Steve Levinson, Ph.D., is a practicing clinical psychologist, inventor, author and teacher who has devoted much of his career to helping individuals and organizations follow through on their good intentions.

I first heard about Steve when 20/20 referred to Following Through, the critically-acclaimed book he and consultant Pete Greider wrote, explaining why we do such a lousy job of following through on our own good intentions.

Steve is a fellow speaker and consultant, and a real pleasure to work with.  Steve and I caught up with each other in early January.

AK: It's that time of year when so many of us venture to craft New Year's resolutions. Despite the best of intentions, many of those resolutions don't make it past the end of January. What is behind this desire to draft resolutions and why is it that we struggle to keep them?

SL: We make New Year’s resolutions because, as humans, we have a gift for being able to picture ourselves being better - and better off - than we currently are. Those appealing pictures, of course, motivate us to reach higher. But we also make New Year’s resolutions because we recognize that our good intentions have failed us; that we haven’t been doing a very good job all year long of actually doing what we set out to do, day-in, day-out, to achieve our goals. So a New Year’s resolution is kind of a “Hey, listen up, buster - this time I’m really serious” commitment to do what we’ve intended to do all along.

Unfortunately, New Year’s resolutions rarely work any better than everyday intentions. (A comedian once offered a toast that captured the sad truth about resolutions: “May all your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolutions!”) No matter how sincerely we make them, no matter how delicious we expect the results to be, no matter how excited and committed we feel, the vast majority of our New Year’s resolutions fizzle out rather quickly.

Why do we struggle to keep the promises we make to ourselves? And why do we so often lose the struggle? Well, I’ve spent much of my thirty years as a psychologist trying to answer these questions. What I discovered is that the reason we fail to keep so many of the promises we make to ourselves is that the human mind isn’t really designed for follow through. You see, although the mind enables us to do fantastic job of figuring out what promises we should make to ourselves, the mind is also “wired” in a way that virtually guarantees that we will struggle – and usually fail - when we set out to keep our promises.

What I’ve learned is that, in a very real sense, poor follow through is not our fault as individuals. It’s our problem as a species. What this means for us as individuals is that until we fully accept and understand the way we're wired, and until we deliberately and creatively learn how to work around the wiring, making a New Year’s resolution will continue to be an awful lot like buying a lottery ticket.

AK: Beyond New Year's resolutions, where else do these dynamics come into
play?

SL: A New Year’s resolution is nothing more than the “special holiday edition” of a good intention. We produce good intentions by the truckload. We make promises to ourselves all the time. We make big promises, little promises, and all kinds of promises in between. And because of our wiring, we break many of the promises we make. But, because we’re blessed with an infinite capacity for wishful thinking, we just keep doing the same thing over and over and over again as if the new promises we make will somehow work better than the ones we broke.

AK: You invented the MotivAider®. Tell us about that.

SL: The MotivAider® is a remarkably simple electronic device that looks a pager and serves as kind of a Guardian Angel for your good intentions. It’s been in use for the past fifteen years in the healthcare, education/training, business and sports industries worldwide. I invented the device to capitalize on a discovery I made about how the mind treats good intentions. Good intentions only work when they’re at the top of your mind, that is, when you’re actively aware of what you’ve decided you should do and why it’s important to do it. For example, if you intend to improve your posture, you won’t straighten up unless you think about doing it. The problem is, the mind is designed in a way that causes your good intentions to routinely slip out of awareness. The old notion that “If it’s important enough, you’ll remember it,” just isn’t true.

The MotivAider® is designed to make good intentions more effective by making sure that you remain actively aware of them. It works automatically and privately to keep your attention sharply focused on any good intention you select. The way the MotivAider® would help you improve your posture, for example, is by automatically sending you a brief, private signal – the entire device, which is clipped to your belt or waistband or carried in a pocket, gently vibrates every few minutes. The signal would mean to you, “Straighten up” or “I’m no slouch.” The MotivAider's  self-repeating reminder is guaranteed to prevent your good intention from getting lost in the shuffle. And because (1) the signal can mean whatever you want it to mean, and (2) you can program the device to send you signals as often as you want, you can use the MotivAider® to make sure that virtually any good intention you choose will get the attention it needs to be as effective as possible.

AK: Since this newsletter is read by people who are committed to personal
development, what can we do to improve our ability to achieve our goals?

SL: The most important thing we can do is face the truth: The mind works the way it works, NOT the way we think it SHOULD work. It doesn’t work logically. Just because you’ve decided that a goal is important to you and you’re excited about the benefits of achieving it, that doesn’t mean that you will automatically stay motivated to do the things you must do, day-in, day-out, in order to achieve that goal. You have to creatively set things up so that circumstances will keep pushing, pulling, prodding, kicking, or tricking you – whatever it takes – into doing what you need to do. In light of the way the mind is designed, you can’t afford to rely on the “right” reasons to keep you motivated to do the “right” things. You have to boost your motivational horsepower and keep it up there by using “compelling reasons.”

For example, if you’re a salesperson, knowing that you can improve your income substantially by starting to make at least ten cold calls a week may be enough to motivate you to promise that you’ll start, but it probably won’t be enough to get you to continue. To continue, you’ll need a truly compelling reason like the one that Jeff created for himself. Every week, Jeff gave his office assistant ten, ten dollar bills to keep in her desk drawer. Every time Jeff made a cold call, he let his assistant know, and she gave him one of his ten dollar bills back. At the end of the week, if there were any tens left, she had strict orders to summon Jeff to her desk and feed the remaining tens to the shredder.

Ouch! The point of the story is that the “right” reason for making the dreaded calls didn’t work. The compelling reason, however, worked like a charm.

AK: Are you drafting resolutions this New Year? If so, would you be willing to share a couple?

SL: I haven’t made any resolutions for 2003, and I can assure you that it’s not because I’ve already achieved perfection! One of things I’ve learned as a result of my work with good intentions is that we break too many promises because we make too many promises. We treat good intentions as if they’re a dime a dozen, and, as a result, that’s about what they’re worth. I’ve become extremely cautious about adopting intentions. Knowing what it will really take to keep a good intention alive makes me very selective about the intentions I adopt. So I now make fewer promises to myself, but I do a much better job of keeping the ones I do make.

By the way, if I had made a resolution for 2003, not only would I be willing to share it, I’d jump at the opportunity. Why? Imagine the boost in motivational horsepower I’d get from putting my reputation on the line with your readers. Talk about compelling reasons to follow through!

Thank you, Steve! 

You can learn more about Steve at www.habitchange.com, Click on the cover to the right to purchase Following Through.