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

Motivation? Inspiration? Just Take Action!

I have a problem with motivation. Not with everything, obviously. I can very easily get myself packed and ready to go to the beach and I can do that in 5 minutes flat. I can just as easily find the energy to meet a friend for coffee - if I can get hold of one. Friend, that is (I’m having a bit of a problem with friends since my last blog). On the other hand if it involves doing something more necessary like work say or the washing up then it’s very strange because I can’t seem to find the motivation and tend to hang about waiting for inspiration. Well I don’t really hang about, obviously. I sofa surf or tea drink. Washing up doesn’t need inspiration. You’ve seen through me already.

The idea that we need to be motivated in order to get stuff done is just an excuse. It’s just pathetic really. And as for inspiration - well that’s for drama queens. No self respecting artist talks about inspiration - they talk about hard slog. Hours and hours of endless toil. Motivation and Inspiration are just amateur rubbish words. If you believe in them then you are obviously the type (see personality types here if you are in any way concerned) who wastes good money on the kinds of seminars you see advertised in second rate blog sites. You know the ones I mean - they usually have motivational speaker somewhere in the title.

Give it up and get some work done.  

Here's what you do: you pick a task, then set a timer for 25 minutes - no exceptions. Work. When it rings, stop for five minutes. Repeat three more times, then take a longer break. That's just about it. It works. Try it.

It works because it creates an illusion that you have no choice – that there's some kind of drill sergeant keeping an eye on every move you make, stopping you from defaulting to the basic lazy that you really are... Well me anyway. It’s incredible just how easy to fool our brains are - a timer is all you need.

This is the product to try if you need more advice
http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/

Motivation follows action and not the other way round. Or as the psychologist Albert Bandura put it :

“ It’s better to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting”

Posted by Annabel who wrote this in under 25 minutes with the timer on having waited all day (on the beach at Barcelona) for some inspiration.

More tips and ways to take control of your life, set and keep goals in The Real Secret, available in paperback and kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

Happiness Habit 3 - To Do Lists / Goal-setting

Happiness Habit No.3, in our Happiness Habits Experiment, is "Fun To Do Lists". Amongst our first cohort of participants who have signed up to the Happiness Habits research project, this has turned out to be the least popular Habit of the six they can pick from. (We ask participants to choose from one to six activities - the Happiness Habits - and carry them out daily for three weeks, after which we survey their responses.) No 3, "Fun To Do Lists", has been chosen by less than half as many participants as those who have chosen to "Smile" daily (No. 1) - the most popular Habit to date.

And yet writing down three fun or enjoyable goals a day, pursuing, achieving and ticking them off the list, may provide those who are doing it with a clearly increased level of satisfaction with life. Here's why:

Setting and achieving goals has a powerful influence on creating well-being in our daily lives. We now know that the steps involved in goal-directed activity – motivation, goal-seeking, successful outcome and feelings of pleasure – are wired into the brain's structure. All achievement starts with motivation. Motivation leads to a decision that triggers a behaviour aimed at satisfying the aim. Achieving the goal produces positive feelings because it releases neurotransmitters like dopamine, which reinforces the reward, and acetylcholine, which helps the brain “tune in” and embed memories of success. Positive memories then encourage you to repeat the process which caused the pleasure.

“To achieve happiness, we should make certain that we are never
without an important goal”
Earl Nightingale, writer, broadcaster (1921-1989)

The brain’s automatic goal-seeking mechanism was first identified by Dr Maxwell Maltz in his classic self-help book, Psycho-Cybernetics. He recognised the importance of defining a goal in positive terms; of creating a specific description in words and visualising the outcome of the goal; and of constant, conscious repetition of these steps to activate the goal-seeking mechanism of our subconscious.

The Reticular Activating System, as it is called, is such a successful piece of brain circuitry that it is essential to feed it only goals you really want to achieve, because the wrong messages can become embedded in your subconscious if you frame them carelessly or in negative terms.

A well known 1953 Harvard University experiment identified ten percent of graduates who had set themselves some goals and four percent who had actually written down their goals. By 1973 the net worth of the four percent was double that of all the rest.

In the task of  "Fun To-Do Lists" for the Happiness Habits Experiment, we have combined goal-setting with elements of The Real Secret's first step, "Choose To Be Happy" - where scheduling regular fun into your life is another Habit. You cannot, by definition, achieve peak performance all the time and by taking a break from one kind of activity, you allow your brain time to process and work more efficiently when you come back to it. Fun breaks or pleasurable activities that give you opportunities to smile,laugh and relax are especially beneficial.

  

“The real joy of life is in its play. Play is anything we do for the joy and love of doing it, apart from any profit, compulsion, or sense of duty. It is the real joy of living.”

Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918)

In The Real Secret Step 4, "Route Planning", we ask readers to write some of the most important words of their life: goals for the long term, the mid-term and the immediate future.  However ambitious your goal, you can make your way towards it with regular, incremental, achievable steps, using flexibility to adjust your aims to changing situations and The Real Secret Habits as a road map to achieve your most desired destinations.

We'll be publishing our report on The Happiness Habits Experiment in early April. Please do sign up if you're interested in taking part in our ongoing research project.

Post by Lucy