Lessons on motivation from Fitbit

I have been rationalizing away my eating and exercise habits for several years with no real results. While I value good health and appearance, motivation to do the things I know to do has been lacking. The study of motivation finds that knowledge of what is right and the value of doing something are not enough to motivate behavior. Another facet of what makes something motivational is what we call saliency of the behavior. However, saliency is quite a difficult notion to explain and understand. Simply taken, the saliency of something is the extent that thing has one's attention. However, there are many ways for something to become salient. For a behavior to be salient it generally must be seen as relevant, useful, interesting, enjoyable, not risky, comfortable, or so on.

Recently my daughter gave me a Fitbit for Father's Day. I had never asked for one. In fact I knew very little about it and was not thinking about changing my exercise and eating practices. Here is what immediately happened.

I found myself taking walks when I would rather do something else.
I took a little bit longer walks.
I found myself running in place or up and down the stairs before bedtime if I didn't have enough steps.

Why? One reason is that simply measuring my behavior made it more salient to me in several ways. Accountability for my behavior became greater. My daughter and other friends who had it asked to be fitbit friends, which mean we could see each other's steps. Here comes more visibility, competition and challenge, another source of saliency. Then my son comes to visit for the summer and my excitement about fitbit was contagious and he goes and buys one. More attention (saliency) on my exercise because our bond in a mutual practice led to greater commitment.

My son then says he really wanted fitbit to track what he eats, calorie intake. I had not thought of that but working with him on how to use fitbit in that way made tracking calories appealing. Now we both were obsessed with measuring everything we eat. Immediately my eating practices changed. I cut out many different foods or eating occasions because now I could see the health risks and trade-offs.

Without seeking a change in my healthcare behavior, fitbit caused exercising and better eating to be more salient to me. While the value of good health thru exercise and diet hasn't changed, behavior has changed because saliency has changed. This example clearly illustrates the role of fitbit in saliency and the role of saliency in motivation.

If you can grasp the role of saliency in motivation, you will be considerably more effective at getting others to change their behavior. Hopefully the example of fitbit in my life can enhance your understanding and thus your effectiveness.

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