We Need a New Dictionary for Healthier Living
Before you dive into the story below, I have a quick question for you: Which of the two options below do you think better promotes exercising?
- Commit to exercising
- Celebrate through exercising
Click here to participate in this quick, anonymous survey. I’ll tally your responses across this newsletter and other places I’m asking, and next month I’ll reveal the winning response!
Now, onto my story. It’s related to this time of year, a few weeks after resolutions.
Some years ago, a community asked me to advise them on a walking campaign they were going to launch. They excitedly presented their slogan, “Pledge 20” (referring to walking 20 minutes per day), and asked for my reaction.
While I hated to disappoint them, there was no way around it.
I said, “Pledge 20? People already commit to what feels like 100 other things every day. I don’t think most will be excited about pledging to devote another 20 minutes to walking every day.”
Although some people will be motivated by this firm command to commit to exercise, we have to think about what most people will feel when they see that slogan. And whether the slogan is sufficiently compelling to cultivate long-term choice making (vs. just the decision to start).
I suggested an easy change word change that might not only be appealing, but help shift the way people perceive walking. How about framing that walk as celebrating 20? When I hear that meaning reframe inside my own head, I feel my face automatically relax and my energy begin to rise. Try it, and see what you observe in yourself.
The terms we use for a choice or behavior — whether we say them in our own head or use them in our campaigns or coaching — frame the way we look at those choices and behaviors. That frame influences the feelings and experiences we have when we do them — and not always in the way we intended or that benefits us.
Bottom line: When it comes to cultivating the personal ownership of choice (ours and others) that underlies sustainability, the words we choose matter deeply. Now that we’re a few weeks after New Year’s enthusiastic goal setting, consider whether a pivot in term, meaning, or purpose might benefit the overarching behavior-change project. Maybe not, but maybe so.
I’m very curious to learn what you and others think about the commit vs. celebrate question when it comes to framing our exercise plans. And while we’re waiting for the survey results to come in, I am actually celebrating a couple of things right now!
I’m celebrating the fact that The Joy Choice was named one of The best health books experts read in 2022 by The Washington Post!
Being selected for this list was a wonderful a surprise and an incredible honor.
I’m also celebrating the great feedback I’ve gotten from book clubs that have selected The Joy Choice to read and discuss. As an educator, I want my work to do more than just resonate. My greater objective is that it actually helps people flip their internal scripts about their exercise and eating decision-making in adaptive and lasting ways. So, I designed The Joy Choice Guide to help readers cultivate that outcome through strategic and provocative questions.
If that objective is appealing, and your family, friend, or professional book club is looking to adopt fresh, joyful, and actionable thinking, visit my new Joy Choice Book Club page.
And one more thing. I enjoy hearing from book clubs! After your discussion of The Joy Choice, send me your book club’s biggest burning question via email and I’ll get back to you. Also, I virtually attend a select number of book clubs every year to provide live Q&A and coaching.
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In January, I asked my readers to weigh in on which term they thought was a more potent frame for and promoter of exercising: commit or celebrate. I’ve never done a reader survey before, and it was gratifying to receive so many passionate responses and really fun to learn what everyone thought! I’ll cut right to the chase: Celebrate got 80% of the votes.
This large endorsement likely shows the bias of those of you who follow my work. Yet it’s important to note how big a shift this is from the traditional prescriptive narrative about exercising that is still alive and embedded within health care, wellness, and fitness centers.
Commiters vs. Celebrators
I was impressed by the impassioned responses people gave on both sides of this question. It reminded me again that the “right” way to exercise is never a one-size-fits-all deal. We’ll get back to this, but first I’d like to share a few of the comments by voters explaining their choice.
The Committers fell into two main camps:
- Those who felt it led to greater consistency (“It [commit] prepares you to be determined.” “ Commit… suggests that you will finish what you started.”)
- Those who found the very notion of using the word celebrate in the same breath as exercise abhorrent: (“The idea of ‘celebrating through exercising’ sounds like balderdash and pure nonsense to my ears.” “Celebrate by exercising just sounds like toxic positivity to me.”
For the Celebrators, the overarching theme was work vs. fun
These responses explicitly contrasted the negative connotations associated with the idea of committing (like work, rules, and obligations) with the positive invitation associated with the idea of celebrating: “Committing makes it a duty or task and something I SHOULD do (I don’t need more of those!); celebrating makes it something I GET to do.” “I already have so many commitments, I don’t want to take on anymore. But I could use a few more celebrations in my life!”)
Not surprisingly, many more in the celebrate group noted the importance of having positive experiences from movement, like fun and being outside, while those endorsing commit were less likely to mention positivity with exercise.
And one new theme arose that I have not yet explored in my own messaging research: the very idea that celebrating through exercise may imply gratitude of one’s body, ability to move, and even life: “Celebration is an extension of gratitude. A mindset of gratitude toward ourselves – mind, body, and soul – allows for entering a place of honor toward each of those domains.”
And the best promoter of exercise is . . . ?
Okay, let’s return to the original question: Which of the two options do you think better promotes exercising?
The simple answer is, it depends. The voters’ comments underline the fact that we are unique individuals who are motivated by different things. We need to honor what works for us as long as it doesn’t harm us or others.
This is undeniably true. Yet as someone who designs and evaluates systems for creating sustainable exercise motivation and consistent decision-making, I am most interested in which terms and concepts will be most impactful for most people.
While there is no “right” term, my work has taught me that there are words and concepts that are more compelling and positive. And these are the words that will better drive the consistent decision-making that underlies maintenance for those of us who haven’t yet figured out how to sustain physically active lives.
I am always open to experience and research teaching me that I’m wrong and need to rethink my beliefs. But currently “celebrate” gets my vote: Celebrating during, from, or with exercise and movement reflects a more strategic and positive script for more people who are inactive and truly want take better care of themselves but haven’t figured out how – yet.
Rethinking “leisure time”
You likely already know that my works suggests that exercise cannot become an automatic habit for most people, despite the hype. Most of us need to consciously choose to move, day in and day out, in the face of a huge list of other potential, and often unanticipated competing activities. Which means that many of us need to fit in exercise and be physically active during our leisure time.
You might be saying to yourself, “What leisure time?!” And while there’s truth in that protestation, the amount of time people spend on social media and streaming entertainment is evidence that leisure time indeed exists for many of us.
Given that so many of us (or our clients, patients, employees) need physical activity to be a leisure activity, we better know more about the nature and needs of leisure time, per se.
Fortunately for us, there’s a hot-off-the press paper by researchers Seppo Iso-Ahola and Roy Baumeister addressing this very thing:
“Multiple studies have shown that leisure is a psychological entity overwhelmingly defined by people’s perceptions of freedom. . . . a sense of freedom more than anything else defines what leisure is to people. Importantly, leisure means freedom to choose to do or not to do something. Otherwise a sense of obligation arises and a sense of leisure is lost.”
Thus, when there’s no sense of freedom associated with a leisure activity it all too easily transforms into feeling like work or an obligatory activity, preventing it from achieving the desirable status of a leisure activity.
It’s hard to miss the voice of the Celebrators here. One nailed it when they said “Celebrate implies joy, fun, freedom . . . while commit implies ‘work’; a ‘should.’”
Yes, we do need to honor the idea that “celebrate” doesn’t easily roll off the tongue alongside the idea of exercising for the Committers and similar others. Yet, we also have to keep in mind that discomfort with the idea of exercise being a celebration goes beyond simply being about personal preference.
We must also acknowledge that this discomfort is due to the fact that for almost half a century we’ve been socialized, even indoctrinated to believe, that “worthy” exercise requires a commitment in order to white-knuckle it through until the end. This most definitely makes it work, not leisure!
To paraphrase what I wrote in my January post, the terms we use for a choice or behavior — whether we say them in our own head or use them in our campaigns, coaching, or digital products — frame the way we look at those choices and behaviors. That frame then influences the feelings and experiences we have when we do them — and that determines whether we stay consistent or not.
Below, I offer specific take-aways for different groups of my readers.
For Individuals: Humans naturally – as an innate brain function – avoid what makes us feel bad and run towards what makes us feel good. As long as the frame you put around exercise motivates continued physical activity, choose to use whichever term feels good to your mind and body!
For health and well-being coaches (and clinicians): You have likely already recognized that many to most of your patients/clients do not consider physical activity as a leisure-time activity they would want to choose. Your challenge is to help them learn a new meaning that can associate physical activity as a feel-good activity they personally create and choose as a way to renew them
Feel free to share this post with others who share your interest in the science-based how-to’s of creating lasting changes that can survive in the real world.
Copyright © Segar, Michelle.