CEC
ARTICLE
GETTING SHORT-TERM WINS
FROM LONG-TERM GOALS
Our brains are wired to embrace immediate reward rather than strive for long term gain, so,
asks Susy Natal, how can we work with this tendency to help clients achieve bigger picture goals?
ne of the primary roles of a
personal trainer is to motivate
and direct clients down a path
that will allow them to achieve their health
and fitness goals. There are many people
who, even when provided with sufficient
knowledge about how to train, will still
struggle to remain focused on their health
and fitness for long periods of time when left
to their own devices. This stems largely from
how the human brain organises and
perceives the importance of goals and
rewards based on time-frames.
The body can undergo impressive
changes in a short period of time if a person
is relatively deconditioned or has been
eating and exercising in one specific way
for a while, and then makes drastic changes
to training and nutrition. This is where the
selling point of the challenge comes in: an
individual commits to making dramatic
lifestyle changes within a set period of time,
and this will generally translate to significant
changes in the body.
Although extreme training and eating
behaviours are neither sustainable nor healthy
when maintained for longer periods of time,
they can be safe in short, discrete bursts,
such as in a challenge. Challenges can be
useful, therefore, for kick-starting someone,
getting them back into the gym or refocusing
O
20 | NETWORK SUMMER 2017
their training if they are lacking direction.
However, it is important to avoid having your
clients get into the habit of expecting all
changes to take place so quickly, because
this simply will not be the case most of the
time, and if it is expected then the more
common, slower changes associated with
regular training will become tiresome and
adherence will become a problem.
A study in time and distance
The human brain, like the rest of the body,
functions to keep us safe. Objects that are
far away are not as salient to us as objects
that are near to us, since the closer ones can
present more immediate risk and therefore
demand our attention. Something similar
occurs with rewards and time – a reward
that we will receive sooner, if all else is the
same, is perceived as greater than one that
will happen further on down the track. This
makes sense when the rewards are identical,
because not having to wait for something is
more satisfying than having to wait for the
same thing. The issue, however, is that this is
also the case when the more distant reward
is greater than the one that occurs sooner.
That is, our brains struggle to embrace the
bigger picture.
There have been many studies in which
participants have opted to collect significantly
smaller amounts of money immediately,
rather than wait to be rewarded with much
larger sums, and we make the same error of
attributing too much value to the immediate
when it comes to decisions about health
and fitness. Having a burger and fries now,
even though it does not align with our
current nutrition goals, is more immediately
rewarding than dropping a dress size over the
next two months. Staying in bed and sleeping
in is more immediately rewarding than getting
up earlier, particularly in the colder months,
and working out in a bid to attain results that
we won’t see for many months. The salience
of the immediate can be overpowering, and
cause many of your clients to run into trouble
with their exercise adherence.
Micro-goals and celebrating
small wins
This demonstrates a few pointers for
personal trainers: your clients will be more
likely to succeed if there is a tangible reward
to be obtained from their work, and even
more if this reward is available in the short-
term. The issue then arises, as mentioned
above, that the body will initially make rapid
changes and then progress will gradually
slow down, so truly large and sustainable
health and fitness goals actually operate in
the long-term. This is where micro-goals