Ways to Increase Expectancy
Use Vicarious Victory
Steel suggests priming yourself with the feeling that you can accomplish what you want to achieve by putting yourself in touch with the stories of other successful people. Read biographies of great men doing extraordinary things despite the odds, or watch an inspiring movie or a pump-up video on YouTube.
While binging on motivational memes often comes in for criticism, as long as you use such fodder as a spur to action, rather than a substitute, it really works. I know that when I watch, say, The Men Who Built America, I feel more pumped to get to work!
Use Mental Contrasting
Most motivational books tell you to envision your ideal end result in detail and just focus on that. But research shows that envisioning the positive outcome alone can actually increase the chances of you not completing the desired task.
Instead, Steel recommends engaging in “mental contrasting.” This requires you to think about your ideal result and then contrast it with your current not-so-great state. By contrasting your current reality with your ideal future reality, you frame the former as an obstacle to be overcome, which can, in turn, increase Motivation.
Overcome Learned Helplessness
Overcoming learned helplessness involves changing your mental scripts. Instead of telling yourself, “I’m a big giant procrastinator in all aspects of my life, and I always will be!” you challenge that negative self-talk.
Do you really procrastinate in all aspects of your life? No. You finish your work projects on time, you pay your bills on time. You just have some trouble getting going on that big project in the backyard. By pushing back on your negative thinking, you can show yourself that you’re more capable than you think you are, which can increase your sense of Expectancy.
Make the Task as Easy as Possible
According to the Fogg Behavior Model, the easier the task is to complete, the more likely you’ll do it; the harder it is, the less likely you’ll do it. That’s just common sense, but common sense often goes overlooked.
If you find yourself procrastinating on a task, see if there’s some way you can increase expectancy by making it easy. Like stupidly easy. This largely comes down to concentrating on the next action you need to take — getting specific instead of general — and breaking bigger/longer tasks into smaller/shorter ones. Fogg would in fact say to make the steps of your goal not just small, but tiny.
If, for example, you’re trying to get into the flossing habit, instead of saying, “I will floss every night,” Fogg suggests setting the goal, “I will floss one tooth every night.” It’s easy to be motivated to floss a single tooth, so you’ll actually do it. Once you start doing one tooth a night consistently, you’ll naturally want to start flossing more of them (but you always keep the same Expectancy-boosting “floss one tooth every night” goal).
If you’re working on a term paper, instead of making it a goal to “Write the first draft of my research paper by the end of the week,” tell yourself, “I will work on the introduction for five minutes.” Writing an entire first draft is difficult, which means you’ll likely put it off as long as possible; writing for five minutes is easy, so you’ll do it. Once you’ve gotten started, you may want to write more, but even if not, at least you’ve gotten the project underway. Next set the goal: “Work on the body of the paper for five minutes.”
Instead of saying, “Save $1 million for retirement,” make your task, “Email HR about auto investing from paycheck.”
Instead of saying, “Clean up the entire backyard,” make your task, “Weed garden bed for five minutes.”
You get the idea.
Use Success Spirals
Not only does taking small actions get you started on making progress in getting a big task done, it also creates a “success spiral,” which further fuels the Expectancy factor, spurring you to get even more done.
A success spiral occurs when you successfully complete one small goal after another. By seeing yourself achieve small goals, your confidence in your ability to get things done increases, increasing your sense of Expectancy, and your Motivation to do even more. A success spiral builds momentum like a snowball rolling downhill.
When you’re feeling the glow from knocking off a to-do, use that surge of energy and confidence to tackle the next item on the list.
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