Can you stick with your good habit ?
Stick with it is a book talking about how we can create new habit and stop the bad one by different means of psychological, neurological , and social way to do it
The basic principle is psychological forces are push/ pull people to make choices. Those forces determine what people do or feel. They create emotional / chemical / neurological changes.
Force #1 Step-ladder
Focus on finding the right first step, take time to reflect and repeat. Dreaming too big sometimes can be discouraging or feel like quitting because its too big and too far. We should focus on achievable steps and goals. Step is little task that we can take to check off toward a goal. Stepladder isn’t a formula to accomplished dream, its a formula to keep you on your path. To change behavior, focus on day to day process , rather than the outcome it-selves. Brain release dopamine when we get more than expected.
There are 2 important ingredient for stepladder, first is plan the right incremental step, goal and dreams. Second is reflection, look back successfully completed behavior and start celebration.
Force #2 Community
Community will lead to lasting changes if its members are engaged. Its like a social magnet. Why people don’t go communities that help them then ?
1. Its time consuming
2. Stigma to ask help in face to face
There are 6 ingredient of successful community
1. Need to trust
2. Need to fit-in
3. Need to self-worth
4. Need for social magnet
5. Need to be rewarded
6. Need to feel empower
To build a successful community, 15% of peer has to be a role model, as they have same demographics / psychological characteristic so they can relate, also the achieved level of success in area of change is seen so it give the community hope, also they are more interested to help other members.
There are 4 types of model peer can be used inside the community
4. Home grown role model
The main purpose of the community is to get people talking about the right thing. You want people talk about the “product”not the “ads”.
Force #3 : Important
People do things because of the context, by being in the right place in the right time. You change as its the MOST important thing in your life. Top 3 important thing in our life : money, social connection and Health. Physical warmth is similar to emotional worth, that’s why the force of important lead us make wrong decision sometimes – like all the health product. We have to feel the important in order to keep the new habit emotional connected.
Force #4 : Easy
People want things easy for th em to do, they enjoy things that are easy to do , they will keep things easy to do
How to make things easy ?
1. Control the environment
By creating environment its was not easy to disagree, people can be lead to do anything.
2. Limit choices
Too many choices lead people tough to do anything
3. Create a road map
Don’t need to think about it, just A to B with a map
Have a action plan make it easier that people will do anything
There is a phoneme called “Curse of knowledge “, the more you know the more you assume others know. People also overconfident in their predictions about how they/others will act in future. Day trader effect : People make plans for themselves , because we are poor predictor, we underestimate how difficult it will be to follow the plans, then we give up.
Force #5 : Neuro-hacks
Conventional wisdom : Lasting behavior change dont start with mind telling body , its start by making change in behavior and letting the mind reflect on changes
Self-identity is key part of this process. We want to shift form Mind >> action to Action > Mind
1. People convince themselves that if they are doing something without pressure, it must be important to them
2. People form an identity of what they have done in the past
Types of Neuo-hacker we can use
1. Behavior, by taking baby step, or just jump straight to fear
2. Body Movement : Getting people to move the bodies the way they do when they agree with something gets them to be more agreeable
3. Physiology and emotions : Brain act differently when people asked to do something while listening their own heart beat
4. Speech and cognitive neuo-hacks : By asking people to the identity of being something ,people could act differently. Start a group on how to stop XXX, its tough to be the leader of a group to XXX.
Getting choice to buy-in : get people indicate they want something . By giving them no of choice and ask them to pick one of them, people have to feel they made the choice voluntarily, by creating chain links. Each step people complete increase their commitment to keep doing something, identity reflection improve strength of neuo-hack.
Lasting behavior change wont start until an action occured, an actual physical change, not a change in mind.
Force #6 : Captivating
People will keep doing things if they feel rewarded. People will respond to reward, that need to feel just as powerful as it would. Feeling if the person were actually in a cage yearning to get out or get fed.
There are 5 ways to make things more captivating
1. Make doing the “right thing “fun
2. Use carrot instead of the stick, fear provoke avoidance and denial
3. Dont assume money is the best rewards – if you reward something to people which already enjoy doing, they actually feel less enjoyable
4. Forget using education by itself
Information alone will not change behavior, instead of educate people, appeal to people’s psychology and emotion to get them keep doing something
5. Make the activity itself rewarding
Two types of captivates fixes :
1. Quick fix
People need to get it quickly when they start something
2. Trick fix
Force #7 : Engraved
Human brain is designed to do things without much to think. Secret of making things engraved in the brain is based on repetition. Repeat behavior be done everyday, in same place at same time. Magnetic Behavior is doing one behavior can be a magnet cause another related and desired behavior.
Putting it all TOGETHER :
Mindful of our behavior, different to change is some are “consciously” and others are “unconsciously”
AUTOMATIC / BURNING / Common behavior
To change automatic behavior, by easy + engraved + (neuro-hack + captivate )
to change a burning behavior, the irresistible urge to do something, by easy+ engraved + stepladder + community + important
For common behavior, which people do consciously and repeatedly, change it by community + Stepladder + important + easy + captivate + engraved + neuro-hack