Top Mistake #5 is blaming failures on lack of motivation. The tech lab’s solution? Make the behavior easier to do.
My solution? Make the behavior challenging and meaningful. And while you’re at it, think seriously about what ‘failure’ means to you.
Ever watch world-class athletes? Or gotten so engaged in something that you’ve lost all track of time? Then you’re familiar with what psychologists call
Here’s #4 on the Top 10 Mistakes in Behavior Change list: trying to stop old behaviors instead of creating new ones.
And Fogg’s solution? Focus on action, not avoidance.
This cries for more detail.
Action can be a form of avoidance, so action isn’t enough. It has to be action that moves us toward what we want. And that means
Sometimes I hear things that astound me with their power. This is one of them: refuse to be insignificant.
I got it from one of my clients, a self-effacing man who adopted it as a credo when he was young. He has had a highly successful career and a challenging personal life. Both fill him with joy and happiness.
Are you willing to do the same?
Relying on willpower and attempting big leaps aren’t helpful in changing behavior. Neither is ignoring how environment shapes behavior, which is #3 on Fogg’s list of mistakes in behavior change.
Want to change your life? Then change your context.
It can take lots of forms.
Most of us are creatures of routine. Even if we enjoy new things, part of us craves the safety of a familiar context. And familiarity blinds us.
A few days ago, I listed 10 big mistakes that people make in trying to change behavior. Here’s #2: attempting big leaps instead of baby steps.
The antidote? Seek tiny wins, one after another, according to the folks at B. J. Fogg’s Persuasive Technology Lab.
They’re right, in more ways than one.
We’ve heard for years about the power of big audacious goals, sweeping visions, and ‘breakthrough’ leaps. But we live life in moments, one after another. Only in retrospect, when we string those moments and events together, do we see patterns and create narratives to explain what happened.
What if we could capture and study all those little moments? What might we learn that’s different?
I was entertained and inspired by the following list from B.J. Fogg, director of Stanford’s Persuasive Tech Lab, and friends.
They’ve assembled what they call their Top Ten List of Mistakes in Behavior Change. See how many fit for you.
Here’s the list.
1. Relying on willpower for long-term change.
Here’s a nifty little test of empathy, thanks to Northwestern social psychologist Adam Galinsky and friends. Ask your boss [or anyone, for that matter] to draw the letter E on her forehead. Before you read more, do it yourself. [Index fingers work as well as pens.]
Now … which way did you draw the E: so it’s legible to you and backward to others, or legible to others and backward to you?
According to Galinsky and crew, people who draw the E so it’s legible to others
It shows up in nature 
and in art
… in everyday walks of life
and in exotic places.
It’s just a pattern with no gaps or overlaps … from the Latin tessela, which means “small square.” Think chickenwire or patchwork quilts. Tesselations.
Language. It’s almost as fascinating as the world it represents.
I’ve been researching a new public seminar on overcoming disabling thoughts. A lot of problems arise from our cognitive distortions and biases, so I typed “cognitive bias” into the search box on Wikipedia. Wow! I hit the jackpot: Wiki lists over 100+ forms of cognitive bias!! And that doesn’t include those perceptual brain teasers like the classic one here [which horizontal line is longer?].
Think about this: over one hundred ways that we skew and distort events in the world behind our eyes. Some involve our behavior and decision-making, like
Ever put off scary or unpleasant things until you’re better equipped to handle them, only to find you’re never quite there? If yes, then consider Kelly McGonigal’s experience. She’s a Stanford meditation and yoga teacher. As she says, our imagined self and the “magic time known as not-now” never arrive. She delayed the removal of her wisdom teeth for 14 years [no pun intended, I’m sure]. Read her story.
What and for how long have you been delaying?