A Simple Hack to Stick to Any Goal… using a Rubber Band

Preface: A couple years ago I launched the Everest goal-setting app and many people from this community liked it, so I’m back to share something new (full-disclosure: I am sharing a product but also have a useful hack you can use regardless):

One day, I realized that despite having 3 reminders set on my phone to “do pushups & take vitamins,” I STILL WASN’T DOING IT. Having studied behavior change for years and having co-founded a company whose sole purpose was to help people stick to their goals, I found this lack of consistency in my own life frustrating.

Practically speaking, I was well aware that to turn a goal into action, three things need to come together: First, you must have the ability to do the task, second, the motivation or desire to do it in the first place, and third, a trigger that sparks you to do it (if you’re not already familiar with this framework, you should checkout the work of BJ Fogg, a behavioral researcher at Stanford).

Being well aware of these three principles, I decided to do a little brainstorming and came up with a simple idea:

1. I chose a goal I could do every day (e.g. 10 push-ups, take my vitamins, express gratitude, 5 min meditation, floss, etc…)
2. I wore a rubber band on my right wrist to remind myself to do my goal (this made it nearly impossible to forget my goal since I saw it all day)
3. AFTER I reached my goal for the day, I switched the rubber band from my right wrist to my left wrist

What this did, was give me a daily goal to get the rubber band from one wrist to the other and the only time I was allowed to switch it was AFTER I DID MY DAILY GOAL (pushups, meditation, etc…)

This simple hack leverages several key insights from behavioral research:

1. Choosing a simple action you can do daily decreases the likeliness that ability will hold you back from sticking to your goal
2. The act of switching the rubber band from one wrist to the other works as both negative and positive reinforcement, which according to research in operant conditioning adds to your motivation or desire to do the action
3. Perhaps most obviously, wearing and seeing the rubber band throughout your day acts as a trigger, reminding you to do your goal

This ended up being very effective for me: I did morning push-ups for 235 days in a row and after a couple months, I even built the morning routine I’ve always wanted to have but previously struggled with.

Eventually, I became tired of wearing a dirty rubber band every day, so I decided to create an improved version of the same concept. It’s called FLIP BAND and I just launched my first kickstarter for it earlier this month.

Here’s a link if you’re interested (the video is pretty fun I think): http://kck.st/1wkTD88

And you can use FLIP BAND for all sorts of things:

If you’re not interested in a product, that’s fine, just try doing this with a rubber band — I’m telling you, it sounds silly but it works. Granted, no tool will reach your goals for you, but this simple hack serves as a trigger for your new habit and gives you positive reinforcement which will strengthen the likeliness of sticking to your goal.

I originally had no intention of turning this into a product but after seeing how effective it was for a few of my friends (close to 20 now), I thought “heck, why not?” So here I am, launching a Kickstarter, and sharing it with you internet folks!

If you like it, share it (the more of you guys back our Kickstarter, the more cool stuff our manufacturer will let us do). If you have feedback or criticism, leave a comment and we can have a discussion.

Either way, have an awesome 2015! And remember… a year
from now, you’ll wish you had started today.

Get started now at MyFlipBand.com

Notes & Acknowledgments:

For more ideas on how to transform your habits and design the life of your dreams, join my free newsletter.

Thank you:
BJ Fogg, Nir Eyal, & James Clear — for constantly developing new ideas on how to transform our habits.

Li’el Morris — for emphasizing that making life changes should feel good and being so supportive despite the late nights.

The entire MC Crew (you know who you are) — for pushing me to make this a reality in the first place and helping with the launch.

To learn more about a simple way to stick to any goal, click here.