If-Then Plans: How Implementation Intentions Help You Follow Through

Most of us don't fail at goals because we never wanted them. We fail in the gap between wanting and doing: we forget, we miss the moment, or we hesitate when the time comes and then the day is gone.

Psychologist Peter Gollwitzer's research addresses that gap. His answer is a deceptively simple tool called an implementation intention, better known as an if-then plan. Instead of only deciding what you want, you decide in advance exactly when, where and how you will act.

This guide explains what the research found, why if-then plans work, and how to write good ones.

The intention-behavior gap

In a 1999 American Psychologist article, Gollwitzer noted that strong intentions are realized more often than weak ones, but that intentions account for only 20% to 30% of the variance in behavior. Much of that gap comes from people who have good intentions but fail to act on them.

A later summary by Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran, posted by the National Cancer Institute, cited a review of health behaviors in which people translated their good intentions into action only 53% of the time. They grouped the problems into two families: failing to get started, which includes forgetting, missing opportunities and second thoughts at the critical moment, and getting derailed along the way by distractions, old habits or bad moods.

Goal intentions versus implementation intentions

Gollwitzer distinguishes two kinds of intention. A goal intention has the form "I intend to reach X." It commits you to an outcome. An implementation intention is subordinate to it and has the form "When situation X arises, I will perform response Y." It spells out the when, where and how.

Compare "I intend to work on my budget this month" with "If it is Sunday after breakfast, then I will sit at the kitchen table and update my budget spreadsheet." The first states a wish. The second decides in advance what you will do at a specific moment.

What the research found

Some of the early studies Gollwitzer described are easy to picture. In one, university students named projects they intended to complete over the Christmas break. For difficult projects, about two-thirds of the students who had formed if-then plans completed them, compared with about one-fourth of those who hadn't. For easy projects, completion was high, around 80%, with or without a plan.

In another study, students were asked to write a report on how they spent Christmas Eve within 48 hours. Three-fourths of those who had specified exactly when and where they would write it did so in time, compared with one-third of those who hadn't.

Gollwitzer and Sheeran's 2006 meta-analysis pulled together 94 studies and found that forming implementation intentions had a medium-to-large effect on goal attainment (d = .65). The effect was similar for getting started (d = .61) and for staying on track (d = .77).

Why if-then plans work

Gollwitzer's research points to two processes. First, choosing a specific situation in advance makes that situation more mentally accessible, so you are more likely to notice it when it arrives, even when you are busy with other things. Second, linking the situation to a response makes acting more automatic. You no longer have to deliberate at the critical moment.

Gollwitzer described this as "passing the control of one's behavior on to the environment." The decision is made once, ahead of time, and the situation itself becomes the reminder.

How to write an effective if-then plan

Gollwitzer and Sheeran offer practical guidance:

1. Identify the problem first. Is your issue forgetting, missing a narrow window, losing your nerve, or getting distracted? The plan should target that problem.
2. Be precise. A plan with "tomorrow" as the cue and "exercise more" as the response doesn't help, because you still have to decide in the moment. Their example of a precise plan: "If it is 5pm on Monday, then I will jog home from work!"
3. Choose a cue you will actually encounter. Cues can be external, like a time, place, object or person, or internal, like a strong feeling.
4. Use the if-then wording. In one study they described, a plan phrased as "If it is Wednesday at [time], then I will…" led people to start their task much closer to the intended time than a plain statement of the same time.
5. If you need several plans, keep them non-overlapping, so the same cue doesn't trigger two different responses.

Plans for obstacles and distractions

If-then plans can also target the moment you are most likely to slip. The cue becomes the obstacle itself: "If I feel like skipping my study session because I'm tired, then I will do just the first 10 minutes."

For distractions, the wording matters. In research Gollwitzer described, plans to ignore a distraction ("Whenever the distraction arises, I will ignore it!") generally helped people stay on task, while plans to push harder at the task helped only when motivation was low or medium.

If-then planning is also the final step of WOOP (Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan), a strategy associated with psychologist Gabriele Oettingen. After naming your wish, its best outcome and the obstacle in your way, you write a plan in the form "If [obstacle], then I will [action]."

When if-then plans don't help much

If-then plans are not a substitute for wanting the goal. Gollwitzer and Sheeran report that strong effects appeared mainly when the underlying goal intention was strong and active. A study by Koestner and colleagues they cite found if-then plans helped more with personal projects that matched people's own interests and values than with projects driven by outside pressure.

They also add less when a goal is easy to begin with, as the Christmas-break study showed. Save your planning effort for the steps you tend to put off.

And if a plan gets blocked, you are not worse off. Gollwitzer and Sheeran describe evidence that people with if-then plans made more, and more vigorous, attempts to reach a goal when their first path was blocked.

Key takeaways

• An if-then plan links a specific situation to a specific action: "If X happens, then I will do Y."
• A 2006 meta-analysis of 94 studies found a medium-to-large effect of if-then planning on goal attainment.
• Plans work by making the cue easy to notice and the response close to automatic.
• Be precise, choose cues you will really meet, and target the specific problem that usually stops you.
• If-then plans help most when you truly want the goal and the step is hard to start.

Sources

• Peter M. Gollwitzer, Implementation Intentions: Strong Effects of Simple Plans, American Psychologist (July 1999)
• Peter M. Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran, Implementation Intentions, National Cancer Institute, Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (construct summary)
• WOOP my life, Practice: How Can I Practice WOOP?