Habits vs. goals: How to build consistency as a home pole dancers

Show Notes:

Are you struggling to stay consistent in your pole practice? In this episode, Dr. Rosy Boa explores the science of habits and goals and how they can help you build a sustainable routine. Learn why habits happen automatically, how cues play a role, and why nearly half of your daily actions are driven by routine. Discover how goals can support habit formation and how to create systems that stick. Plus, she shares practical tips to schedule, track, and celebrate your progress—all while keeping it fun and manageable.

Resources Mentioned:

5-day evidence-based pole reset:

https://courses.slinkthroughstrength.com/5-day-challenge 

For more on motivation: "how to stay motivated as a home poler" https://www.slinkthroughstrength.com/science-of-slink-podcast/how-to-stay-motivated-as-a-home-poler

Citations:

Wood W, Neal DT. A new look at habits and the habit-goal interface. Psychol Rev. 2007;114(4):843–863. doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.114.4.843.

Neal DT, Wood W, Labrecque JS, Lally P. How do habits guide behavior? Perceived and actual triggers of habits in daily life. J Exp Soc Psychol. 2012;48:492–498. 

Gardner B, Lally P, Wardle J. Making health habitual: the psychology of 'habit-formation' and general practice. Br J Gen Pract. 2012 Dec;62(605):664-6. doi: 10.3399/bjgp12X659466. PMID: 23211256; PMCID: PMC3505409.

Ceceli, A. O., & Tricomi, E. (2018). Habits and goals: a motivational perspective on action control. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 20, 110-116.

Transcript:

 Hello, and welcome to the Evidence Based Pole Podcast with me, your host, Dr. Rosy Boa. Or, or just Rosy. It's fine. But today we're going to talk about something that I've been thinking about a lot. I mean, it's, it's early January when I'm recording this classic setting resolutions time. And I think a lot especially this time of year about habits and routines and patterns and also goals and how those two things intersect.

And today I want to talk a little bit about some of the research around that and some ways to think about them and some, of course, tips and tricks  for how to do  good er in, you know, whatever time span you're listening to this in. And if you are listening to this right when it comes out I'm having a free Event on the the private group I run for the studio.

The 5 day evidence based pole reset. And we're gonna work on helping to bring in some  we're gonna work on bringing in some science backed techniques to help figure out, you know, What it is you really want from your pole practice this year. How to get it in a way that's like actually likely, and reasonable, and sustainable, and is going to fit with your actual life that you actually have, and not the dream life you're imagining when you're setting your goals.

We're gonna move together. It should be a fun time. Like I said, completely free. I'll have the, the sign up link in the, in the bio down there. So definitely check that out if you are at all interested. But regardless, let's get into it.

So Habits and Goals. These are two separate things. They've been studied a fair amount particularly in the positive psychology literature.

Also a lot of stuff in like education, particularly around goal setting. And you've probably, you know, heard of them.  I don't know, if you had kind of a similar educational background that I did, as I did, in like, grade school, you probably learned about, like, smart goals, or maybe triple E goals, or you know, anything like that about goal setting.

So, definitely something that I have you know, encountered before. And also, I think there's been more discussion of habits in the general popular science. Atomic Habits is the book that I, I see people chatting about a lot, which, which discusses habits quite a bit, obviously.

But they're not the same thing, and their relationships to each other aren't necessarily opaque from the outset. I've got some citations down there, as always.  Some of the work I'll be talking about today I will say for habits and health and exercise in particular, a lot of those studies are looking specifically at weight loss.

So just know about it if you're going into the, into the literature that that's something you're going to run across. One of these days, I'm going to do a,  I would say an episode on some of the research about why trying to intentionally lose weight is not great for you and kind of doesn't work but it is such a huge body of literature that I just kind of get overwhelmed.

So at some point I'll do a series of episodes on it, but not yet. I, we do have one with Fat Liberation is in the title where we talk to the, a dietician about, about it just like more conversationally. So you can check that out if you're interested.

But let's start talking about habits.

So habits are behaviors that are repetitive and that happen based on a cue. So something triggers it for you to do it and also that happen pretty much automatically, right? So you don't really have to think about it. So a good example to have it is you get in the car, you put on your seatbelt.

Or, for example, for me, I always wash my face in the shower. So I get in the shower, I wash my body, and then I know it's my time to wash my face. And I don't have to think about it, I don't have to, you know, intentionally be, like, sit down and write down all the things I need to do in the shower. I just sort of, I'm in that situation, I have that cue, I've finished washing my body, and then I wash my face.

So.  There is some evidence so particularly this is cited in Wood & Neal 2007, that a lot of our behavior is actually habitual. So they did they signed some earlier work looking at a, a diary, a self reported study and they suggested that 35 percent of the behavior that they, they observed was in fact, habitual which is a pretty big chunk.

So the, the suggestion from, from that body of research is that much of what we do is habitual, is routine, is triggered based on this sort of outside cue. Sometimes you'll hear you know, patterns of behavior like this referred to like systems or structures. I think that's more informal. I haven't seen that as often in the, in the research.

And the, you know, pros and cons to habit formation particularly. Pro, once you do it, it's pretty sticky, right? It sticks around. You know, I automatically just would put my seatbelt on when I go in the car because I built that habit when I was really young and now I just, I don't even have to think about it.

It just happens. So it doesn't take a lot of effort. It's really consistent, which is great. That's what we want when we're, when we're building physical activity.  Some downsides, it's really hard to form a habit. It takes a lot of repetition and it takes a really like specific and good choice of cue because that cue is brittle, right?

If you do X win Y and you don't do X for whatever reason, Y will never happen. So a great example that is relevant for me is that we had just had a big winter storm and we lost water so I didn't shower. So I didn't wash my face because I always wash my face in my shower, so I didn't even think about it, right?

It's just part of that routine at the start of the routine didn't happen So nothing else that was linked with it happened as well. So if you're thinking about starting a habit It's going to require a lot of time and that's going to require a very specific selection of cue so something that works really well for the specific behavior that you are targeting.

And I think something that can be particularly helpful there in our pole practice is as a way to add things or not add things, as the case may be during our practice itself. So, for example, if you know Oh, I  Really want to start wearing shoes more, right, in my pole practice. Maybe if you put on grip right after you're done warming up and when you start to get on the pole, if you put your shoes right by your grip, then when you go to get your grip, you can be like, alright, that's my shoes, I was going to wear those, and then put them on, right?

So a way to link those two things, something you're already always doing, assuming you always put on grip and with something else that you want to happen, putting on shoes and then arranging things so it's very easy and natural for that to happen. In terms of cues to develop the habit of going to pole at all it can be a little bit more challenging, because I think a lot of natural routine cues happen on sort of a daily cycle.

And I don't recommend poling every day. In fact, I strenuously recommend you don't exercise every day, and that you have built in rest days. Your body needs time to recover.  I hope that's common knowledge at this point. I've got a podcast episode on, on rest and like why it's important. I think it's called the science of rest that I recommend.

If you're like, I've never heard that before. Definitely, definitely dig into that.  But some ways that I've used cues to help me build a more consistent pole practice is I am a big calendar person. So a great cue for me is I look at my calendar and something's on my calendar, and then I do it. And every Sunday when I go through what I do, my calendar blocking for the week, I have as you do that, oh, I need to schedule in a specific number of pole classes, right? Just so that I'm continuing to work on technical stuff and growing technically, and actually showing up and doing the dang thing, right? Cause you get busy, and especially, y'all know, you got a home pole, you could do it anytime. So, you gotta pick some time that you will do it.

And if, like me, you're a big calendar girly or into calendars, regardless of your calendar it makes a lot of sense to have that be the trigger that sets up the behavior and then the behavior sort of like happens itself. I, I would say that in the scheduling of classes would be the habit rather than the going to classes because that's a little bit more, you know, fun.

variable when that happens.  So that's habits.  

One thing that can help us decide which habits we want to continue or maybe which habits we want to break, perhaps by modifying our cues in some way, is our goals. So goals are not automatic. They are conscious decisions that we make about things that we want to do or things that we want to happen or things that we want to stop doing or stop having happen in our lives.

Generally, they arise from values, right? From desires, things that you think are important or special or good or bad, whatever those may be. And generally they're linked to something longer term. And there's a lot of different types of goals. You may have heard about the three P's. And I think the type of goal where.

Forming a habit is the best way to achieve it are things like process goals. So these are where I want to, this would be a goal like I want to journal every night, right? I want to stretch three times a week, something like that. If you have a goal like that, then setting up a habit where you have a cue that triggers it can be really, really powerful.

So a good example is, you know, I do journal every night. I'm a good writer. I'm a journaler and I have my my journal set up right in the space that I am before I go to bed. So when I settle down in the evening to sort of like calm down, I'm like, oh, there's my journal, time to journal. Right, so I put it in the space where I am at the time when I'm doing the thing, and that's the, the cue that triggers the habit.

 So, if we have a specific goal that we're looking to work towards that we need to do consistent small motion towards creating a habit to do that can be a really effective way. But, they're not quite the same thing, right? And I think one of the big differences is that habits are unconscious and goals are conscious.

And a lot of our habits can just sort of, occur without us necessarily intentionally creating it, right? So if you're like, okay, every time after I have dinner I open my phone to check my email and then that cue  means that I'm on Instagram for an hour watching pole videos. Listen, we've all been there.

Well, I've been there. Maybe you have as well. Then you'd have to, you know, change that cue in some way if you wanted to stop that behavior. But it's like, it's a repetitive behavior, right? The cue happens a lot. And so the habit happens a lot. Even if it's not necessarily something that you, you want to have happen.

So that's sort of the, the main difference. And if you have a goal that would be supported by forming a habit, that intentionally working towards forming a habit can be a really powerful tool there. So some just general tips for working towards habit formation. I talked about sort of habits more on a broader scale, right?

So like when I schedule my pole classes and my pole time and my personal pole time and I do schedule my personal pole time as well. So just like I have playtime on my calendar and because things are on my calendar they happen and then also within your pole practice and you could also link them to other things especially other things that are fun and pleasurable.

So a great example of this is again, I'm just pulling a lot of examples from my own, own life here. Something that I really enjoy listening to is podcasts, and I also, also like to have a clean house so I will listen to a fun podcast that I really enjoy while I'm cleaning and that helps me build a reward for the tasks Right?

And some tasks are inherently pleasurable, are inherently rewarding, are intrinsically motivating, or may lead to intrinsic motivation from you. Hopefully pole is one of those things. But some things may be a little bit less fun, right? So maybe,  You know, the conditioning part. You're like, a little bit less fun for me.

I don't necessarily want to do that, right? Maybe the stretching maybe your cross training. Maybe it's just not quite as fun and rewarding as learning new pull tricks for you. So anything you can do to sort of get a little, a little bit more dopamine, make them a little bit more fun can really, really help.

So layering them with other things, right? So for conditioning, maybe really fun music motivating music, stuff with a strong beat, and stuff that you like listening to.

Maybe you have, like, a playlist of favorite songs you only listen to while you're conditioning, so it's a little extra, extra treat.  Maybe you give yourself a reward for having done it consistently. So one of my things that I've been working on recently is I have, I've actually started writing fiction again, which is something that I used to do.

Like, I used to be a big fiction writer. When I was much younger, and then I burned out in grad school and had a much less close relationship to fiction reading and writing, which is only now starting to heal  many years later. But I have a goal for myself that I do it three times a week, and so when I do my journaling in the evening, I mark whether or not that day I did my fiction writing.

And I am the person for whom I have filled out a chart that looks pretty is intrinsically rewarding, right? Like, I like seeing the number of tick marks and being like, Yes, I did it. Good job. Like, that gives me my little burst of dopamine. But if I weren't that type of person then perhaps I would tie it to reward, right?

So, Oh, I've accomplished this goal. Maybe I, you know get a book from a used bookstore, right, or something that I would find enjoyable and pleasurable. Also taking time to reflect on how well you've done, right? So if you're like, hey, I have this habit I'm working towards how am I doing? And celebrating when you actually do it.

I think a track that a lot of us fall into Especially pole dancers. I don't know what it is about us and perfectionism. Maybe it's because you have to want things really badly.  And have like a really strong idea of how you want things to be to pole dance for for fun because it hurts.  But especially with pole dancers, I know a lot of us are perfectionists.

That idea that it doesn't count if I don't do it is All the time, right? So I'm aiming for three times a week for fiction writing. But even then, if I only do one little, little section of writing a week, that's still way more than I was doing, right? So I'm still making progress. And even if I skip three weeks entirely, but I come back on week four and I get one session in, that's more than I was doing, right?

I'm moving towards the goal that I have just to do it more often, even if I'm not doing it perfectly.  So reflecting, you know, am I doing the thing right? How can I do a better job? And then also, you know being nice to yourself,  allowing yourself to have, you know, squishiness, right? These are not, I'm not your boss.

Hopefully you're not treating yourself like your boss, right? You're not trying to extract value from yourself. You're trying to make your life better and live it more in alignment with your goals and the things that are fun and enjoyable and important and valuable to you. So. noticing when you do it, and celebrating when you do it, and also really enjoying enjoying it as much as possible, and having that positive feeling within yourself.

You gotta give yourself the reward for doing the thing you're trying to do otherwise you're gonna want to stop doing it, right? Which I think is a part of the reason why a lot of us, you know, we make big lofty goals for ourselves in January, and then you don't end up keeping up with them for a number of reasons, but I think one of them is that we, we don't make it fun, right?

We're like, I want to run a marathon, and instead of, you know, hey, I want to, you know, go running two times a week and if I run three times in a month I get a special gel pouch. I don't know. I'm not running.  I don't know what a, I don't know what like a good reward would be, but like something that would work for you, right?

And something where you recognize the progress, even if it's not perfect, right?

And then of course I think it can also be helpful to bring in other types of motivation as well, but I have a different podcast episode on that. I'm gonna link that in the, in the description as well, the, the How to Stay Motivated is a home poller.

And one of the big things from that podcast episode is don't try to do things alone, right? Try to bring other people in for accountability, for companionship. It'll make you more consistent. I think this is, again, this is based on the research and check the citations and that that description, but it'll make you more consistent.

You'll have more fun. If you're aiming for intensity, it will help you to increase the intensity of your, your physical workout. So all around, Good thing. Don't try to do it alone. Try to have some friends involved. And one of the ways that you can meet some friends is by joining the challenge. Eh, Segway?

Eh?  It's not a challenge. It's a reset, right? So just a way to like, check in figure out, or at least spend some time thinking about what it is that you really, really want in your pole practice, and then how you're gonna get there. And we're gonna do it together, and you'll get lots of support, and it should be a really good time.

So. I would love to see you there and if not I hope you have a wonderful beginning of the year. I hope your 2025 is off to a great start and I will see you very, very soon. Bye!