Kindness matters: Helping people to achieve their goals by overcoming the barriers to being self-compassionate

目标很重要——它们影响我们的想法和行为，甚至表达我们是谁（例如，有慢跑目标的人可能会称自己为“跑步者”）。不幸的是，尽管人们往往有最好的意图，但他们仍然难以实现他们的目标（因此流行的短语，如“通往地狱的路是由善意铺就的”）。我们的研究探讨了人们挣扎的原因，并找到了帮助的方法。大多数重要的目标（例如，定期锻炼，按时完成工作，成为一个更好的父母）需要在很长一段时间内持续努力。因此，人们不可避免地会遇到失误和挫折（例如，他们今天很辛苦，没有按计划去跑步）。对这类失误的常见反应包括自我批评和自责（例如，这都是我的错），这会让人们感觉很糟糕，进而导致他们推迟或放弃自己的目标（例如，跑步不适合我）。我们的研究调查了这样一种观点，即改变人们对这些情况的反应可能有助于他们实现目标。具体来说，我们建议帮助人们以自我同情的方式回应；这意味着在这些情况下，以一种友好的、非评判的、接受的方式回应自己（例如，有人可能会告诉自己，每个人都有艰难的一天）可以帮助人们从这些失误中恢复过来。不幸的是，证据也表明，对一些人来说，用自我同情来回应可能是一项挑战。然而，目前还没有一个连贯的解释来解释为什么会出现这种情况，或者理解谁可能会挣扎以及为什么会挣扎。因此，拟议的研究引入了一个新的框架来理解人们在自我同情方面面临的挑战，并利用这个框架提出了一些新的方法来帮助人们在努力实现目标的过程中遇到失误时做出自我同情的反应。然后，我们将与地方和国家组织合作，在三种不同的应用环境中测试这些战略的有效性。我们的第一组研究将调查和比较三种策略的效果，这些策略旨在促进对目标追求失误的自我同情反应：(i)心理对比（思考自我同情的积极结果以及阻碍自我同情的障碍），（ii）盘点（思考过去自我同情的时间），以及（iii）形成实施意图（如果-然后计划，具体说明如何在困难后以自我同情回应）。将根据三大类目标对这些战略进行评价：健康行为、工作/学业和关系。我们还将测试哪些人可能会以自我同情的方式努力应对目标缺失，为什么会这样，以及我们制定的策略是否对这些人也有效。我们的主要研究将应用第一组研究的见解来测试帮助人们自我同情的工具在关键环境中是否有效。具体来说，我们将与一家健身房、一家出版商和一家育儿机构合作，调查这三种策略（单独或联合使用）在帮助人们同情地应对在追求锻炼目标、工作截止日期和育儿方面的失误方面的影响。总的来说，拟议中的研究将有助于理解为什么人们难以自我同情（提出一个可以在未来使用的框架），并开发和测试新的方法，帮助人们思考如何在面对失误或挫折时以更富有同情心的方式回应，而不是以批评的方式回应。除了对理论做出贡献外，拟议的研究还可能通过促进心理健康和提高生产力而产生重要的社会效益。

Goals are important - they influence how we think and behave, and even express who we are (e.g., someone who has the goal to go jogging, may refer to themselves as 'a runner'). Unfortunately, although people often have the best intentions they still struggle to achieve their goals (hence the popularity of phrases like 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'). Our research explores why people struggle and identifies ways to help. Most important goals (e.g., regularly exercising, completing work on time, being a better parent) require continued efforts over a lengthy period of time. Therefore, people inevitably encounter lapses and setbacks (e.g., they have a hard day and don't go running as planned). Common reactions to such lapses include self-criticism and self-blame (e.g., this is all my fault), which can make people feel bad and, in turn, lead them to delay or abandon their goals (e.g., running isn't for me). Our research investigates the idea that changing how people respond to these situations may help them to achieve their goals. Specifically, we propose that helping people to respond self-compassionately; which means responding in a kind, non-judgmental, and accepting way towards themselves in these situations (e.g., someone might tell themselves that everyone has a hard day from time to time) can help people to bounce back from these lapses. Unfortunately, evidence also indicates that responding with self-compassion can be challenging for some people.However, currently there is no coherent explanation for why this is that case, of for understanding who is likely to struggle and why. The proposed research therefore introduces a new framework for understanding the challenges people have for being self-compassionate and uses this to propose some new ways to help people to respond self-compassionately if they experience a lapse while striving for their goals. We will then go on to test the effectiveness of these strategies in three different applied settings in partnership with local and national organizations. Our first set of studies will investigate and compare the effects of three strategies designed to promote self-compassionate responses to lapses in goal pursuit: (i) mental contrasting (thinking about positive outcomes of being self-compassionate followed by obstacles that stand in the way of doing so), (ii) stocktaking (thinking about times in the past when one was self-compassionate), and (iii) forming implementation intentions (if-then plans that specify how to respond with self-compassion after difficulty). The strategies will be evaluated in the context of three broad types of goals: health behaviours, work/academic, and relationships. We will also test who is likely to struggle to respond to goal lapses in a self-compassionate way, why this is, and if the strategies that we develop are effective for these individuals as well. Our main set of studies will apply the insights from the first set of studies to test whether the tools for helping people to be self-compassionate are effective in key contexts. Specifically, we will work with a gym, a publisher, and a parenting organisation to investigate the impact of the three strategies (alone or in combination) in helping people to respond compassionately to a lapse in the pursuit of exercise goals, work deadlines, and parenting. Taken together, the proposed research will help to understand why people struggle to be self-compassionate (proposing a framework that can be used in the future) and develop and test new ways to help people to think about how they can respond in a more compassionate, rather than a critical way, when facing lapses or setbacks. In addition to making a contribution to theory, the proposed research also has the potential to have important societal benefits by promoting mental health and increasing productivity.