I attended a training on coaching people for change (thank you my Health Education Department at Kaiser) and I learned a relatively quick and easy tool for making changes.  I have tested it out a few times and found it to be helpful, especially with people who feel stuck with something they have intended to do, but haven’t quite put into action.  So if you have any New Year’s Resolutions that have already fallen by the wayside, perhaps you might like to give this technique of Focus Mapping a try.

Focus Mapping was developed by Stanford researcher BJ Fogg, who describes himself as an expert at “behavior design and persuasive technology.”  Very Silicon Valley, don’t you think? Despite its branding, this particular tool only requires a white board and some post it notes, or you can simply do it on a piece of paper.  

The first step is to think about the change you want to make.  Let’s say for example, just a random idea out of thin air, you sit a lot at work and are kind of lazy when you finish your day at a Health Center.  You’ve been intending to get more exercise, as there are days your activity tracker wonders if you’re still alive, but you haven’t been successful.  So you take your white board (or paper) and write “Most Effective” at the top and “Least Effective” at the bottom.  Then you mark “Less Likely” on the left hand side and “Most Likely” on the right side.  Now is where the exciting part comes in.  Begin to brainstorm ideas that might help you reach your goal.  Don’t judge or evaluate them, just try to come up with some creative ideas that would be steps that would help you move toward your goal.  Write each idea on one post-it note. For example, one post-it might say “pack your bag with sneakers and work out clothes the night before”.  Another might say “park your car in the far parking lot.” Try to come up with as many ideas as you can.

Once you have a pile of post-it notes, evaluate each idea on the axis of your whiteboard and stick it on.  So if the idea is “run in the morning before work,” you would ask yourself how effective this would be. Highly effective, you think.  Then ask how likely is this? Now the hard part is to be as honest with yourself as possible. While the idea sounds great, and you would love to be the kind of person with that motivation and drive, the truth is, it is not an idea that is likely to happen.  So place the post-it in the top left corner of the whiteboard, in the highly effective, but not likely category. Now go through each of your ideas and place it on the board. Once you finish it will look something like this:

Focus mapping now has identified several steps that are good places to start as a way to break through stuckness – the post-its in the “more likely and more effective” quadrant. These are behaviors that  have been vetted for changes that are likely to be effective, but most importantly, as likely to be completed. Focus mapping is also a good way to learn about yourself, as it helps explain why you might have been stuck.  For example, if your plan was to run in the morning, you will feel like a failure each day you don’t complete your plan, and give up. With your honesty, you can either change your plan, and decide that running in the morning as an idea just isn’t a good choice and choose something else to meet your overall goal, or it may motivate you to make it happen and you can break that change down into smaller steps, such as starting out by walking the block before breakfast.

As a tool, focus mapping is relatively easy, but it can generate a lot of good ideas and clarify where you are with a particular change.  You can use it for everything from drinking more water to getting a new job. The key, and this is the hardest part for most of us, is being honest with yourself about what you are and are not likely to do.  Try to be non-judgmental, as the goal of the entire activity is to pave the way toward change.  Focusing in on small steps, but ones you will actually do, will be bring bigger results in the long run!