I came across the “what the hell effect” today. Say you have a goal to limit your intake of sweets to no more than two per day. If you slip up one day and have three or four, the “what the hell effect” kicks in. This is our irrational reaction to missing a goal where we say, “I’ve already blown it, so I might as well eat the whole bag.” There are a couple of ways to set goals that counter this effect that apply broadly, even beyond nutrition.
- Set a longer time frame for your goal: instead of saying no more than two sweets a day, say no more than ten per week. If you slip up, you can make it up in the following days.
- Set an acquisitional goal rather than an inhibitional goal: change the goal to something positive that you are accomplishing, not taking away. If the goal is to be healthy/lose weight, instead of inhibiting sweets, a good acquisitional goal might be to eat at least ten healthy plant-based meals per week. If you only got in eight, that’s ok, you are still progressing towards the main goal.
I learned about this effect (and the counters) in the surprisingly useful-beyond-dieting book How Not to Diet by Michael Greger. Like much of the psychology discussed in the book, the “what the hell effect” can apply to any part of our life and work.
Say you set a goal to spend 3 hours taking an online course but got sidetracked for the first 2 hours. It’s easy to say what the hell and do something else rather than spending that last hour making at least a little progress.
That’s dumb.
This also explains why I have such a hard time with lists of things that I want to stop doing (things I try to inhibit), but I am generally successful with things that I want to start (which tend to be acquisitional). My amplify and reduce goals from 2022 followed this pattern.
Even if it’s just a little bit, the feeling of some form of progress is addictive.
Inhibiting something is demotivating. Acquiring is the opposite.
Comments welcome!