I spent years wanting to smoke while also wanting to quit smoking.
Both at the same time. All the time. For years.
I’d wake up craving a cigarette. I’d go buy a packet and a lighter, only to throw everything out after 1 or 2 sticks because I felt so disgusted with myself. Until the next day, when the cycle would repeat.
I don’t even want to think about how much money I wasted over the years given the price of tobacco in Singapore.
Hopefully your unwanted habits are less expensive than mine used to be.
But you probably know what it’s like to want 2 opposite things at the exact same time.
And you might recognise this feeling in other areas of your life:
You want to get fit AND you resent sacrificing your evenings to it.
You want to eat healthier AND you don’t want to cook every night (and really don’t want the washing up).
You want to drink less AND you don’t want to be the one explaining why at dinner.
You want to be in bed by 10pm AND you also want the 1 calm hour of the day when nobody is asking you for anything.
In behaviour change we call this ambivalence, meaning that you want to change and don’t want to change at the same time.
Wellness culture only ever lets one side speak.
“Of course you want to be healthier, so then why aren’t you?!?”
Except... maybe part of you doesn’t?
Recognising our own ambivalence is helpful, and definitely worth paying attention to.
When a goal feels like something we ‘want to’ do, we face fewer obstacles and feel less pressure from the things competing with it.
When a goal feels like something we ‘have to’ do, we see more obstacles and more temptations everywhere around us.
And suddenly the mildest inconvenience becomes a perfectly good reason not to do the thing you said you would do.
For me it’s usually because it’s raining, I’m tired, the class is at a weird time anyway and there’s nothing in the fridge. Sounds familiar?
A goal can be yours, and the resistance can be yours too.
So what do you do with the part of you that doesn’t want the healthy thing?
You get curious about it!
Maybe exercising 4 times a week sounds great until you realise you’re giving up 4 evenings you actually quite like.
Maybe eating “better” means thinking about food even more than you already do.
I’ve written before about goals that were never yours in the first place but this is different.
In this case you do want the goal, you might just not want everything that currently comes with it.
All of that is useful information.
Once you embrace the dissonance and understand what’s pulling you, you can design better habits around honest goals.
⚡️ Your Wellbeing by Design experiment: The AND Test
All you need for this quick activity is 5 minutes, pen and paper or your notes app, and an open curious mind.
Pick 1 intention or habit you keep fighting (if you found your first domino last week, use that one).
Answer these 2 questions as honestly as possible (zero judgement either way, for real):
I don’t want to do this because...
I want to do this because...
Ask yourself: what is it you don’t want to lose?
Redesign the goal around that. Can you change the timing, the size, the method, the rules? Or maybe decide you don’t want that goal enough and you let it go, on purpose.
Here’s my filled-in example so you have a sense of what it might look like:
I don’t want to go to bed at 10 because that’s the only hour that feels like mine AND I want to go to bed at 10 because I’m wrecked by 3pm.
I don’t want to lose: my 1 hour of calm in the evenings.
The redesign: the hour doesn’t disappear, it moves. 9 to 10pm is mine, phone and all, then bed. Or I choose 10.30pm and stop pretending 10pm is a rule I keep failing.
Steps 3 and 4 are super important because they turn a pros and cons list into a real decision you make.
So here’s the deal: you don’t have to win the argument with yourself every time.
You just need to hear both sides of the argument and pick a plan you can actually live with.
Much better deal than a packet and a lighter in the bin every single morning, if you ask me!
With love,
Noemie x
Key Sources
Milyavskaya, M., Inzlicht, M., Hope, N., and Koestner, R. (2015) ‘Saying “no” to temptation: Want-to motivation improves self-regulation by reducing temptation rather than by increasing self-control’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 109(4), pp. 677–693 <https://selfdeterminationtheory.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/2015_Milyavskaya_etal_JPSP.pdf>.
Noemie Mooney is an ACE Certified Health Coach, ICF-trained Behaviour Change Specialist, certified yoga instructor, and creator of the MAKE SPACE Method™. Trained in design thinking at the Stanford d.school, she writes Unwritten Potential, a newsletter about evidence-based wellbeing, sustainable habits, mental wellbeing, and health behaviour change for smart, health-curious people who want to feel their best without making it a full-time job.
Loved this one - it really hits home on so many pieces if the resistance we feel when trying to make big changes. "You want to change and don’t want to change at the same time." 🤯