The G.I. Joe Fallacy, a Cognitive Bias We All Have
Here’s how you can fight back
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I shouldn’t eat chocolate if I want to lose this pandemic belly and these pandemic tits I’ve developed.
I should do yoga every morning to improve cognitive function, mobility and balance so that I can join the niche group of people who seek to achieve human longevity.
If I want to finish this article, I need to stay at my desk and write. Rather than going for a walk around my flat after every 90 words, I type.
I know these facts, yet I struggle to implement my knowledge into action. This is because of the cognitive biases that we all have. The one I’m specifically talking about here is the G.I. Joe Fallacy, coined by Ariella S. Kristal and Laurie R. Santos. Taken from the 80s cartoon, G.I. Joe, where at the end of each episode there was a call to action followed by the phrase: “Now you know, and knowing is half the battle”.
Turns out, shockingly, that G.I. Joe wasn’t a psychologist nor a self-improvement guru. He was wrong. There’s a disconnection between our knowledge and our actions. Knowing is half the battle when you want to go home and need to remember where you live. But the same isn’t true when the knowledge gained is counter to habits we have already formed and require actively doing something new.
Knowing is only a tiny fraction of the battle for these types of knowledge. Even knowing that you have this cognitive bias is still going to be just a fraction of the battle ahead of you.
So what can you do about this? The answer is simple: form new habits. Habit-forming is a tried and tested way to create actual change. Unfortunately, it took me several attempts at trying to form new habits before I finally succeeded at it. So, if you’re also struggling, here’s how I’m going head-to-head with an 80s action figure.
How to form habits
Most of these I learned from Atomic Habits by James Clear. I highly recommend it.
Small habits
Start with something small that you can easily repeat every day. Once that habit becomes a part of your daily routine without a reminder, add to it. For example, a 10-minute jog in the morning could build to a full 10-minute sprint or a 20-minute jog.
For me, my first simple task was getting out of bed as soon as my alarm goes off. During the lockdown, I developed a nasty habit of staying in bed, as I didn’t need to go anywhere. This led to me binge-watching Netflix shows all day. Since retraining myself to do that, I’ve added morning workouts to my morning routine.
Tip: Make sure your small steps are just that and not giant leaps. There’s no way I could have gone from bingeing Netflix to going for an hour’s run every morning. Try the two-minute rule, increasing the activity by two minutes every couple of days or every week.
To be a habit, it needs to be a behaviour that becomes automatic
They require a cue and a response to that cue. Our brains are wired to seek rewards from such actions. For example, waking up in the morning is my cue and the reward I get from having a shower first thing is that it makes me alert and feel energised.
Building new habits requires hard-to-miss cues and a plan of action.
Cues trigger habits. James Clear uses an example that many of us fall prey to - the buzz of our phone. Anyone else terrified by how easily a notification on their phone can distract them from just about anything?
However, you can use trigger responses to your benefit. Change your surroundings and general environment to encourage better habits. I’ve been thinking about writing on Medium for a couple of years now. But, only posted my first two stories last month. I originally wanted to start after my father’s death. As a way to change direction in my life. Now, I’m currently trying to form a habit of writing every day by wearing his watch first thing in the morning as I write.
Use implementation intentions
Pick a time for your extra activity, rather than a general statement. My example is; Don’t say “I’ll write more on Medium” I’m writing every weekday from 7 am till 9 am. Clear uses this example of how implementation intentions worked for voters in America.
Friction
Make the habit you want to adopt as easy as possible. Reduce friction to your current habits. As you can tell, my habit building has been all about my morning routine. In order to make this easier to implement, I now clean my flat at night before I go to bed. I imagine my neighbours love the sound of a hoover going off at 11 pm. But not doing it in the morning means I can jump straight into the new morning habits I’m trying to form.
or
Increase the friction. Clear suggests removing the batteries from your TV remote or unplugging your TV if you want to break the habit of mindlessly turning on the TV.
Review and re-evaluate
Below is an example of a notebook I keep for monitoring, reviewing and adjusting the habits I am trying to form:
The following week I decided to cut back my alcohol consumption:
As you can see by some of my previous examples. I wiped out entire days because of my excessive alcohol consumption. It isn’t rocket science, I should have known, but knowing isn’t even half the battle, is it? So, I committed to being an adult and not drinking on a school night. Since then, I’ve had the mental and physical capacity to stick to habits. Keep your journal in whatever format you want, but use it to review and evaluate which habits to build on or break into smaller actions if they aren’t sticking.
Good luck habit forming!
