We Learned One of the Best Ways to START Turning Motivation Into Action

A few years ago, a group of researchers wanted to understand how to help people exercise more.

So, they asked themselves a question:

What could motivate people to not only want to exercise but actually follow through and do it regularly?

They knew that just telling people to exercise doesn’t always work.

But they wanted to see if combining these two ideas would:

Motivation

Could they make people feel the importance of exercising?

Could making them realise how exercise protects them from heart disease make a difference?

Volition

Could getting people to make specific, detailed plans about when and where they would exercise help them stick to their goal?

They tested it.

The Experiment

They found 248 uni students who weren’t exercising much and split them into 3 groups:

The info group

The researchers gave them a health leaflet that explained how not exercising could lead to serious heart problems in the future.

It talked about how exercise could prevent heart disease, and how easy it could be to get started.

The idea was that the info might be enough to motivate them to exercise.

The info + planning group

This group got the same motivation leaflet as the first group.

But the researchers did something extra for them.

They asked these students to make a detailed plan for when, where, and how they would exercise over the next week.

A plan that said things like, "I will exercise by going for a run at 4 p.m. in the park next Tuesday."

The control group

They didn’t get any special instructions about exercise.

Just a few paragraphs to read from a novel.

Nothing related to health or exercise.

Then for the next 2 weeks, they checked in with the students.

They tracked how many exercised for at least 20 minutes.

They also asked questions to find out how they felt about exercising after reading the materials.

The results

Motivation alone wasn’t enough

For students in the info group, motivation went up.

They felt more worried about heart disease and said they intended to exercise.

But their behaviour didn’t improve much compared to the group who didn’t get any exercise-related information.

Planning made a big difference

The info + planning group showed a huge improvement.

91% of them exercised during the week.

In the info group it was only 35% and 38% in the control group.?

And, the info + planning group didn’t just follow through on exercising.

They also exercised at the exact time and place they had planned.

Motivation stayed the same even when action improved

Even though the info + planning group motivation level wasn’t much higher than those who were only given info.

The big difference was that they actually did what they planned.

How we use this to help entrepreneurs on Winpact

Every time a player misses a target on their Scoreboard, they’re asked to reflect on the reasons why this happened.

They’re also asked what their action plan is for improvement.

Then every week our Player Success team holds them accountable to follow through.

The key insight from the research is that when we get motivated to take action, the first thing we should do is set a well-defined plan.

One that gives us a clear path of when, where and how the action will take place.

Study source: https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1348/135910702169420