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Friday, December 31, 2010

The Problem with Shoulds--New Years Resolutions Revisited

I have written before about New Years Resolutions and why I don't particularly have any confidence in them.  And I have also written about the problems with "should" thoughts.  Today, I would like to talk about both of these together and how they relate to each other.

People often tell themselves what they should do or should have done (e.g., "I should have known that was going to happen," "I should study harder," "I should exercise," and so on.)  These types of shoulds often cause feelings of shame, guilt, and inadequacy.  They are probably best used only when there is a moral issue at stake, e.g., "I shouldn't be lying," or "I shouldn't be stealing from this person," etc.

But there is another problem with shoulds.  We use them as if we believe that they will motivate us.  We say, "It's a new year, and I should be exercising."  Or something like that.  We use "should" thoughts to try to motivate ourselves and get us going.  But my experience is that this tactic rarely works.  Much has been written about what can bring about true behavior change, but to my knowledge focusing on the fact that I "should" diet in the coming year has not been found to lead to reliable weight loss.

The reasons why "shoulds" do not work are unclear, but I can think of several possibilities. 

1.  They involve rather shallow neural processing.  They are not focused on the reasons why change needs to occur, the benefits of changing, the problems if we don't change, the methods that can be used to bring about change, analyzing the obstacles which will get in the way of change.  They simply assert that "I should change and will change."  Thus, there is relatively simplistic cognitive activity involved in the brain.  My guess is that it taps into more primitive brain regions which are not well equipped to accomplish complex behaviors.

2.  They often evoke feelings of shame.  The thought that I "should" exercise is not far away from a shame based feeling that I am bad for not exercising.  Shame generally makes us feel bad about ourselves and seems to evoke negative behaviors rather than positive behaviors.

3.  They are often based on what others think we need to be doing rather than what we want.  We may not really want to exercise but only believe that it is the right thing to do because others tell us it is.

As an alternative to prodding ourselves with shoulds, I would recommend that we focus on the "I want" aspect of change.  "I want to exercise because I will feel better" or "I want to diet because I will look better."  A variety of different brain circuits will be used if we imagine how much better we will feel after behavior change, and if we connect the behavior with wanting rather than shame or guilt.  Other brain circuits will be involved if we analyze the obstacles which have kept us from the behavior, discuss our plan to change with a friend, and so on. 

There are a variety of strategies which can be used to assist in behavior change, but "should" thoughts are at the bottom of the list in my opinion.

There are a variety of good web sites on changing behavior.  Here's one from the University of Arizona that I found:

http://ag.arizona.edu/maricopa/fcs/Documents/SSHW-FS_6-25_Behavior_Chang.pdf

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