Utilising More Strategies to Improve the Chance of Getting the Change You Are After

It is my goal to use current research to investigate how we can use science to help us achieve what we want. This work will inform the development of an app which helps individuals achieve their goals and choose their behaviours instead of having them engineered by our environments. My dreams of the app can be found here.

The first paper, which I was excited, to include looks at the impact of our toolbox on how successful we are with achieving our goals. For clarity, text which is Dark Orange is my attempt at presenting the information from the research paper, the rest you have me to blame. You can find full details of the research paper at the bottom of the post.

Having a larger strategy repertoire—or strategy “toolbox”— is a fundamental individual difference that has important implications for helping people achieve their goals.

Kaitlyn M. Werner et al.

Research published early this year (January 2025) theorised and tested that having a larger number of strategies helps individuals achieve their goals. This “strategy repertoire” formed the basis of the research, where the authors sought to see if a larger repertoire improved goal attainment. Their research shows at times a very large correlation between the size of the repertoire and the behaviour changes.

While this research is new in goal attainment, it has history in emotional regulation and coping. Best of all, in the area of emotional regulation it has been shown to span many different domains, or areas of attention.

There is logic to think that something proven in emotional regulation and self control could help in goal achievement. This most recent research is useful as it looks how to bring it into the area of goal attainment.

The impact of a larger toolbox was looked at, both in terms of how participants felt about their improvement and direct measures for the goal such as eating more vegetables.

The research attempted to look at if having a larger repertoire was helpful over different domains. Specifically they looked at healthy eating, academic performance and financial goals.

The ways which the strategies can be defined is complex, and unnecessary for the purpose of this post. However, the broadness of the tools appears to be important more than the raw number of varieties of the same tool, e.g. 15 different sized spanners won’t help if you need a screw driver.

Research participants who had a larger set of strategies were subjectively happier with their progress towards their goals. Looking across all samples this correlation ranged from large to very large.

The study showed that some objective measures were linked to strategy toolbox size. It was not therefore associated with all measures; both the amount of snacking, and the individuals satisfaction with their credit score were not linked to the strategy repertoire. However, consuming more healthy food, and improved financial behaviours were aided by increased number of tools.

So, it appears a wide range of tools in your behaviour change toolbox is going to be a useful aid. As above this research is exciting for me, for three reasons:

• My desire was to build an app which has multiple tools/tactics/interventions that can be used. In my experience just because something works today doesn’t mean it will work tomorrow or in a different situation.
• I have often found books which present a single super solution enticing. However, the success when it comes to implementing for me has always been much poorer than the authors would suggest.
• It strengthens my premise to use the Resolute app as a way to introduce multiple tactics for people to find what works for them and their situations.

Firstly there are a couple of things to be aware of:

• Those who have a larger repertoire are also likely to have an interest in personal development, and therefore are likely more motivated to try to set and achieve goals – i.e. they take it more seriously
• The research focused on how the strategies were used in response to temptations that would have hindered progress – i.e. it is not looking at all aspects of achieving a goal, but mainly how to prevent a goal getting offtrack.

These are not limiting things, but they reinforce the use case for the app to help more people develop their toolbox, and also to extend it beyond self control to other positive reinforcing practices.

If you have tried things before, and they have worked, or perhaps they no longer work, it may just be time to pick up a new tool. While you may have found a strategy that is amazing (from your favourite book), it doesn’t mean it will work for those around you. Similarly, don’t compare your success harshly against others who seem to be successful. Like one my best weekend activities, it may be time to take a trip to the hardware store for some new tools.

I personally will be exploring more on how to assess the size of your toolbox, and how to use that to choose what strategies might best compliment your current strategies (potentially a future blog).

1. Sign up to receive notifications of new blogs to hear about new tools for your toolbox [ at the bottom of every page on my site ].
2. Try something new, after all if you want to change something you will need to change something.
3. Leave a comment and share your experiences around what strategies have helped you with changing your habits or reaching your goals.

Reference

Werner, K. M., Wu, R., Gross, J. J., & Friese, M. (2025). When bigger is better: size of strategy repertoire predicts goal attainment. Motivation and Emotion, 49, 31–45.