how to change behavior
TRANSCRIPT
What do you wish for?
• Wish you exercised more
• Wish you ate better
• Wish you managed your time
manjachevera.blogspot.com
What do you do about it?
• Beat yourself up about it
• Motivate yourself more
• Put in MORE EFFORT
nevertheless-psst.blogspot.com
Try doing the OPPOSITE
• Put in LESS effort
• Don't worry so much about motivation
• Push yourself less
www.last.fm
Do MORE by doing LESS
Build tiny habits
Break behaviors into baby steps
Just make it easier to do things you already want to do
readysethappy.blogspot.com
Drinking More Water(Level 1)
Sometimes you get really excited about doing something?
- “damn, I should really drink more water”- a moment of inspiration during your week
Perfect, that’s a motivation wave
- right now you're on a crest - use it cause it’s gonna go away quick
Get a big bottle
- fill it, place it in a prominent space in your room as a water station- it should be the first thing you see when you walk in
Put up a big poster in your room
- it could say “Water is Life” - it acts as a trigger or reminder
positivemoney.org.uk
Watch the magic happen
Instead of pushing yourself harder to drink water
- used a motivation wave - changed your environment to make that behavior EASIER to do in the future
Instead of reminding yourself to drink water all the time
- created a system that automatically TRIGGERED you every time you walked into your room – already have way too many things to remember in your life
magicbritejanitorial.com
Gyming more(Level 2)
Target a specific behavior
- "gymming more" is a fuzzy, vague behavior to design for
- "getting to the gym on wed after 2pm class" is a lot crisper - easy to breakdown
When you hit a motivation wave in your week
- set up a space in the corner of your room that's your gym corner- make sure it's in plain sight- have all your gym stuff there - bags, shoes, clothes
Think of an anchor behavior
- this will remind you to go to the gym, something you do on a regular basis- when I come back to the room after 2pm class on wed, I will grab my stuff from my gym corner and head to the gym- you should also set an alarm on your phone
downtothebasement.com
But first, what's the point of just getting to the gym?- the rest of the behaviors that lead to you working out cascade
automatically from there - you feel kinda stupid ditching the gym once you get there
By using motivation waves- we structured future behavior when we were pumped up
We used an anchor behavior- a regular behavior we already have
- triggers this new behavior
We changed our environment- to reinforce the behavior
- act as another trigger
Watch the magic happenmagicbritejanitorial.com
Creating time to reflect(Level 3)
Start small with an easy target behavior- Once a week, on the bike ride home from class take a 5 min detour
Celebrate every time you do the tiny habit- Pat yourself on the back, do a victory dance, jump for joy
Change up your environment- Virtual environments are environments too!
- Switch your iphone background to a peaceful scene
- Take a deep breath at least once a day when you see the scene
Shape your behavior - slowly increase the frequency and duration of the bike ride detours
- watch the tiny habit build into a strong rhythm
- share your wins with friends for social accountability
americanthinker.com
Starting to see some patterns?Motivation is useful but not the whole story- motivation waves are useful for doing hard things that make future behaviors
easier - changing the environment
Make things EASIER to do, increase ability - start with a crispy target behavior and then break
it into tiny steps
Have triggers or reminders to do the tiny steps
- triggers can be external - alarm
- triggers can be internal - anchor behavior
Slow and steady is the key - celebrate every step of the way
- shape your behavior by increasing frequency and durations of the tiny steps
bittbox.com