Description
Implementation intentions is a technique commonly used when you want to change a behavior or build new habits. This technique allows you to use your motivation more effectively.
Possible Benefits
- Improves motivation
- May strengthen self-confidence
- May increase productivity
- May strengthen focus on goals
Required Equipment
None
How to Do It
This technique works best when you use it for every goal you have.
- Choose the goal you want to achieve.
- Choose where, how, and when you will do it. These will be like "rules" that will tell you how to act.
- (Optional) Keep a journal to record the steps above, so you can review your results and make any necessary changes.
Implementation intentions work in the "if-then" way. "When it is 7 am, I will get up to eat breakfast and get ready to exercise”. "When I feel sad, I will do something active”.
Why it works
- Motivation alone may not be enough to act sometimes. Implementation intentions make you imagine yourself acting to achieve a goal, which makes it more likely that you will end up taking action. It also helps you create rules to follow, without thinking too much.
- As you achieve your goals and realize that this was your intention, your self-confidence increases. It increases the feeling that you are in control of your life.
- This technique helps you to achieve your goals, and achieving goals is synonymous with productivity.
- When you define how, when, and where you want to do something, your goals become clearer and you make the necessary changes.
Time Commitment
5-10 minutes
Suggested Frequency
As needed
Review your intentions weekly
Time of Day
Any
Possible Side Effects
Not achieving your intentions may lead to frustration and anxiety, but this is a normal feeling in most cases.
Notes
- When you're defining what to do, try to be as realistic as possible. Specific actions that can lead to achievement.
- Implement your previous intentions first. Don't force yourself to create new ones. This way you will have more motivation.
Supporting Studies and Articles
Expand Collapse- Time for Change: Using Implementation Intentions to Promote Physical Activity in a Randomised Pilot Trial. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6440859/
- Impact of implementation intentions on physical activity practice in adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6235272/
- Implementation intentions: A look back at fifteen years of progress. http://www.psicothema.com/PDF/3325.pdf
- Implementation Intentions and Goal Achievement: A Meta‐analysis of Effects and Processes. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0065260106380021
- Implementation Intentions for Exercise and Physical Activity: Who Do They Work For? A Systematic Review. https://journals.humankinetics.com/view/journals/jpah/17/3/article-p349.xml
- Implementation Intentions and the Theory of Planned Behavior. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167297239004
- Implementation intentions and efficient action initiation. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2001-05123-016
- The limits of simple implementation intentions: Evidence from a field experiment on making plans to exercise. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167629618301991?via%3Dihub
- An implementation intentions intervention to increase uptake of mammography. https://academic.oup.com/abm/article-abstract/32/2/127/4631702?redirectedFrom=fulltext
