it all too easily transforms into feeling like work or an obligatory activity, preventing it from achieving the desirable status of a leisure activity.

It’s hard to miss the voice of the Celebrators here. One nailed it when they said “Celebrate implies joy, fun, freedom . . . while commit implies ‘work’; a ‘should.’”

Yes, we do need to honor the idea that “celebrate” doesn’t easily roll off the tongue alongside the idea of exercising for the Committers and similar others. Yet, we also have to keep in mind that discomfort with the idea of exercise being a celebration goes beyond simply being about personal preference.

We must also acknowledge that this discomfort is due to the fact that for almost half a century we’ve been socialized, even indoctrinated to believe, that “worthy” exercise requires a commitment in order to white-knuckle it through until the end. This most definitely makes it work, not leisure!

To paraphrase what I wrote in my January post, the terms we use for a choice or behavior — whether we say them in our own head or use them in our campaigns, coaching, or digital products — frame the way we look at those choices and behaviors. That frame then influences the feelings and experiences we have when we do them — and that determines whether we stay consistent or not.

Below, I offer specific take-aways for different groups of my readers.

For Individuals: Humans naturally – as an innate brain function – avoid what makes us feel bad and run towards what makes us feel good. As long as the frame you put around exercise motivates continued physical activity, choose to use whichever term feels good to your mind and body!

For health and well-being coaches (and clinicians): You have likely already recognized that many to most of your patients/clients do not consider physical activity as a leisure-time activity they would want to choose. Your challenge is to help them learn a new meaning that can associate physical activity as a feel-good activity they personally create and choose as a way to renew themselves. Please note that you likely can’t achieve that important goal if you associate physical activity with losing weight through your coaching/counseling.  Exercise is not only a poor activity for producing weight loss, when we discuss it within a weight loss context, we convert exercise into much more than just a chore. We also turn it into a behavior associated with shame, weightism, and stigma – how many want to choose those?!

Feel free to share this post with others who share your interest in the science-based how-to’s of creating lasting changes that can survive in the real world.

Copyright © Segar, Michelle.

The post Exercise commitment – Part 2  And other Myths first appeared on Michelle Segar.

This piece was co-written by myself and Alison L. Miller . 

It’s February 2nd — even though you committed to exercising five days a week and getting it finally right — those New Year’s resolutions are already long gone. It’s Groundhog Day – again.
 
Why are we (or the people we work with) stuck in the same vicious cycle of failure with exercise and eating that is our own Groundhog Day? There’s a good reason so many people identify with the 30-year-old movie in which Bill Murray’s unhappy weather forecaster Phil relives the same day over and over due to pursuing the same misguided intentions.
 
As observers, we know that if Phil keeps approaching his day in the same way, he’ll never escape Groundhog Day. Yet, ironically, we do the same thing when it comes to trying to eat better and exercise more.
 
Whether it’s New Year resolutions or a health scare, when we decide to start fresh with better eating or exercise, we say to ourselves “This time, I’m going to get it right.”
 
But, similar to Phil’s predicament, it’s our own core intention to get it “right”, through following the prescription or program exactly, that keeps us stuck in our own eating and exercise Groundhog Day; decades of starting and stopping, starting and stopping, but never sustaining.
 
While some of us don’t actually have many choices because of limited outside safe spaces or healthy food sources, for those of us who do, this perfectionistic mindset is not only a surefire recipe for disappointment and feeling like failures, it’s the very thing that keeps us stuck year in and year out.
 
With every fresh start, we begin with the same intention to get it exactly right. This unfortunate mindset is a formal cognitive distortion called all-or-nothing thinking. Its persistence in our minds is not our fault because it’s a result of having internalized decades of messages telling us that there is a right way to exercise and eat better by society: researchers, health care providers, trainers, Influencers, marketers, and the media.
 
And it’s time to change all that.
 
Think about it: How can we expect our exercise routine or eating to be perfect when they must survive within our inevitably imperfect lives?
 
We don’t hold the same grandiose expectations for the other areas of our lives: When it comes to raising our kids, dealing with work issues, or coping with weather emergencies, we automatically use the flexible thinking that lets us pivot and adjust our plans when needed. We recognize that we have no choice but to do what we can when we can. And it is this flexible mindset and resilience that keeps us moving forward in spite of unexpected challenges.  
 
Yet when it comes to eating and exercise, we do not apply that same wisdom: we believe we have to be perfect.
 
We don’t.
 
The truth is that successfully incorporating complex behaviors like healthy eating and exercise into our busy lives requires the same intention and tactics we already use to navigate the rest of our messy, beautiful lives.
 
In the movie, Phil was forced to relive the same day over and over even after making different choices. It wasn’t until he fundamentally changed his core intention that he woke up on February 3rd, and finally escaped his personal Groundhog Day.
 
We and our patients, clients, consumers, and employees, can escape our own eating and exercise Groundhog Day by doing something similar.
 
If doing it “right” keeps us stuck, then rejecting this unachievable aspiration liberates us to be active and eat in ways that better sets us up for sustainability.
 
We are complex beings living in a complex world. Healthy eating and physical movement are just two elements of the whole of our lives. While counterintuitive, when we give ourselves the same grace to be imperfect with eating and exercise as we do with other areas of our lives, a world of possibility opens.
 
The fundamental change in thinking many of us need is to replace a right way with any way; we need to believe that with eating and exercise “something is better than nothing.”
 
No perfect healthy eating options at that work lunch? Then make the perfectly imperfect choice that you will feel best about under these circumstances.
 
Can’t make it to the gym for your hour class? Walk outside for 13 minutes.
 
This transformation in thinking may seem simplistic. But it is actually profound. It cultivates the resilience and flexibility we need to keep moving forward toward our overarching eating and exercise goals, no matter what.
 
And it goes beyond just benefiting ourselves. When we take this new approach, we model to our children the flexible tactics that busy grown-ups need in order to maintain healthy lifestyles while managing competing parenting demands. 

When we accept the idea that something is better than nothing when it comes to healthy eating and exercise, and that even a small imperfect choice is worth it, we liberate ourselves from all-or-nothing thinking and can finally leave our Groundhog Day firmly in the past.

While there wouldn’t have been enough of a story for a good movie, if Phil had made his fundamental change earlier, he wouldn’t have had to wait so long for what he truly wanted. The same is true for you and those you want to help.

Feel free to share this post with others who share your interest in the science-based how-to’s of creating lasting changes that can survive in the real world.

Copyright © Segar, Michelle.

The post Is It Groundhog Day Again for Your Eating and Exercise Goals?  first appeared on Michelle Segar.

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