Making Hope Happen: Create the Future You Want for Yourself and Others (20 page)

Once you start looking for goal contagions, you see them everywhere.
Psychologist and blogger Art Markman noticed that political yard signs sprout up in clumps during election years—many on one block, maybe none four blocks over. “One explanation for this clumping,” he comments, “is that we tend to look at other people’s behavior and see not only what they are doing but what they are trying to accomplish. That is, we automatically interpret the goals that people have from their behaviors.” The first guy on the block who puts out a campaign sign triggers others to announce their own preference. As Markman notes, “This desire is likely to be particularly strong for neighbors of the individual with the yard sign, because those neighbors will see the sign every day.” His conclusion: “To my mind, this effect is a positive one. It is crucial for people to care about the political process. One way to get people to care about this process is for others to perform actions that show they care.”

Here’s another example of goal contagion that relies on signs. The last time you stayed in a chain hotel, you probably noticed the sign in the bathroom telling you about the hotel’s efforts to conserve energy and water. You can do your part by reusing towels and understanding that sheets won’t be changed every day. These pleas for environmental virtue vary in their effectiveness.

Psychology professor Robert Cialdini of Arizona State University and colleagues collected data on more than 2,500 instances of potential towel reuse in a mid-priced hotel and discovered that small wording changes in the bathroom sign had big effects on guest behavior. When the appeal was “Help save the environment,” just over 37 percent of guests complied. The message “Join your fellow guests in helping to save the environment,” followed by a statement that most people reused their towels at least once during their stay, increased participation to 44 percent. The winner was a message stating that a majority of guests who had stayed in
that very room
had reused their towels. This bumped participation up over 49 percent. Even the researchers were surprised by the power of the same-room effect. The stronger the identification with “people like me,” the stronger the goal contagion in favor of the environment.

The two-thousand-plus employees at my own workplace, Gallup, encounter subtle cues that promote wise choices. Signs near the elevators and stairs tell you how many calories you can burn with the proper choice. Signs at the credit union encourage you to think about the future and to make good investments today. In the cafeteria, healthful foods are featured prominently and less healthful foods tucked away.

In 2010, Gallup started playing a more strategic offense based on worldwide studies of the key elements of well-being. Each associate who chose to participate in the well-being program completed a comprehensive assessment of his current well-being in five areas: career, social, financial, physical, and community. Associates then shared their big change goals with a supervisor and one another. Some focused on financial well-being, working closely with advisers to come up with
long-term plans that fit their priorities. Others set community well-being goals for contributing time, money, and talent to good causes and people. The most visible pursuit of well-being goals takes place at the company gym, where trainer Ryan Wolf acts as health-and-fitness guru to more than five hundred of his fellow professionals.

Ryan has a gift for working on your mind as he gets you to work on your body. A hopeful person in his own right, he recruits people to the gym while attending meetings or walking through the cafeteria, and he follows up with emails to those who’ve expressed intentions to get in shape. Once he gets them working out on a regular basis, he encourages them to set bigger goals, like participating in fun runs and races.

Ryan also encourages associates to make their commitments public. In and out of meetings, work teams talk about their training goals, diets, and weight loss plans. You can see goal contagions in action in these groups, and many informal competitions have sprung up, increasing excitement, motivation, and persistence.

These public proclamations have made a measurable difference in several of the well-being outcomes. For example, Ryan helped more associates become runners (with a 600 percent increase in the number of people participating in a local race over the last five years) and lose weight (263 people lost 1,492 pounds and 676 percentage points of body fat from January 2009 to December 2011).

Ryan is skilled at starting a wave of well-being, but his success is dependent on others getting on board and, in turn, inspiring still more people to commit to the same goals. Our decision-making and behaviors are informed many times a day by subtle environment cues and triggers, including those of our friends and coworkers. We use the power of goal contagion to our best advantage when we choose the sea we swim in.

One crisp winter afternoon I met Stanley Lombardo, a classics professor and Zen master, in the cozy café in our community co-op.
As a
translator of Homer, he’s done more to make the
Iliad
and the
Odyssey
accessible than any other scholar. His versions turn the ancient Greek into lively, modern English—plain talk that I (and tens of thousands of students) can understand without getting bogged down in arcane terms and phrases.

I told Stan that the
Odyssey
is now a hot topic in the social sciences, medicine, and law. Stan was not surprised to hear that these professionals are interested in Homer’s psychology. He called Odysseus “the hero of the mind,” a lover of strategy, cunning, and competition. That makes him very appealing to anyone whose job is figuring out why people do what they do.

In particular, I wanted to talk to Stan about “Odysseus contracts”—agreements that precommit us to strategies that can help us maintain progress to important goals. For example, physicians refer to Odysseus contracts that bind people to a health-care plan. Advance directives (also known as living wills) precommit patients and physicians to decisions arising when the patient is no longer able to state his or her wishes.

In response, Stan launched into the classic story about how Odysseus resisted the song of the Sirens, who would surely have lured him to shipwreck and death. “Ah, Circe knew that Odysseus would want to hear the Sirens,” he said. Circe, a goddess and sorcerer, had kept Odysseus and his crew on her enchanted island for an entire year. But now, as her parting gift, she told him that the Sirens tailored their songs to each voyager, preying on his unique weaknesses and selfish tendencies. “The Greek gods knew we are own worst enemies,” Stan said. “So Circe told Odysseus exactly what to do.”

As the ship approaches the Siren’s island, she told him, instruct your crew to bind you tight to the mast, and tell them not to release you, however hard you plead. Then block the ears of every man with wax, so they cannot hear the Sirens singing.
Here, in Stan’s translation, is how Odysseus describes his encounter with the Sirens:

They made their beautiful voices carry,

And my heart yearned to listen, I ordered my men

To untie me, signaling with my brows,

But they just leaned on their oars and rowed on.

Perimedes and Eurylochus jumped up,

Looped more rope around me, and pulled tight.

When we had rowed past, and the Sirens’ song

Had faded on the waves, only then did my crew

Take the wax from their ears and untie me.

Odysseus lived to pursue the great goal of his journey—sailing on until he reached Ithaca and reclaimed his home and wife.

Analyzing Odysseus’s strategy to help us resist or defeat our modern Sirens is not as simple as tying yourself to a mast—even if you had one handy. I came up with the following precommitment rules for modern voyagers:

Know who or what your Sirens are and how they will tempt you. You may have Sirens or temptations specific to each and every goal you set. You may have weaknesses that undermine most of your efforts at change. Some common ones: (1) You don’t set enough time to pursue your personal goals, and (2) You’re easily distracted, so that no goal gets the focused attention it needs. Tailor your contract or strategy to avoid these temptations.

Go online to contract for change.
StickK.com
, developed by Yale economists, allows you to put a “contract out on yourself” by making your goals public and binding. You select your goal, set your stakes (you place a bet, risking either your money or your good name), pick a referee (who monitors your commitment and progress), and build a support team to cheer you on. The upside of
stickK.com
is that it functions as a commitment strategy toolkit. The downside is that it does not require you to identify your Sirens, the many challenges,
probably unique to you, that you will have to overcome to honor your contract.

Assemble a support team you can count on. Who do you trust to share your hopes and goals? Who can help you refine your contract or strategy? Who knows you well enough to spot when your temptations are coming into play—and alert you to them? Who will pitch in to help you past your Sirens?

Odysseus credits Eurylochus, the leader of his crew, and Perimedes for the success of his strategy. They not only refuse to answer his self-destructive pleas; they take his frantic signals as a cue to bind him even tighter to the mast.

Don’t stop at one precommitment strategy. Odysseus comes up with an ingenious new plan for every challenge he meets. That is one reason the
Odyssey
has delighted and inspired listeners and readers for more than 2,500 years.

Stan Lombardo ended our conversation on an interesting note: “Every time you use a precommitment strategy inspired by Odysseus, it becomes part of the myth of the Odyssey.” You increase your own strengths and contribute to the strength of others.

How many times have you started a new project with a burst of energy and enthusiasm, only to wonder a few months later what happened to your great idea? Yes, a few of us make plans and just do them, but most of us need a little nudge (or series of nudges) to get things done. (Okay, some of us need a kick in the butt, and making when/where plans can help change that.)

A when/where plan uses the power of cues to prompt us to work on the long-term projects that matter most to us. A good when/where plan keeps us on track, guards us against our tendency to procrastinate, keeps us from getting overwhelmed by competing demands, and battles our personal Sirens.

Psychology professor Peter Gollwitzer of New York University has developed this strategy through a series of research studies, most notably through two I’ll call the Christmas Studies.
In Christmas Study #1, college students were asked prior to Christmas break to name two projects, one easy and one hard, that they intended to complete during their time off. Typical goals included writing papers, mending relationships with friends, and exercising. About two-thirds of them, with no encouragement, formed plans about when and where to get started on the project. Upon returning from Christmas vacation, participants were asked about project completion. Most of the easy projects were completed regardless of whether the student had made a when/where plan. But difficult projects were a different story. Only 25 percent of students who did not develop when/where plans in advance completed their hard projects.

In Christmas Study #2, all participants were given the same project: they were to write a report on how they spent Christmas Eve and submit it within two days of returning from the holiday. Individuals were then randomly assigned to two groups. One group was asked to create when/where plans for writing the essay; the other was not. Seventy-five percent of the group who had visited the future to specify the time and place for writing the report submitted it on time; only 33 percent of those without a plan completed the project.

Making a when/where plan is a straightforward process. Each time you get an assignment or set a goal, choose the day and time you will start working on it, and the place where you will work. For example, during last tax season, this was my plan for organizing my records from the previous year:

When: Tuesday, March 27th after morning meeting at Pinckney school.

Where: At La Prima Tazza coffee shop. Bring W2s, receipts, and laptop.

For those needing a little reminder of a when/where plan that kicks off thirty or more days into the future, try sending yourself a cue through futureme.org.
This simple tool guarantees that you won’t forget your commitment to yourself. Once at the website, plug in your email address and then write a clear and specific subject line such as “when/where plan for delivering tax paperwork to accountant” and then type in the specifics. The next step, choosing when to have the email delivered, requires you to consider whether you want the note to arrive on the day of your “when” (identified in your when/where plan) or earlier, such as day before (which is what I recommend).

A recent review of ninety-four studies that examined when/where plans found that using them made people successful at achieving an astonishing range of goals. They worked for improving time management, preparing for tests, increasing the use of public transportation, conducting monthly breast self-examinations, buying organic foods, being more altruistic, not drinking alcohol, losing weight, and recycling.

I shared one of these studies with Ryan Wolf, Gallup’s athletic trainer, because it focused on people who had the goal of becoming regular exercisers. Using random assignment, half the participants were asked to plan when and where they would exercise each week. (An example: “On Tuesday and Thursday, I will do three super-sets of weights at the gym, and on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I will do forty-five minutes of cardio at home on the treadmill or elliptical machine.”) People in the second group were instructed to pursue their goal but were not prompted to create when/where plans. Remarkably, when participants were contacted months later, 91 percent of when/where planners were still exercising regularly, compared to only 39 percent of nonplanners.