Habit technique · Goals & planning · 10–30 minutes
Review and adjust the goal
Level: Beginner · Free — no account needed to read
Regularly look at a goal and its habits and decide whether to keep, change or drop them based on what actually happened.
Why it may help
Plans made at the start rarely fit perfectly. Reviewing lets you adjust early, instead of discovering months later that a habit quietly failed.
When to use it
- Progress has stalled
- Life has changed
- You have too many habits
How to apply it
- Pick a regular time — weekly or monthly.
- Look at what you planned and what happened.
- Decide for each goal: keep, adjust or drop.
- Write the one change you’ll make.
An example
A monthly review showed Adam’s reading goal was too big for exam season, so he lowered it until exams ended.
The common mistake
Reviewing only after something has collapsed.
Practise it
Look at one goal and decide: keep, adjust or drop — and why.
What the evidence says
Research-supported: Good studies support it, but there are fewer of them, the effects are modest, or they come from a narrow set of situations.
Reviewing behaviour and outcome goals is a recognised technique in the BCT Taxonomy and part of the feedback loop self-regulation research describes.
Behaviour Change Technique Taxonomy (v1) codes: 1.5, 1.7.
Sources
- Michie, Richardson, Johnston, Abraham, Francis, Hardeman and colleagues (2013). The Behavior Change Technique Taxonomy (v1) of 93 Hierarchically Clustered Techniques. Annals of Behavioral Medicine. doi:10.1007/s12160-013-9486-6
- Carver & Scheier (1982). Control theory: A useful conceptual framework for personality–social, clinical, and health psychology. Psychological Bulletin. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.92.1.111
Problems it helps with
- “I don’t see any progress.” — You’ve been at it for a while, and it doesn’t feel like anything is changing.
- “I have too many habits.” — You’re tracking a lot, and most days feel like a list you can’t finish.
Lessons behind it
- The weekly review — Ten minutes a week to see what worked, what didn’t, and what to change. (6 min · Beginner)
- Adjust, don’t abandon — When it stops working, change the difficulty or the plan — not the whole idea. (6 min · Intermediate)