As we near the end of 2024, you may find yourself reflecting on the year to come. The turn of the calendar offers an opportunity to refresh your goals and resolutions, though it can be difficult to sustain that motivation over the course of the year. To discuss ways to adhere to new behaviors, I am joined by behavior researcher Michelle Segar, PhD, MPH, MS. Michelle’s study at the University of Michigan revealed the core challenges of maintaining behavior change. While many of her study participants recognized which habits were necessary and beneficial to their health, their driving reasons for exercise or diet had to shift to accommodate other stressors in their life. Michelle describes this fragile balance as a “motivation bubble.” “As soon as it bumps up against something, it bursts. So once we're past the trial, three months, six months… this motivation bubble bursts. We bump up against real life and its unpredictability.” Instead, Michelle recommends focusing on your “why” in the short-term. For instance, noticing that physical activity helps us feel better immediately after workouts, more sleep helps us feel more energetic the following day, and whole foods help our digestion after meals. Michelle encourages drawing attention to these effects, or “rewards,” to aid in sustainable change. “When people start to recognize, again through the experiential learning process, ‘I feel so much better…’ Then the behavior exercise becomes a vehicle for feeling who you are at your core.” Listen to the full episode to build your strategy for sustainable behavior change.
About Michelle:
Michelle is an award-winning, NIH-funded researcher at the University of Michigan with thirty years studying how to help people change their healthy behavior in sustainable ways.
Her work focuses on how to adopt physical activity and other lifestyle behaviors in ways that can be sustained within the unpredictability of the real world - and her client list includes Kaiser Permanente, The Permanente Medical Group, Business Group on Health, Walmart, WW, and Anytime Fitness.
Michelle’s research on creating sustainable change is recognized as uniquely pragmatic for real-world applications. Her advice is sought for prominent initiatives, including the World Health Organization’s expert group on the Global Action Plan on Physical Activity and she was selected to be the inaugural chair of the United States National Physical Activity Plan’s Communication Committee. She has also written two critically acclaimed books about how to support lasting changes in lifestyle behaviors, No Sweat and The Joy Choice.
Michelle has a doctorate in Psychology (PhD), master’s degrees in Health Behavior/Health Education (MPH) and Kinesiology (MS) from the University of Michigan and she is a Fellow of the Society of Behavioral Medicine. Michelle’s decades of academic research combined with her real-world coaching offers her a comprehensive perspective and permits her to create and scale engaging and practical sustainable-change systems for digital health and patient counseling.
Michelle speaks around the world, trains clinicians in easy-to-use sustainable-change methods, and is frequently interviewed in major media outlets including The New York Times, NPR, The Atlantic, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Prevention, Real Simple, and TIME. She ran with the Olympic Torch at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona.
Links:
Connect with Michelle at her website, MichelleSegar.com, or LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellelsegar/