How To Hack Long-Term Behavioral Change According To Research
Long-term behavioral change is hard — New Year resolutions are the perfect example of it. Many of us can relate can probably relate to not succeeding in our resolution to exercise more. Why is that and how can we succeed instead? In order to succeed in creating long-term behavioral change, we first need to understand how behavioral change works.
Dr. Bj Fogg’s who has studied behavioral change for 20 years and who currently conducts research at Stanford concludes that only three things will change behavior in the long term.
Option A. Have an epiphany
Option B. Change your environment (what surrounds you)
Option C. Take baby steps
Option A
He rules out epiphany as a practical way of creating long-term change and instead encourages changing environment and taking baby steps to create lasting change.
Option B
A good example about changing your environment is not being able to study at home because your habits in that context are quite ingrained. You might for instance, be used to watching tv when you get home, or waste time some other way. On the other hand, if instead you go to the library, your context is completely different, which in turn makes your habits completely different.
Option C
Through his research he has come up with The Fogg Behavior Model , which describes how behavior is formulated by motivation and ability. The more motivation you have, the less ability you need to do something, and vice versa, the more ability you have, the less motivation you need to do something. This is something we have to keep in mind, because having high motivation at all time is not sustainable.
Why do we fail?
Your motivation constantly fluctuates. For instance, it can be high while setting New Year resolutions, but as time passes it drops. Naturally, following the Fogg Behavior Model, it means that having less motivation equals being able to do less things. This is why it’s important to take advantage of those temporary moments of high motivation to help you succeed in times of lower motivation.
Harness the fleeting high motivation
During these high motivation peaks, don’t do simple, one time behaviors, or easy tasks, since these can be done when you have lower motivation. Instead, you can harness the motivation peak before it subsides by…
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