Harnessing your motivational superpowers

It's 6am on Monday morning, your alarm goes off. Are you hitting snooze, or are you going for a run like you promised yourself last night? This is a 'Choice Point'. A two-second window of conscious opportunity to choose whether we act to get closer to a goal, or act in a way that sets us back.  

The Choice Point outlines a method, backed with empirical evidence, that promises to help us push past our mental walls and achieve our goals. Co-written by Jonathan Rhodes, a British psychologist, and Joanna Grover, an American therapist and coach, science is explained with a humour and clarity that makes understanding the concept not only accessible, but enjoyable and thought-provoking, regardless of whether you have previous psychological training.

The book is built upon Functional Imagery Training (FIT), a method that draws from motivational interviewing, merging this technique with mental imagery to evoke emotion, which has been found to be the key to amplifying motivation and behavioural change. From supporting weight loss, athletes, CEOs and even elite British military troops, FIT has an impressive resume of successes. The Choice Point promises a user-friendly, step-by-step guide to 'teach people to use imagery to crave what they want to achieve, instead of giving into immediate desires'.  

As someone who is into fitness, the 6am struggle is all too real. I eagerly tucked into this book hoping for some wisdom on how to keep on track, and it certainly delivered. While it is not overly complex, I found that learning to use imagery (incorporating sounds, smells, tastes and feelings, not just visualisation) was a little tricky at first.

But, as with anything you practise, slowly it began to feel more natural. Now, when my alarm goes off at 6am, I am prepared for my Choice Point. Instead of letting my brain imagine how it might feel to snooze for another 20 minutes, or how hard the workout might be, I have two seconds to deliberately switch up my thoughts. I imagine how good I will feel after the workout, how much stronger I will be at my next competition because I have put the work in. And whilst I may not be leaping out of bed with enthusiasm, I am definitely not hitting the snooze button and rolling over!

I read The Choice Point with my own goals in mind, but what surprised me most was the realisation of how relevant the method could be in my day-to-day work. As an Assistant Psychologist in forensic mental health, my team supports people who have experienced incredible difficulties. For some, hardship, drugs or crime might be all they had ever known and yet they are battling for behaviour change every day.

After a conversation with a colleague, it dawned on me that people may not always have a Choice Point, because they have never had the opportunity to experience or imagine an alternative. If someone's goal is to stay sober, but they don't know what it might look or feel like to wake up without having used any substances - all they have to go on is the knowledge of how good they might feel right now.

So how can they create an emotional connection to the goal of sobriety and be motivated to pursue it? Perhaps FIT can be used to explore what an alternative action may look or feel like. Then, when they are met with a Choice Point, their imagined experience of sobriety is strong enough for them to consciously hold on to and connect with, motivating them to stick with their goal.  

The Choice Point promised to deliver a motivational superpower, all by harnessing my imagination. While it was certainly exciting to experience the shifts in my own behaviours through practising FIT, it was more exciting to begin to imagine how I can apply the method to support the people I work with in achieving their goals. 

Reviewed by Joanna Bailey, an assistant psychologist based in Plymouth.