Fitness: How are you justifying not exercising consistently?.

IвЂ™d venture to say that we do this to ourselves in many areas of life. Even more surprising, I never questioned myself simply because I had a reason, even if it wasnвЂ™t a good one. And yet, for the last 12 months, I've been justifying my behavior of only conducting one seminar per year with reasoning that didnвЂ™t make sense. Hosting a habits seminar multiple times throughout the year could be a good way to pull everyone back on track.ДЄs soon as I heard the feedback, I realized that it was logical. Similar feedback came from other attendees and the pervading wisdom was that people want to build better habits all the time and it can be easy to fall off track with your goals. One of the first messages I received said, вЂњSuggestion: maybe offer the seminar twice a year?вЂќ For the last year, IвЂ™ve been saying things like, вЂњOh, I only run one seminar per year because people tend to build new habits at the start of the year.вЂќДЄfter the seminar finished, I asked for feedback from the attendees. People simply like to have reasons for what they do.вЂќДЄ few weeks ago, I conducted the Habits Seminar. In his best-selling book, Influence, Robert Cialdini explained this phenomenon by saying, вЂњA well-known principle of human behavior says that when we ask someone to do us a favor we will be more successful if we provide a reason. Langer's work proved that as long as we could justify a behavior in our brains ( вЂњI'm doing this becauseвЂ¦вЂќ), we would perform the behavior even if the reason didn't make sense. The study became famous because it uncovered one of the most powerful words we use to drive our behavior: because. LangerвЂ™s research, which soon became known as The Copy Machine study, was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology ( source).

Version 3: 93 percent of people let the researcher skip ahead in line.

Version 2: 94 percent of people let the researcher skip ahead in line.

Version 1: 60 percent of people let the researcher skip the line.

When the researchers analyzed the data, they found the following. Surprisingly, this senseless reason performed well. The phrase contained no new information, but the researcher was trying to use it to justify the favor anyway. Everyone waiting at the photocopier needed to make copies. Using the phrase вЂњbecause I have to make copiesвЂќ was a fairly useless reason for skipping the line. You'll notice that Version 3 didn't make much sense. May I use the xerox machine, because I have to make copies?вЂќ

Version 3 (request with a fake reason): вЂњExcuse me, I have 5 pages.

May I use the xerox machine, because I'm in a rush?вЂќ

Version 2 (request with a real reason): вЂњExcuse me, I have 5 pages.

Version 1 (request only): вЂњExcuse me, I have 5 pages.

Then, the researcher would look at the innocent bystander and ask them one of three questions. It all started when Langer asked her research assistants to cut in front of innocent people waiting in line at the photocopiers in the library.ДЄ researcher would spot someone waiting at the library copy machine and walk over with the intention of cutting the person in line. It was 1977 and, although nobody knew it at the time, psychologist Ellen Langer and her research team at Harvard University were about to conduct a study that would change our understanding of human behavior.

Copy machine