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

HOW TO GET RID OF BAD HABITS - THE ONLY WAY

"The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken"

Samuel Johnson

Whilst the strategy of trying to distract yourself - by taking your mind off what you are trying not to do - appears to work fairly well when dealing with temptations, it appears that the same strategy is not effective when dealing with slowly learned, deeply ingrained habits.

Temptations are easy - just walk on by, or think of something else, or run away as fast as you can or just close your eyes when you see the temptation.This apparently works a treat. I say apparently. But not so for habits - they are a completely different order of difficult. Changing habits is very, very difficult. You can't run away from habits - habits are what you do, and who you are. Habits, unlike temptations, happen automatically, in many cases without our awareness.

So are we stuck hopelessly repeating our bad habits? Recent research by Quinn et al., (2010)* suggests not. They title their paper ‘Can’t Control Yourself? Monitor those Bad Habits’. Apparently, when it comes to deep seated habits what we need to do is focus on stopping the behaviour before it starts with what the researchers call ‘vigilant monitoring’. You need to keep an eye on yourself at all times. Monitor, monitor, monitor - the very opposite of distraction.

So that’s good news. The bad news is that even then it’s difficult. For long term success you’ll need to replace the old bad habit with a new good habit. Over time, the new habit might become sufficiently strong to be performed without requiring constant monitoring of the old habit. For example, a dieter’s self monitoring of unhealthy eating habits may promote long-term behavior change only insofar as it creates an opportunity in which to establish new healthy eating patterns. The problem - and dieters know this all too well - is that recurrence is one feature of habits that makes them difficult to change once formed. They keep coming back. Nonetheless, the monitoring strategy identified by Quinn et al., provides an initial handle on how to break unwanted habits.


*J.Quinn, A.Pascoe, W.Wood, & D.Neal (2010) Can't control yourself? Monitor those bad habits. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36, 499-511

Posted by Annabel