HEALTH 110

Week 5
Behaviour Change & Goal Setting

Readings
• Text: pp14-20
• D2L Coursepack:
• Making Healthy Changes, Personal Lifestyle, Goal
Setting, and Behaviour Change
• D2L Articles:
• Want a new you in 2017? Here’s how to outsmart yourself
• How to make even your toughest New Year’s resolutions
stick
• How to trick your mind to break bad habits and reach your
goals

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 Learning Outcomes
Behaviour Change & Goal Setting
1. Describe how beliefs and attitudes influence behaviour.
2. List the 3 factors that have an influence on shaping behaviours:
predisposing, enabling, and reinforcing.
3. Describe each of the stages of change
4. Describe the 6 behaviour change techniques and identify what
strategies could be used for each of the 6 techniques.
5. Describe what each letter of the SMART goal concept stands for.
6. Discuss the components of what a successful change looks like.
7. Discuss the importance of monitoring and recording specific daily
behaviour observations-including qualitative and quantitative
information prior to creating a plan and during the action stage of
carrying out a behaviour change.
8. Compose a personal long-term SMART goal and 3 short-term SMART
goals.

Behavioural Change
Critical Thinking Questions: (Discussion)
• Think about a behavioural change you made in your life in
the past two years that was successful.
What was helpful?

• Think about a behavioural change you attempted, however

you were not successful.
What factors made it difficult for you to change?

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Rebrand health behaviours as a source of
immediate happiness and well-being…

Same behavior + Different motivator =

Sustained change.

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 Predisposing Factors
• Predisposing factors encourage or inhibit a behaviour change.

• Includes our knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, values, self-efficacy,

behavioural intentions, and existing skills.

• Others: age, sex, socio-economic level, ethnicity, family

background, health-care access, and level of education.

Enabling Factors
• Enabling factors make it possible or easier for people or
populations to change their behaviours.
• Positive: individual physical capabilities, mental capacities,
resources, living conditions, societal support, accessible
facilities, programs, and services and developing skills.
• Negative: people who encourage you to choose unhealthy
lifestyle options or health services that don’t have your best
interests at heart.

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Reinforcing Factors
• Includes:
• Praise from family and friends
• Rewards from teachers or parents
• Encouragement and recognition for meeting a goal
• May include healthy community policies such as smoke-
free zones
• The availability of an on-site workplace health and
wellness program

Let us take a moment…

• What is 1 predisposing factor influencing your current
behaviour that you want to change?

• What is 1 enabling factor that would be helpful in

changing this behaviour?

• What is 1 reinforcing factor that would be helpful in

changing this behaviour?

• What is a strength of yours?

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Decision Making: Health Belief Model

Decision Making: Health Belief Model

• Perceived susceptibility
• Perceived severity
• Perceived benefits
• Cues to action
• Self-efficacy

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Stages of Change
• Precontemplation
• Not aware of a problem
• Contemplation
• Aware of a problem and considering making a change
• Preparation
• Intend to change within a few months
• Action
• Modifying their behaviour according to their plan
• Maintenance
• Continue to work at changing their behaviour
• Termination
• Behaviour is deeply ingrained and becomes a new habit

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Change Preparation

Why is it important to do careful planning and

preparation for a behaviour change?

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Goals
• To change personal habits & behaviours one needs
direction.

Common Mistakes in Goal Setting

• Too big

• Too many

• Not specific

• Not written down

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Outcome Goals vs. Behaviour Goals
• Outcome goals: based on the end product of a series of
behaviours
Example: “I will get an A in HLTH 110.”
Vs.
• Understanding what behaviours you can adopt that will
lead to the outcome/result you desire.
Example: I will go to class, I will study X amount, I will pay
attention to deadlines…

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Goal Setting Language-must be positive!

“I am committed to…”
“I will…” 
“I going to…” 
“I want to” 
“I will try to”
“I might” 
“I hope to” 
“I should” 
“I must” 

Goal Setting
1. Word goals in the present tense.
2. Focus on the process.
3. What will you do?
Examples of long-term SMART outcome goals
“I am committed to drinking 1 full litre of water on each day of
the week (Monday through Sunday) by mm/dd/yy.”
“I am committed to being totally free from biting any of my
finger nails by mm/dd/yy.”
“I am committed to doing one hour of yoga on Monday,
Wednesday, and Friday, and one hour of strength training
Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and thirty minutes of
meditation on Sunday starting mm/dd/yy.”

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 Goal Setting Example #1
• Target behaviour: Improving my poor study skills
• Long term outcome goal:
• I commit to studying or doing schoolwork for a minimum of 3 hours
per day by dd/mth/yr.

• Short term behaviour goals:

• I commit to taking written notes during lecture by dd/mth/yr.
• I commit to meeting with classmates after class to review my notes
by dd/mth/yr.
• I commit to avoiding distractions (email, internet, movies, other
people, etc) until I have completed a minimum of 2 hours per day of
schoolwork by dd/mth/yr.

Behaviour-Change Techniques
From: Making Healthy Changes, Personal Lifestyle, Goal Setting, and
Behaviour Change (D2L Reading)

1. Shaping

2. Visualization

3. Controlling the Situation

4. Modeling

5. Rewards/reinforcement

6. Changing Self-talk

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Shaping
• Build desired behaviour in small steps.

• Change one thing at a time.

Visualization
• Create a mental picture of your goal or behaviour change.

• Visualize yourself making that change.

• Watch yourself achieve that goal through your own eyes.

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Modeling
• Learn through observation.

• Observe other people and emulate their behaviours,

successes, or positive lifestyle choices.

Controlling the Situation

• Place yourself in the right setting or with the right group of
people.
• Use situations and occasions structured to exert control over
behaviour.
• Stimulus control.

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Rewards/Reinforcement
• Positive re-inforcers.

• Each of us is motivated by different re-inforcers.

• Types of reinforcers: consumable, activity, manipulative,

possessional, or social.

Changing Self-Talk
• The way you think and talk to yourself.

• Blocking or stopping negative thoughts.

• Reframing negative self-talk to positive self-talk.

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Application: Change Techniques
Of the six (6) behavior change techniques, rank the
techniques in order of your personal
understanding/preference.

Recall:
Changing Self Talk
Control the Situation/Environment
Shaping
Modeling
Visualization
Rewards

Sustainable Behaviour Change

• Changing behaviours is easy – how do we make it
SUSTAINABLE?

• Is “better health” valuable enough to motivate people to

sustain healthy behaviours?

• Think about motivation as the result, not the source.

• The “Why” determines our quality and level of motivation

for persisting in the behavior.

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Some final thoughts on behavior change:
• The pleasure/pain principle

• Think about how you link pleasure/pain to your health

behaviours

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