The Top Ten Mistakes We Make When trying To Change Our Behaviour

Is behaviour difficult to change? How come some of us find it easy and others very difficult? A group of researchers at Stanford University have looked at this question and come up with the top ten mistakes we make when trying to change our behaviour.

1. Relying on Willpower.
Willpower doesn't exist - it's just another excuse we all use to explain why change is so hard. There is no evidence for willpower. No special gene. It's all been a cover-up.You need to forget about willpower. Pretend it doesn't exist. Forget the pretend (sorry - still coming to terms with the loss).

2. Attempting Big Leaps instead of small steps
One small step at a time. You're after small successes remember not giant leaps for mankind - you haven't landed on the moon.

3. Ignoring How Your Environment Affects You
If you want to change your life then you need to change the context. You'll have to read The Real Secret if you want to know how - I'm not giving all our secrets away!

4.Trying to Stop Old Behaviours instead of Creating New Ones
Forget all that advice about avoiding old behaviours. Takes too much time and effort. Concentrate instead on the new behaviour. Stop avoiding the old and start doing the new.

5. Stop Waiting for Motivation
I've told you this before - here - I'm not telling you again

6. Underestimating The Power of Triggers
Behaviour is always, always triggered. Feel thirsty? Hungry? Enraged? Sleepy? Upset? Work out what it is that triggers the behaviour you want to change, then think before you act.

7. Believing that Information Leads to Action
Well it just doesn't - we aren't that rational. You'll need to read The Book.

8. Focusing on Abstract Goals rather than Concrete Behaviours
Abstract : get fit
Concrete : walk for 15 minutes a day
See The Book for more help setting and achieving goals.

9. Wanting to change a Behaviour FOREVER
Wrong! You need to concentrate on a fixed period - remember small steps?

10. Assuming that Behaviour Change is Difficult
Behaviour change is not difficult - when you know how. Read The Book

So there you have it - the top ten mistakes we all make when trying to change our behaviour. Personally I can think of a few more but these ten are apparently the ones we all make.

Posted by Annabel

What type of happiness do you want?

When we think and talk about happiness what exactly do we mean? The presentation above by Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman draws an interesting distinction: there may be two very different types of happiness. 

The first is being happy in your life. It is happiness that we experience immediately and in the moment.

The second is being happy about your life. It is the happiness that exists in memory when we talk about the past and the big picture.

We can enjoy nine-tenths of something blissfully in the moment, yet a lousy ending can bias us and ruin the memory forever.

We often plan holidays around the memories they will later give us ("Mexico!"), rather than doing something we'd enjoy far more in the moment ("catching up on sleep and spending more time with friends.") 

Kahenman suggests we ask ourselves ahead of time what kind of happiness we are seeking.

If you want the rich memories of happiness we should deliberately select for that: go on that exotic holiday, definitely have children and strive to make as much money as possible. These are all things shown to make us happy about our lives.

If you want to be happy in the moment don't travel to fancy places, keep it simple. Don't have children because moment for moment they will dramatically reduce your happiness with crying, complaining, chores and worry. And certainly don't toil to earn more than 30K a year because beyond that, experiential happiness flat lines.

It's a question we all face: Is living in the moment, as encouraged by every Hollywood movie, the right way to live or is it the path of impulsive hedonism?

Is living to create great memories the goal of the mature individual or does it make us a miserable weaver of a fiction that never was?

I leave the answer to you.

But there is advice about being happier in both senses in The Real Secret, which is available in paperback and kindle format on www.amazon.com and www.amazon.co.uk .

Posted by Annabel