Hack Your Habits: The Secret Science of Motivation and Environment Design

What if building better habits wasn’t about more discipline — but about designing your environment, relationships, and daily systems for success? In this episode of The Better Body Lab Podcast, we sit down with behavioral scientist Katie Mehr to explore the real science of habit formation, motivation, and sustainable behavior change.

Together, we examine how resilience, performance, and health optimization are shaped within the human ecology of behavior — where environment, mindset, and social influence drive long-term outcomes. Katie shares why willpower alone often fails, and how strategies like environmental design, social accountability, and structured goal setting create lasting change.

We unpack the science behind SMART goals, temptation bundling, and micro-habits, along with the hidden downsides of public goal-setting and perfectionism. We also explore social contagion — how the habits of those around us influence our own — and why flexibility and self-compassion are essential for consistency. This episode offers practical, evidence-informed tools to move from intention to action through smarter systems, not more pressure.

Katie Mehr:
Katie Mehr is an Assistant Professor at the University of Alberta and a behavioral science researcher focused on motivation, consumer behavior, and habit formation. She earned her PhD from The Wharton School and studies how people build and sustain real-world behavior change.

Learn more: https://www.katie-mehr.com/
Take the quiz: https://healthdailyquiz.org/

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Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=J_jD-LYAAAAJ&hl=en

Key Timestamps:
00:00 — Behavior Change Foundations
04:22 — Willpower vs. Environment
08:14 — Public Goals & Accountability
16:47 — Temptation Bundling
28:12 — SMART Goals Framework
41:40 — Social Contagion
01:00:34 — Myth of Willpower

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Dr. Taryn Marie: www.resilience-leadership.com/

Mike Alden: https://www.mikealden.com/ 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So I'm wondering if someone listening right now wants to change their health in a significant way, would you think that there's a single uh behavior change that science says has the biggest return, maybe considering sleep, diet, or exercise? Like if someone has opportunity in all of those areas, what would you recommend in terms of where they should start?

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Yeah, so I think this is something that the science is now starting to look more into because in the past we've just looked at, okay, between these two groups that we're testing, which intervention does better? And that can be really useful, but it doesn't account for differences between different types of people within each of these conditions that we might be testing. In other words, it sort of doesn't appreciate the individual differences that people might have that might make one strategy more useful than another for a given type of person. And so there's been more recent efforts to try and personalize these different nudges or interventions based on different demographic or behavioral characteristics. And I think a lot of that work is ongoing, but it's trying to use machine learning to predict what might be most beneficial given a person's background. And so I think that's something that is very much in the works, but sort of the jury isn't out on yet.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Hey everybody, we have such a treat for you today. This is so exciting. We've got Katie Mayer with us, and she is the assistant professor of marketing at the University of Alberta. And so if you've ever wondered about how to change your behavior, how to set a goal that's actionable, that you can actually achieve for creating healthier habits in your life, or simply just wanting to live a better life by changing how you show up in the world, Katie is your woman. Welcome, Katie.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

How are you? Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I'm really doing well, really excited for today.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Um, I'm so happy to have you. Okay, so we're talking about setting healthier habits, creating healthier habits, setting goals, right? So, but you're you're an assistant professor of marketing. So help us understand how marketing and creating healthier habits and setting goals in our lives, how do those, how do those things fit together?

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Yeah, so there is a subset of marketing that looks at motivation, goal setting, behavior change, and all these kinds of topics and could be considered part of this larger idea of behavioral science. And for me, my interest in all of these topics really started when I was in high school and I was reading Nudge by Richard Thaler, which is a book that talks about how these different changes in our environment can really affect our behavior. And I thought that was really interesting. Um, so when I was an undergraduate, I was a research assistant in this medical decision-making lab, and I found those topics really interesting. And a lot of those topics that we studied were things like how can we help people reach their goals, whether it be the number of steps that they want to uh get every day or ensuring that they're up to date on their vaccines and other preventative medicine, and those kinds of topics. And I really found a home for those research interests uh when I was a PhD student at Wharton, working with Katie Milkman in the Operations Information Decisions Group. Um, and from there I sort of realized that the best space for me to continue this work was in marketing, given that within the academic field of marketing, there is interest in motivation and goal setting. And so that's how I wound up uh here with a lot of support from a lot of different folks along the way, including Katie Milkman and Angela Duckworth and folks like that.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Yay! I love that. Okay, this is so exciting. So here's a question I've been thinking a lot about, and I'm so excited to ask you. So we constantly are told that success comes from discipline and willpower. So, based on behavioral science, how much of our success, Dr. Mayer, is actually willpower and how much is just designing the right environment?

SPEAKER_01 4:50

I think people underappreciate the value of designing the right environment because I think it can play such an important role, right? Things like what kinds of goals do you set? Do you work on your goals with other people or do you just work on them by yourself? How do you break down your goals? Do you make them fun by pairing them with things that you really enjoy, like maybe listening to an audiobook while you're on the treadmill? I think these kinds of factors are often really underappreciated. Um, and I don't think there's a specific breakdown of, you know, this much environmental and this much your goals is based on your own discipline. But I do think sometimes we need to give ourselves a little bit of grace and appreciate how much the environment can really come into play and try and change those factors in our environment to help us achieve our goals instead of perhaps getting really down on ourselves for not having the self-discipline.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

I love it. So give us an example of what a shift in our environment would look, would look like. So, for example, for me, here's a little information for you and our listeners. Umreo cookies are a a real, a real pain point for me in terms of eating healthy. So I'll be at the grocery store, I think everything's fine, I put the Oreo cookies in the cart, I get them home, put them in the pantry, and it's like 3 a.m. that I start hearing the Oreo cookies downstairs, you know, and then I, you know, I go downstairs to kind of check things out, and then they end up getting dipped in a jar of peanut butter. So I've told my family members, like, look, we just can't have Oreo cookies, and that's been my way of changing the environment. So give us a sense of like, is that a good way to think about changing our environment? And and what are some other ways that we can think about shifting our environment? Maybe some simple things that will allow us to be able to make some big changes.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

So I think that is a good way to shift the environment because there are a couple of things that you're doing there. So first, you're to some extent making it social by telling other people of your intentions, and that increases the accountability and most likely the follow-through as well, right? Um, the other thing is you are explicitly setting, like, okay, I'm going to have Oreo cookies, but I don't want to have them at this time. Maybe you say, okay, I'm okay with having an Oreo cookie as a treat at this time. So you're being specific and kind of setting intentions about when you might have an Oreo cookie as a treat versus when maybe it's like, okay, instead I'm going to have an apple with that peanut butter. Um, I think other things that can help change the environment are things like so pairing the thing that you enjoy, like Oreo cookies, with something that you don't enjoy. So maybe something like, oh, if I finish that report that I've been putting off because I don't want to do it, um, then I'll let myself have an Oreo cookie. Um, other things like uh making it social. So maybe working on a goal with friends of okay, we're going to have a salad with chicken for dinner and we're going to together like wait until you know Friday to have a dessert or something like that can be really beneficial. Um, I think those kinds of structural changes and sort of environmental changes can be really helpful when thinking about goal setting.

SPEAKER_02 8:14

What are your what are your thoughts on making your goals public on social media sites? Like I see this all the time. People on Facebook, they say, I'm quitting smoking. Like, what what is there research out there uh as it relates to that? And and just I'd love to hear your thoughts on it because a lot of people, a lot of people like to do that.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

And and before you answer that, I just want to jump in. I'm so excited, Mike, that you're asking this question because this has been something Mike and I have talked a lot about. So Mike stopped drinking more than six years ago. And he's like, I just did it, you know, I didn't like put a big pronouncement out there on social media. He's like, I just told myself I wasn't gonna do it anymore. Um, and I have seen some research that shows like when you announce or kind of pronounce this behavior change socially, that it can actually um sort of amplify your efforts. But I think I've also read some research that says the opposite, right? That the downside of then not being able to achieve that goal might have more uh sort of mental health impacts. So we are so excited to unpack this with you.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

Yeah, well, I think you just highlighted sort of both angles of it, right? The the first angle is it can be beneficial because then all these people know that this is your goal and they can ask you about it, they might uh check in with you, and that's going to increase accountability and increase the likelihood that you follow through on the goal. So that aspect of it can be beneficial. But if you set a really difficult goal and then you're not able to achieve it, and you have all these people asking you about this goal, that can be really demotivating and might also negatively impact your relationships with these people, right? Because then, like, you don't want to run into them because then they're going to ask you about this goal that you have been unable to attain, and that might make you feel really bad. So I think if you're going to publicize a goal like that, it's important to keep in mind what is a feasible goal for me and what is a goal that is reasonable for me to actually be able to achieve. So a goal like I want to eat healthier, it's kind of hard to know if I'm ever going to achieve that. Like, what is healthier? What does that even mean? But if I say, you know, I'm going to have some sort of a fruit with dinner every night as a means of increasing the amount of fruit that I eat, that's a much easier to measure goal. And so then it would be easier to determine if I'm meeting the goal. Um, and then having this social accountability, I think, would be more useful and also potentially uh ensure that you don't have these negative impacts from making your goal public on social media.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

See, I feel like my perspective on this as it relates to those postings specifically on Facebook. Yeah, Taryn and I talk about this a lot. I feel like it sets you up for failure. You know, when you uh when you announce, pronounce to the whole world, hey, I'm gonna, in fact, I talk about this in one of my one of my books. Uh, hey, I'm going to quit smoking. And like you said, and then you don't, right? Uh Taryn, like you, you covered it too, like the mental health side of it. And then I then what I see is that those people then make excuses, right? They're like, oh, well, you know, stressful, whatever, winter, however. Um, yeah, what is that is there science that that kind of like goes one way or the other? Is it beneficial or isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 11:54

I think it's still somewhat mixed, right? Because we we do know that setting a goal and making it public in that way, again, increases accountability. So there is science to say that. But I do think there are these negative impacts that to some extent are a bit understudied as well, of like what happens when you don't meet the goal, what happens when you know that you haven't met the goal and now you're trying to avoid running into those people because you're afraid of them asking about it? Um, I think these are all potential negatives that, uh, as far as I'm aware, are not as well studied as just the benefits from an accountability perspective of making a goal public. Um so I think it's still somewhat of an open question of like, on average, is that good? Does the negative outweigh the positive there? But I think it would probably also, again, depend on the context. If your goal is specific, if it's attainable, then it seems much better to make it public because the likelihood that you fail is probably lower, right? A goal like I'm going to stop smoking sounds really hard versus a goal like my fruit goal of adding fruit to a meal. That seems a lot easier. Um sort of depends on who you are, but I'll I'll say that that's a bit easier on average. Um, and so I think, yeah, it sort of depends on the context. Making goals public can be useful, but you want to do it in a smart way, I think.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

It's interesting too because what I hear you saying is it's more likely to be sort of like sticky to borrow from Chip and Dan Heath. If you make a pronouncement that you're going to pursue a certain goal, uh, there's like a stickiness and a social accountability to it. But it also sounds like the harder the goal is, maybe that's a more sexy pronouncement. Like I'm gonna stop smoking or I'm gonna stop drinking. You know, fewer people are gonna be interested in the fact that I'm gonna be adding an apple to my dinner, right? So it's not as sexy as a pronouncement, but it's stickier because I'm putting it out into my social comedia. Comedia? I'm putting it out into my social media community. I think I just made a new word.

SPEAKER_02 14:05

Comedia, I think you just did. You just made a word.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Comedia, folks, is now your social media community. So I so I'm making a pronouncement. Um, but if I don't follow through with that pronouncement, like the potential downside in terms of how I feel about myself from a mental health standpoint is is riskier.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Yeah, totally. And I think that point is really interesting because it kind of highlights like on social media, you want to uh say something perhaps more extreme or uh a bigger goal because it gets more attention, right? Because that's kind of how social media works. It's an attention economy. And so that might be at odds with this idea of having a more feasible goal, as I mentioned. And so it's kind of like you have to work with both of these factors that are kind of going in opposing ways. I mean, I think another way that you could share your goal is just by telling other people in your life, right? And then maybe that is easier for my fruit example, which isn't as attention-grabbing. Um, so yeah, I think these all these factors are kind of interesting in that they pull in different directions and where it nets out in terms of like, is this a beneficial thing to do? I think is dependent on the specific context, but there's certainly a lot to consider when posting a goal publicly, especially on something like Facebook, where you know hundreds or thousands of people can see it.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

Dr. Mayor, earlier you talked about environment and and you know, changing the environment. What about people who can't change their environment? Like, how do they change their habits? Like a child, for instance, who has parents who are not supportive and they want to make a change, or a spouse whose you know, spouse is not supportive. Like, how how how do you how do you reconcile that? What do you what do you do?

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Yeah, so the examples you gave are cases where like maybe other people in their environment aren't supportive, but I think they could still potentially make changes themselves without sort of involving those other people. So uh temptation bundling is uh this idea that you can pair something that's enjoyable with something that you know you want to get done that is your goal. So maybe pairing audiobooks and walking on the treadmill. I think that can be somewhat easy to do, even if you unfortunately don't have the support of other people in your life, right? You just plan on doing something uh that you really like when you're uh pursuing your goal. Um, I think you said temptate.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

Did you say temptation bundling?

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Yeah, that's the name of uh this phenomenon that Katie Mokman has written about.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

Uh I've never heard of it. Dr. Taran probably has, but I could you could I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you up, but it sounds really interesting. I'd love to just hear what that is. I don't know that our viewers or listeners know what that is.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

I wrote it down. I got so excited about unpacking temptation bundling. I thought that was so cool.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

Sorry. Have you heard of it before?

SPEAKER_00 17:12

No. And well, I mean, I've heard of pairing two things together, but I I have not heard that term temptation bundling, and I love it.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

Yeah, so this is an idea from Katie Milkman. She's written about this where essentially you pair something that you really enjoy with something that you're trying to achieve as a goal. So the example of like, I really like this audiobook and I really want to listen to it, but I also have to work out. So I'm only going to listen to this audiobook when I'm at the gym. Or I really want to go to this great restaurant, but I also have to meet with maybe a family member who I don't like spending time with. I'm going to only go to that restaurant with that family member so that I can get the benefit of going to the restaurant or listening to the audiobook, um, but also achieve my goal of going to the gym or spending more time with these family members who maybe I don't want to. Um, so those are some of the examples that Katie often uses when she talks about this. Um, but yeah, temptation bundling can be really useful because it allows you to make the idea of pursuing this goal more fun, right? Because walking on the treadmill, I don't know, doesn't sound very fun to me, but doing it while listening to a really interesting audiobook sounds a lot more fun. And then if you only allow yourself to listen to that audiobook while you are walking on the treadmill, then it incentivizes you to walk on the treadmill more because you want to know what happens in the audiobook, right? Um, and so temptation bundling can be a really useful sort of way to set up your environment uh to increase the likelihood that you've actually achieved these goals.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

That's really interesting. I like it.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

That's so cool. I love it so much. All right, what about Quitters Day? Do you know what day Quitters Day is?

unknown 18:56

Dr.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Mayor. Is it January? It is. It's January 17th. So Quitter's Day is supposed to be the time when the majority of people who made one or more New Year's resolutions, January 1st, 16 days later, January 17th, that's supposed to be the day that the majority of people fall off with one or more of those resolutions. So talk to us a little bit, maybe about based on your research and your knowledge and your expertise, what's happening between January 1st and January 17th that makes January 17th Quitter's Day?

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Yeah. So first, I think the interesting thing about January 1st is that it is what's called a fresh start.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Oh, yeah. And let's talk about fresh starts too, because I know that's part of your research.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Yeah. So fresh starts are this idea of a time in which people sort of automatically want to set a goal because it represents a start of a new sort of version of themselves or a new uh chapter in their lives. So New Year's Day of January 1st is very much a fresh start, but so is your birthday, where, you know, I'm no longer this age. Now I'm actually this age. I'm a totally different person. Um, so can be the start of a month. So like April 1st, you know, now it's April, I'm going to change who I am. Even Monday, because it's the start of a new week, can be a fresh start. Um, and so these are times at which people are more likely to set a goal because they sort of see it as starting a new chapter and wanting to start on these endeavors for this new chapter. Now, I think when people are making goals around fresh starts, sometimes they're not thinking through the specifics of the goal or ways to set up their lives to support the goal, right? They're just saying, ah, it's a new year. I need to make a goal, and I'm just going to say that I want to be more healthy. But like, what does that actually mean? And how do we actually ensure that we follow through on that? I think that's often where these fresh starts can sort of fail, right? And lead to this quitter's day is people have this grand idea of what they want to look like in their new me version, you know, 2026 KD or whatever it might be. Um, but then they don't necessarily think through how to actually make that happen. Uh and that can lead to a lot of sort of failure and quitting on goals around the middle of the month. Um, so I think better setting up the environment in a better way to ensure that the goal is actually attainable. Again, by setting a more specific goal, uh, maybe getting your friends on it, like, oh, I'm gonna go to the gym with my friend because that will increase accountability. Uh, things like this, I think, can be really useful when trying to ensure that you sort of stick with these uh these goals.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

Yeah, that's super that's super interesting. So I love that we talked about the fresh start hack and that you see things like Mondays or birthdays or the new year, you know, kind of psychologically becomes a fresh start for us. Um so let's talk a little bit about maybe this idea of a motivation paradox. So a lot of times we think that motivation first comes internally and then we're gonna be motivated externally by the action or continuing to engage and pursuing our goals. But do you see something different? Do you see that there's maybe an extrinsic motivation source first, and then that builds intrinsic motivation?

SPEAKER_01 22:47

Yeah, I think either could happen because I think we often do get our goals from those who are around us, right? Like maybe a friend is deciding to change their diet, and that inspires you to then change your diet. Um, that would be sort of an external factor that makes you decide to follow this goal or to set this goal, right? Uh, there are also extrinsic rewards with different incentives that can exist where that will increase the likelihood that you set a goal. Um, so I think it can go either way where there are these extrinsic factors that make you more interested in this goal and thus more likely to follow through on actually trying to pursue this goal, or intrinsically you can sort of have this interest in changing and then set up extrinsic rewards that help you follow through on that goal. Um, so I could see it going either way. I think the science is somewhat mixed on that.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

Okay, interesting. So what I'm taking from that is just because we don't feel like eating healthy today, or we don't feel like meeting our protein goal, or we don't feel like going to the gym internally, maybe if we start doing those things extrinsically, maybe if I just say, okay, I'm just gonna go to the gym and I'm gonna walk on the treadmill for 15 minutes, or you know what, I'm just gonna make some eggs for breakfast and you know get to a certain number of grams of my protein goal. That even though I don't feel motivated to do this today intrinsically, maybe by doing some of those things extrinsically, I can actually sort of capture or harness more motivation there.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Yeah, I think often getting started is the hardest part, right? Once you get started, you can start to get some momentum that can be really useful. And I think getting started is hard. And then also ensuring that you have some flexibility in your goal pursuit. So, like I can say, well, I don't really want to go to the gym, but I'll go today. And then I'll try to go once a week, but I'm going to cut myself a little bit of slack where if I miss a week, that's okay. That's part of my emergency reserve of, you know, gym days where if I don't make it, it's okay. And then I'm just going to go back the next week. I think often what can happen is if we miss a day or if we slip up at some point, it might just lead us to say, forget about it. I can't do this goal. But if we sort of frame it more as, well, I'm going to give myself some flexibility and I'm going to say, okay, I'm going to go once a week, but I know that maybe once a month I'll slip up and be unable to go. That is going to make it much easier for us to then get back into that goal because it's not a failure. It's sort of this uh emergency reserve that we have of, you know, okay, if we have to skip the gym one week, that's okay. Um, so I think having some flexibility in there can be really important too.

SPEAKER_02 25:48

Dr. Meyer, I know we're talking about a little bit about goals right now uh in a second. I'd like to maybe have you share with us um some uh some specifics on on how to properly set a goal. In other words, should we set up you know a stretch goal, a medium goal, or what have you? Because you know, you are a professor at marketing, and uh, you know, goals are are certainly not only important uh to individuals' lives, but but also in in marketing as well. So in a second, I'd love to talk to you about that. Again, we are on with Dr. Katie Mare. She is the assistant professor of marketing at the University of Alberta. We haven't even really got into one of the reasons why she's here, and that's we're talking about challenges. We're gonna talk a little bit about challenges, but also um how to sign up for a challenge so that it can increase your healthy habits in life. If you'd like some more information about Dr. Mare and what she's doing, you can just really go right to the show notes and take a look. Um, there'll be some information on on uh why she's here. Uh, we we haven't talked again about it, but I'll just give you a little a little uh tidbit. The website is actually healthdailyquiz.org, where you can go there, sign up for free, uh, and then really uh find a way to increase your healthy habits just by taking a free challenge. If you've been listening or watching this podcast, you already know that we don't chase hype. We focus on what actually works, real science, real results, and real quality. And that's exactly why we've partnered with Body Care MD. Body Care MD is built around one simple idea: give people access to high-quality, thoughtfully formulated wellness solutions with all the noise and all the confusion that's out there right now. So whether you're focused on weight loss, recovery, longevity, or just feeling better day to day, they've actually created products that are actually designed to support your body, not just market towards you. And the best part is they make it easy. So if you want to check them out, go to bodycaremd.com and use body25, that's body25 for 25% off of your first order. Now, if you've been waiting for a sign to dial things in, this is probably it. Um, okay, goals. Um, we're talking butter, you just said the word several times. Uh, we talked a little bit about you know an easier goal or a hard goal. Is there science that shows the correct way uh universally to set a goal?

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Yeah, so goals that are really useful are often SMART goals. So SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. So often when people are setting goals, they'll just say something like, I want to eat healthier. And that's okay as a goal, but it's not smart because it's not setting the specific measurable kind of outcomes. And it can be really hard then to know, have I achieved the goal? Am I eating healthier? What does that even mean? And I think that ambiguity can make it harder to then pursue the goal. So if you have something that's specific, like my fruit example of like I'm going to eat a piece of fruit every night with dinner. Uh, measurable, I know if I eat a piece of fruit or not, you know, that can be very that's very black and white. Uh achievable, so something that's not too difficult, because if it's too difficult, you might say, well, what's the point of even getting started? I can't achieve this. Um relevant. So something that makes sense given the goal and given the context that you're in. And also time-bound, uh, because if you just say, ah, I'm gonna eat healthy at some point, there's really no pressure to ensure that you have this timeliness in your goal. So I think anytime you're setting a goal, trying to ensure that it is specific, that it is time-bound, that you can actually measure and know when you're achieving it or not, all of those things are really going to help increase the likelihood that you achieve the goal, that you want to pursue the goal, um, and that you know when you are actually making good progress towards the goal or not.

SPEAKER_02 29:45

Can I can I ask you about the one the one part of the acronym, the the achievable part? Um, I wrote a book called 5% more. Um, there are other books out there that have come since uh, you know, about these kind of, and I wasn't, I didn't come up with the concept myself, but it's just something that that you know really changed my life, uh, you know, about these mic micro goals, right? So if you have a a big audacious goal, as Tara and I like to talk about, um, that might just seem just so massive and almost unachievable, right? Because a lot of people love to do that. Like, oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna shoot for, you know, shoot for them, shoot for the stars. And if I get to the moon, then I'm then it then it's success. There's all sorts of people that talk about that. But um, so let's use weight loss for a second, right? Because you know, you you, you know, the healthy dailyquiz.org, I'm sure, that's talking about weight loss a little bit there, right? Um, so let's say I want to lose 100 pounds, right? And I'm a hundred pounds overweight. That achievable part of that acronym SMART, is it SMART to say, well, I'm gonna lose 20 pounds in X amount of months. And then once you get to that goal, the target then changes, but all the other principles apply. Is that how you would suggest to do it?

SPEAKER_01 30:56

Yeah, so there's recent research suggesting that breaking down a goal in the way that you mentioned, of like instead of I'm going to lose 100 pounds in six months, saying, okay, I'm going to lose, I don't know, five pounds in a month or something like that, that is a better way to set goals compared to having this large goal. So breaking it down into little chunks instead of just having one large goal increases the likelihood that you actually do the behavior. So in the study that uh this finding comes from, they looked at uh volunteer hours. So setting a goal of 200 volunteer hours versus setting a goal of, I believe it was eight hours every two weeks. People who were told to do eight hours every two weeks were more likely to volunteer than those who set the goal of 200 hours uh over a longer time span. And that's just because when you break it up into those smaller chunks, it's just easier to uh follow through. And I think it's also more motivating, right? Because then you're starting out with this idea of, okay, I can do eight hours in two weeks, but 200 hours just seems so huge and so hard to even start on. Because if I start with two hours today, two hours out of 200 hours, this is such a small chunk, versus if I sort of plan it out for eight hours every two weeks, it's much more attainable and easy to think about.

SPEAKER_02 32:22

Yeah, that makes sense. Makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

It's so interesting because I think we're we're we're sort of dealing with this with our son right now, who has these like really big goals for his basketball career. And he said like he wants to play in the NBA. And, you know, of course, to play in the MBA, the step behind that would be, you know, playing in a in a D1 university or call or college level. And we just started to have a conversation with him this weekend where he was saying, like, gosh, it's really overwhelming even to think about where I am today, kind of in the middle of his eighth grade year, and what I have to do to get to, you know, being ready for that D1 level in four years. So we actually started a little bit to kind of break down for him like, what would that goal look like in smaller chunks in terms of just planning out his week? Is that a way that we should think about taking sort of those big audacious goals and and maybe operationalizing them and chunking them to make them smaller?

SPEAKER_01 33:20

Yeah, totally. I think that's a really great strategy. And it's also something I try and work with doctoral students and our department on too, because you know, if you're a doctoral student and you're interested in publishing research, that takes a lot of little steps, right? Running different studies, analyzing the data for those, writing those studies up into a paper. That's a lot of things that go into getting a publication out in a top journal. And so we often try and have students break down those goals as well and say, okay, this week I'm going to plan on conducting a study and writing it up or something like that, because it can make this idea of I need to have a publication by the time that I'm graduating much easier to accomplish. And I think that's true for obviously other sort of uh areas of work that people might work in. If you have a big project at work, trying to break it down into smaller uh sub goals is going to make it easier to then actually complete.

SPEAKER_02 34:17

Now, so you're here uh because uh you of you know, obviously your background in um in the world of marketing, and but but we we here on on the podcast, we spend a lot of time, pretty much all of our time, uh on it's called the Better Body Lab Podcast for a reason. But you are part of an organization or or something called Health Daily, and the website again is healthdailyquiz.org, uh, where you're helping people change their habits for you know for the better. Tell us a little bit about kind of how you got there, how this came about, and and really when someone goes there, what they can expect.

SPEAKER_01 34:54

Yeah, so the first step to achieving a goal or even trying to say get healthy or something like that is learning about what habits and behaviors are going to be healthy, for instance. Like how much should I be eating fruits and vegetables, or how often should I be working out, and what kinds of exercises should I be doing? Things like this, right? And so uh this website is designed to help people get that information that they need to start that goal process of maybe leading a healthier life. And so essentially what it is is a 30-day challenge where you answer two multiple choice questions every day that ask you things about healthy habits to do with uh eating, exercising, longevity, things like that. So as you go through the questions, you learn information about what makes a healthy diet, what should I be doing when I'm exercising, things like that. Uh, and so it's really meant as a tool to help people understand this information that they might not know, so that then they can set better goals and develop better habits. Um, because again, really learning information about these things is the first step. If you don't know how to exercise efficiently or what kinds of exercises you should be doing, it's really hard to set a goal to exercise more because then it's like, okay, but what am I going to actually do when I exercise more? Things like that.

SPEAKER_02 36:27

I I do have a follow-up. I'm sorry, Dr. And this I apologize for this all the time, but I I because I find this stuff so interesting. That's why I would do this. Um what about the people who do know? You know, I heard this quote once, to know and not to do is not to know, right? Uh, and and you know, I hear this all the time. We hear this all the time for people. They say, Well, I know what to do. Like, I know that I should, you know, uh go for a walk every day, or I know that I shouldn't be eating uh Popeye's fried chicken, which we had a couple days ago, um, but I do it anyway. Um, like is there is there a solution for people who do know, but they don't do? Like, what is there a way to nudge? You talked about nudge earlier and how it kind of got you into this space. Um, is there a way to nudge people in that direction of like, hey, you know, but you're not doing?

SPEAKER_00 37:11

And I'll just add on to that really quickly. And at what point, Dr. Mayer, does to know and not do, at what point does that become self-sabotage?

SPEAKER_02 37:24

I feel like that's directed to me.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

Yeah, so I think often when we think about, okay, do we know the information that we need? We might say, well, yeah, of course I know, but if we were to actually think about it a bit more, maybe we know some things, but maybe there are other things that we don't know. So I think we we can sometimes underestimate how much we actually know about a given topic like this. And Health Daily has some really specific questions that I think are useful to understand that information. So I think even if somebody knows a decent amount about healthy habits and eating well and exercising, uh, there were certainly questions as we were putting it together where I was like, oh, I did not know this about you know how much of this vitamin you're supposed to get or how you're supposed to think about sort of uh cardio versus strength training versus flexibility work or things like that. So I think there's always information to learn, I think. Um, but you're right that sometimes people do know all this information and yet they find it really difficult to actually change their behavior. Um, and I think to some extent, giving yourself grace of, okay, I'm not always going to follow through completely on my goals. Even if I want to eat healthy, I might eat Popeyes every once in a while just because it's so busy and whatever life happens. I think having grace and flexibility is really important. But I think if you're really struggling to sort of get going with a goal, you're like, I really want to eat healthy, but I'm just always eating out or, you know, eating food that I know I shouldn't. Um I think trying to, again, sort of going back to changing the environment uh and also making it social. So one of the things that I haven't talked about yet that I think is important for making it social is uh I have some research showing that if you basically copy somebody else's goal strategy or uh way that they go about achieving a goal. So like if you have a friend who's really good at getting themselves to the gym and they have this thing where they'll go to bed wearing their exercise clothes because then in the morning they can just get out of bed and go to the gym without having to like go into the bathroom and change or whatever. Uh, maybe you copy that strategy and then try it out yourself. And we found that actually doing that increases your likelihood of falling through on the goal compared to someone who just hears that strategy uh but doesn't actually know someone who did it and doesn't copy it from somebody else. And that's because when you copy from somebody else, uh you then sort of like see what they're doing and it increases your motivation to actually try that strategy and follow through. Um, so I think these can all be really important. I mean, at the end of the day, I think it really does come down to like environment, uh, being social with it, uh, and maybe having some of this like internal motivation of like, I really want to change this. I think those are the big keys to changing behavior. Um, and to some extent they're all necessary, but you could have a lot more of environmental factors and uh maybe a little bit less of like your own internal motivation. And I could still see that leading to uh goal consistent behavior.

SPEAKER_02 40:48

I love it. That was that's that's pretty fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 40:52

So I want to expand on what you're saying around copying strategies because I think this is so fascinating. So um there's an idea that uh some of our listeners may be familiar with, I know you are, uh called the social contagion. And so this is the idea that um it's not just viruses or things that are uh contagious, but actually our habits and our healthy behaviors or not are also contagious to other people. So you've studied uh copying strategies from other people to achieve goals. Are our habits actually contagious to other people? And if so, should we be choosing our friends based upon their behaviors?

SPEAKER_01 41:40

Yeah, so I do think there is a social element here of if a lot of the people that you're around are behaving in a certain way, right? They're all eating salads, they're all going to the gym, then you're going to feel like you should be doing that too, in part to maybe fit in with what they're doing, in part because since you're seeing it all around you, it feels more like the norm. And we know that people are motivated by social norms or kind of like what they see in their environment, they often will do that as well. Um, so I think, yes, your environment and friends and people that you're around can really have an impact. I know personally, when I was in graduate school, a lot of people around me were vegetarian, and I very much picked that up and I'm mostly vegetarian at this point, largely because of the people that I was around in graduate school and sort of the arguments that they made around uh being vegetarian and things like that. Um, so it does play a big role. I think the idea of like completely changing your friends' circle just to make it so that you have people who are really good at pursuing their goals is perhaps a bit extreme, but I do think trying to learn from those in your circle who are good at achieving the goals that you want to achieve can be useful. I think often people know a decent number of other people. Some of those people that they know are really good at achieving their goals, some maybe not. I don't think it means that you shouldn't be friends with the people who aren't maybe as good at achieving their goals, but I do think trying to learn from those who are really good at uh achieving these goals that they have can be really useful.

SPEAKER_00 43:21

Interesting. So our behavior can be defined by the company we keep.

SPEAKER_01 43:27

Yeah, I I do think that the people around us really can make a difference. Um, you know, the extent to which they make a difference in different domains, it all depends on these sort of more specifics, but I do think that they can make a difference.

SPEAKER_02 43:43

I mean that's one of the big things in addiction, right? They, you know, they say, you know, you have you have to literally cleanse your your your your circle because it just becomes more acceptable as every if everyone else is drinking or doing drugs or whatever, then every you know it's like, oh, it's no big deal, you know. So you they you know, in AA and others in NA, you know, they tell you you have to cleanse your social social circle because you're just around the wrong people. You know, and like Dr. Taryn talks about, you know, what did you say, Taryn? You know, show me your five, show me your the five people you hang out with and I'll show you your future. Right? Is that what you say? Something like that.

SPEAKER_00 44:16

Show me your friends and family and I'll show you your future because we're the average of the five people we spend the most time with.

SPEAKER_02 44:23

Yeah. Wow this is uh this has been really really fascinating. I'm so glad that you were able able to come on. It's uh I love it. It was it's been great.

SPEAKER_00 44:33

What about what about self-sabotage? How do we think about or how do you think about um when someone knows what to do but they aren't necessarily implementing their behavioral plan to reach their goals? At what point do you sort of start unpacking that journey that someone's on and looking at the possibility of self-sabotage?

SPEAKER_01 45:02

Yeah I mean I think it depends on the different factors and context, right? So if they know what they need to do, they've tried to set up their environment like what is keeping that person from being able to take the next step? I think it would be interesting to know that, right? Is it just that maybe they thought that they set up the environment in a useful way, but actually given the way that their life operates on a daily basis, it's not going to be useful the way that they've set up their environment. Maybe they're the strategies that they copied from somebody that they know actually aren't going to be that useful in their own lives, something like that. Then I think sort of going back to the drawing board and thinking about what is happening in your environment and how might you change it can be really important. Other than that, you know I think often in goal setting it can be really easy to like blame ourselves and get really down on ourselves and say that we're sabotaging ourselves or get really upset. And I think that can often just be really counterproductive because at the end of the day if you want to achieve this goal, giving yourself a little bit of grace and being able to sort of start again with perhaps a new goal or new intentions or a new way of achieving it can be really useful and is important. And if you really are down on yourself about your ability to achieve this goal then that's going to be really hard. And I think that's just going to increase the likelihood that you're never really able to achieve it, which is unfortunate.

SPEAKER_02 46:33

That's where a lot of people quit right I mean that that's the thing that the diet industry like relies on you know that's why you people uh you know I remember you know pre-GLP ones you know you you know you you if you're on a fitness journey and then you know one night you eat a bunch of carrot cake I don't know I don't know where I might be drawing from personal experience uh and some ice cream on top of that maybe some Popeyes that should really really make it great and then and then you just give up like ah I screwed all up you know but uh I think I believe actually even in the power of habit I think he talks a little bit about like no just get back on you know just just get back on it you know again you know that that one you know mistake so to speak doesn't necessarily make it worse and I just also want to be clear that the self-sabotage um questions were 100% um directed towards me and my um my nighttime um eating habits and taryn's really doing it you know trying to trying to make sure that I that I start that I stop sabotaging myself I just I just hope you're listening Mike yeah um the uh lock on the refrigerator that uh she bought not kidding um uh would probably is probably gonna work work best um I love that we talked a little bit though about this idea of like you know what happens when you kind of fall off the wagon and how does a person sort of most effectively most quickly get back on and I'm curious about that relative to kind of like a perfectionistic mindset versus what you talked about a little earlier Dr.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

Mayer around uh maybe having a little bit more flexibility a little bit more grace for ourselves so maybe saying okay 80% of the time I'm gonna try to get to the gym or eat healthy but there's a there's a 20% that's gonna be a a little bit of a flexibility around my behavior. Can you talk to us about what you see in terms of um how motivated people are and who actually reaches their goals relative to maybe those that you would think about having more of a perfectionistic mindset versus like an 80-20 mindset?

SPEAKER_01 48:39

Yeah I mean I think rigidity in goal setting can be really harmful because if you slip up at some point it can make it really hard to come back right is this idea of like well if you've been going to the gym once a week for several weeks and you see that as what you need to do, no flexibility at all. And then you don't go one week because something happens then it's going to be really hard for you to come back to going to the gym because in your mind you've just you know broken it, broken your habits uh and it's really hard to come back. But I think if you have some flexibility and you know your mindset is more about okay I'm going to try to go to the gym once a week and if I have one week where I slip up it's okay then I think it is just going to be so much easier to come back. So I think trying to have Grace be more flexible be a little bit less perfectionistic in goal setting is really useful. And a lot of recent research suggests that if you have that flexibility and you are more I like you think of your goal more as okay this is what I want to do and if I slip up that's okay because I have this sort of emergency reserve of one gym skip day in my head then that's going to really increase the likelihood that you continue with the behavior.

SPEAKER_02 50:07

I love that I agree with that 100%. I think that that you're right I I love what you just said the the rigidity of goal setting I think that's really important. I think too many people set themselves up as I mentioned for failure again what they pronounce or announce to everybody on Facebook that they're gonna you know quit smoking and they've been smoking for 20 years. That's a very rigid goal versus hey I'm gonna you know do my best maybe I'm like you know like Dr. Terran you're saying you know maybe I'm just gonna have yeah I mean titration clearly in in the research that I've done shows that it works for addiction and things like that. But yeah I love the I love the idea of being more or less rigid in your goal setting that which allows you to ultimately set up for success. So I was just thinking about that in a seven day week what what's 20% how many days how many days how many nights can I just wake up in the middle of the night and eat Oreo your Oreo cookies? What set I don't know the number but that's all right.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

Now we have to do some math you know I feel like up until this point we've been talking sort of about this idea of like setting a single goal you know maybe that's healthier eating making that a smart goal which you taught us is specific, measurable achievable relevant and time bound? What about setting multiple goals at once? Can I set too many goals? And will setting too many goals sort sort of undermine my ability to achieve them? What's the sweet spot in terms of how many goals should I be setting for a behavior change at a given time?

SPEAKER_01 51:42

Yeah so I think you know there's only so much that any one person can do. So if you set too many goals that's obviously uh can be bad because then it's hard to achieve any one of them. And I also think the more goals you have the more likely it is that your goals are going to be more vague right like I can say oh I want to be healthier and I want to eat healthier and I want to finish my work on time more. And these are all kind of vague goals that I can easily throw out as multiple goals. I think if you have more specific goals it's harder to have a ton of them at once because they take more effort to think through for each of them. So I think having multiple goals can be good and useful, but I think trying to ensure that they are high quality goals, meaning that they are specific, attainable all the things that we talked about and that you feel like you're setting yourself up for success with each of them by having the environment shaped in a way that will increase the likelihood that you're actually able to achieve those goals can be really useful. And also thinking about how many goals am I setting in a given category versus across different categories and how might that change my likelihood of being able to achieve them. On the one hand if I have goals that are sort of symbiotic, they work together, right? Like maybe I'm going to eat healthier and I'm going to work out those two things might feel like they go hand in hand. That might make it a little bit easier to think through how to make those happen. But also if they're in different domains like one's a work goal and one is a you know eating goal maybe then it also gives me a little bit more space to think through each of these. So I think it's overall it can be useful to have multiple goals but I think often when people set multiple goals they'll just sort of rattle off a list of goals that aren't very specific or thought through and I think that's where you can get into trouble.

SPEAKER_02 53:42

So kind of as we get uh close to the end of the show I wanted to ask you a question um at you know so at behavior uh change for good at Penn um you you have this challenge uh that we talked a little bit about and again the website is healthdailyquiz.org um what are your goals what what what are their goals uh here uh for the people that you know that go to the website what what what are we trying to accomplish i mean other than the obvious right you know like okay helping people's habits that that's great but like realistically what like what what sort of information are you trying to get that's gonna really make things better um you know and for for the greater good as as uh you know behavior change is trying to do yeah so this project has two uh goals the first is it's not a lot by the way that's good good good start I don't want to too you don't too many you know you go back and rewind and listen to yourself you you know but that's a great start okay I'm gonna I won't I promise I won't cut you off again.

unknown 54:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 54:39

Uh the first goal is to help people get this information that's needed for goal setting and and have it changed, right? So learn about what do I need to do to you know improve my diet what does a healthy diet look like what does exercise that's beneficial look like things like this. And we've already talked a little bit about that. The second goal is this is part of a research study. And for the benefit of the research I'm not going to talk about exactly what we're studying but we do have a question within Health Daily about how we can improve people's goals and motivation. And once we collect data through you know the various participants on this website, we will be publishing our findings and hopefully sharing them with the world about what we find. But that's all I'll say for now about that, just in an effort to not compromise the research that actually is also a part of Health Daily. And when folks go to healthdailyquiz.org when they sign up they will see that there is a consent form because this is research for hopeful eventual publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

SPEAKER_02 55:49

Now is there is there a time limit because we talked about that in the SMART acronym I believe there was a time part of it yes uh uh is there is there time like how long is this going to be going on for or is it more participant driven? In other words do we have to get X amount of people in order for it to be successful?

SPEAKER_00 56:06

Yeah so for us uh we want to get a certain number of people in order to have the statistical power to detect differences in the conditions that we're testing um but from the participant perspective it's a 30-day health challenge so if you sign up you would then have 30 days of multiple choice questions that you would complete great so I'm thinking about you know what sort of changes in behavior maybe gives us the the biggest bang for our behavior change buck. So I'm wondering if someone listening right now wants to change their health in a significant way would you think that there's a single behavior change that science says has the biggest return, maybe considering sleep, diet or exercise like if someone has opportunity in all of those areas, what would you recommend in terms of where they should start?

SPEAKER_01 57:08

Yeah so I think this is something that the science is now starting to look more into because in the past we've just looked at okay between these two groups that we're testing which intervention does better? And that can be really useful, but it doesn't account for differences between different types of people within each of these conditions that we might be testing. In other words it sort of doesn't appreciate the individual differences that people might have that might make one strategy more useful than another for a given type of person. And so there's been more recent efforts to try and personalize these different nudges or interventions based on different demographic or behavioral characteristics. And I think a lot of that work is ongoing, but it's trying to use machine learning to predict what might be most beneficial given a person's background. And so I think that's something that is very much in the works but sort of the jury isn't out on yet. I think in general based on what we know now just trying to incorporate a lot of the things that we talked about into a given goal and deciding which goal makes the most sense for you. Like are you really interested in changing your sleep because we know that sleep can really have such an impact on everything else in your life and that's where you want to start. And if that's where you want to start then how do you shape your environment and your social circle to help you achieve that goal or maybe you decide well if I eat healthier that's actually going to have a really big impact and then sort of focusing on how do I ensure that my environment allows me to do that. So I think at this point it really is uh still in the works of like what kinds of interventions work best for what kinds of people but trying to decide what do you think is the area where you want to make the biggest change and then using a lot of these strategies that we've talked about uh potentially multiple at once, right? Because they sort of hit on different angles of a goal to really try and achieve that goal can be useful.

SPEAKER_00 59:13

Fascinating so it sounds like there isn't just sort of one area but it's more so personalized to the individual in terms of what might have the biggest impact for me relative to how my sleep, my diet, my exercise looks today.

SPEAKER_01 59:28

Yeah, I think at this point we don't know enough about like how individual differences or different domains operate. We have research suggesting that these are things that are important for motivation but you know the specifics of like well for whom is this best or for what types of goals what types of contexts that's still something that people are still looking into, I would say largely because we do have these sort of larger ideas of like okay we know flexibility is important. We know the people you're around are important but how those sort of strategies differ based on contextual factors or individual differences I think is still being looked at this is super fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:15

So let's switch gears for just a moment. I'm curious from your perspective what do you think is the biggest lie the self-help industry has told people about habits and behavior change.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:33

I mean I think there's a lot of emphasis on self-control and really uh like individualism and you just need to be able to have the the self-control to make this happen. And I think what we've realized is that the environment that you're in and sort of the social supports that you have and how you set up your goal and your steps towards a goal play a large role in your ability to achieve that goal. And so I think emphasizing those types of factors a bit more could be useful because I think it also helps people who maybe feel like well I just can't do it. And it's like well maybe it's not that you can't do it. Maybe it's that your environment and social setting aren't optimized in a way to help you achieve that goal. And so I think thinking about goals and motivation from that perspective instead of one where it's like well either you have the the self-control or the self-will or you don't can be really helpful because the science suggests that those things are important. But also I think it can make people feel like achieving a goal is actually something that they can do and they don't have to have a certain amount of self-control or something like that. Because I think even trying to decide like how much self-control do I have is that enough for a goal that can be really tricky too because how do we measure self-control? I think that can all be really challenging. So I think trying to put a little bit more emphasis on the environment and the social setting can be really important.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:16

Amazing you know I think one of the things that I feel like I've been taught to believe from sort of the ethos if you will that exists around you know behavior change and habit and willpower is this idea that it takes 30 days to solidify a new goal or behavior. And yet we also just hear about people like Mike for example we talked about at the beginning of this episode where it's just like one day he decided like cold turkey I'm not gonna drink alcohol anymore. Right now I think you know if you if you looked at Mike six years ago he wouldn't have been considered to have dependency wouldn't have been considered to be like an alcoholic or have addiction right like all those things come into play. But Dr. Mayer do we need 30 days to solidify a new behavior or habit or can we accelerate that by sort of having a more powerful mindset around decision making I think anytime we have a blanket number or statement like you need 30 days, it often doesn't allow for the nuances that often emerge because it often depends on so many factors, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:27

These things are so nuanced like what is the goal? Is it something that you're going to do every day because if you're doing it every day for 30 days, by the time that you hit 30 days, yeah, you're probably pretty locked in and you probably have a lot of momentum about continuing that goal. But if it's something like you know going to the gym, most people don't go to the gym every day. And I think the science would suggest maybe you shouldn't because you need to give your body a break to recover, right? And so then you're talking about a goal where you know temporally it's you're going a little bit less frequently and so then maybe it'll take a little bit more time to really feel like you're getting into a groove because it's not a daily thing where it's much easier to get into the groove more quickly because it's you know every day. So I think those kinds of things can make a big difference. And I think we really need to think through like what do I think is going to what do I think it's going to take for me to feel like I am making progress towards this goal. And if that's 30 days that's great. If that's a little bit longer I think that's okay too. But I think just trying to continue to engage in that goal related behavior, whatever it is, for as long as you can, but also giving yourself grace if you slip up is really important. And maybe we can look to 30 days as a useful milestone of like look I made it this far. But I don't think it should be taken as like a hard and fast rule of if I made it to 30 days, I'm never going to break this habit. I'm just going to continue it forever versus if I didn't make it to 30 days, I'm a failure and that means that I can't continue. I think it's more of a guideline in a similar way to how you know the saying of oh you should get 10,000 steps a day I think a lot of recent researcher looking into that suggests that that's a really good guideline, but it came from a marketing campaign. It's not like 10,000 steps a day is the hard and fast rule of if you get that you'll live really long life and you'll be really healthy versus if you don't then you won't right it's it's more of a guideline I think in the way that 30 days can be as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:28

I think it's actually double that I think it's actually 2000 steps like where this where the science shows that it's kind of things a little bit I I felt better when you were like oh we don't have to get to 1000 steps because I never get to 1000 steps.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:41

And so then Mike when you said 2000 steps I was like man Yeah I I just I didn't have the heart to tell you until now the idea of focusing on steps like what if you do exercise classes where you still get cardio but you're not actually walking like we shouldn't discount that. That's still really useful Because it's getting your heart rate up, it's moving your muscles. Like all of that is really important. And so I think this is also an example where we can focus on like one domain of like, I need to walk 10,000 steps. But it's like, well, if we had the flexibility of saying, well, if you go to that Zumba class, you might not get 10,000 steps, but you're still. If you Zumba, whatever, bar, I don't know, Pilates, there's so many out there. But if you do that and you get your heart rate going, you get your muscles moving, even if you don't get to 10,000 steps, at least you did something to improve your physical fitness, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:34

Yeah, I mean, at least, you know, you you popped in that VHS tape with Jane Fonda, and you just went in there with Richard Simmons and just got a good workout in and uh you know, and had your Jack Lane juicer. These are all people nobody listening to or watching right now have any idea who those people are, but I do.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:51

I feel really inspired to go do my Cindy Crawford workout on VHS tape right now. You guys remember that? That was it. Yeah, that's the biggest workout tapes of all time.

unknown 1:07:02

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:03

I think Richard Simmons might have her be, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:06

Well, we'll just point out for our listeners that um no one part of this episode today is truly an exercise physiologist. But what I will say that I think there's some truth to, and and Dr. Mayor, you're really pointing toward this, is the idea that it's not just about steps, it's also about exertion and heart rate. And so oftentimes when we think about steps as a proxy for movement and health, there are other things that if we probably had an exercise physiologist on today, they would also say, you know, also think about heart rate, exertion, you know, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:43

Yeah. And I think that kind of gets to this point of like, what goals do we set? Do we set a goal about walking? Do we set a goal about the number of minutes that my watch says that I had exercise minutes? Do we set a goal about uh heart rate? And I think that can be a bit tricky and is something that I think should be studied further, of like what metric should people choose? Because there are so many out there. And I think, again, I'm not an exercise physiologist, but I think what that sort of research would say is that as long as you're moving and you know, getting your heart rate up, that's what really matters. And so sometimes if we focus on a goal like 10,000 steps, we might pigeonhole ourselves because actually it might be easier for us to get moving via something that doesn't require walking, but rather, you know, requires uh, I don't know, going to a gym class or whatever it might be. Um, so I think having flexibility in that too, of saying, okay, what is the thing that is really important? Is it the steps or the heart rate, or is it just the number of minutes that I'm spending really like exerting myself through uh cardiovascular exercise and then figuring out a goal and way to achieve a goal for that kind of a metric?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:56

Absolutely. And I think so much of that is individual around what's gonna be be the best decision in terms of what's going to amplify or enhance our health and also what our goals are. You know, if my goal is to enhance like my VO2 max or to have, you know, a greater kind of cardiovascular capability, what I'm doing to achieve that goal is gonna look different than somebody who says, you know, I want to go from couch to 5k in the next three months.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:25

Exactly. And appreciating that difference when you're setting a goal and sort of understanding where you are and what is reasonable for you, right? If you're if you don't exercise at all, then the idea of 10,000 steps sounds really daunting and probably is. So maybe figuring out a different metric to try and hit. And that goes back to our idea of sort of taking big goals and making them into smaller chunks, right? Um, but if you're already exercising a lot and you want to figure out a way to increase your VO2 max, that's probably going to be a different strategy that you think about and different sort of set of parameters that you set for this goal.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:02

So great. Ah, it has been so wonderful having you on our show today. I learned so much from you, Dr. Mayer. This is amazing. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I had a lot of fun. It was so great. Well, thank you for being with us. And uh, one of my favorite things that you said today is temptation bundle. So I am definitely gonna be taking that away. And I know it comes from Dr. Katie Milkman's research, uh, like you shared. So thank you for being on with us, for teaching us about how to set better goals to enhance our habits. And thank you for being a part of the Better Body Lab podcast. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:40

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