In the New York Times bestselling book, The Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, the authors describe the struggle we all face to improve our habits. The battle is between the logic-driven part of our brain, the Rider, and the emotion-driven part of our mind, the Elephant.[i]
The Rider is a great planner but not a great doer. He overthinks things to exhaustion. The Elephant is his opposite; he is powerful and impulsive, fueled by emotions and primal urges. The Elephant can easily overwhelm the Rider, especially when he is indecisive.
The Path they travel is the external environment. The Rider can best influence the Elephant’s behavior by shaping the Path. Trying to overcome him through brute force and strength of will rarely works, and even when it does, it leaves him weaker for subsequent struggles. We can develop our willpower, but needlessly subjecting ourselves to temptation isn’t how we do it.
Dr. David Nowell, a clinical neuropsychologist, says that the prefrontal cortex differentiates itself from the rest of the brain because it is focused on the possibilities of “What could be,” while the rest of the brain is focused on maintaining “What is.” The basal ganglia, in particular, focus on maintaining our current routines to keep receiving the payoff we associate with them. It is the part of the brain that resists change; it is the Elephant.
The prefrontal cortex is the part of your brain that wants you to resist junk food, exercise, sleep more, eat unprocessed foods, and get six-pack abs. It’s where your goals and aspirations live. It’s the conscious part of your brain, the Rider, that you identify as being “You.” He is the one who must convince the Elephant to adopt productive habits and discontinue his counterproductive habits.
The only way to develop good habits is to convince the Elephant to want what the Rider wants because he isn’t strong enough to bully him; he’s completely outmatched.
The most effective strategies for getting the Elephant to perform a new routine are Creating a Positive Environment to reduce the friction he encounters, Shrinking the Commitment to reduce his reluctance to change, and Creating Habit Triggers to prompt the new Routine. The great news is that when you have the Elephant on board, you have automated good decisions, transferring them to the tireless part of your brain.
Your environment shapes your behavior, so I suggest you start with it. It is the easiest way to improve your habits. Unfortunately, most of us live in an environment someone else created, but you don’t have to live like most people. You can be your environment’s creator instead of just being its consumer.
Create a Positive Environment by removing temptation and ambiguity. Establish triggers for performing good habits and make them easier to do by eliminating steps. You can do the opposite for bad habits by removing negative cues and adding steps that make them harder to do.
The clearer the Path, the more conspicuous the Cue, the better. Any obstacles or ambiguity could cause the Rider to lose control. The Elephant will sacrifice what we want MOST for what we want NOW.
Guiding him down the positive path you create is vital, but we still need to motivate him. Keeping a habit tracker is going to help. Each time you put an X in it, your Elephant will get a satisfying shot of dopamine. As your X’s accumulate and you see progress, he will be motivated to keep an unbroken chain of X’s going. If you have calories remaining, you can reward yourself with a small treat for meeting all your daily requirements.
The most effective way to remove one habit is with another; “Un clavo saca otro clavo,” Spanish for one nail, drives out another nail. Cues in our environment trigger a response.
We must give our Elephants a new way forward. We cannot simply tell them not to do something because it will cause our minds to fixate on it. When we attempt to suppress a thought, we make things worse. Psychologists call this Ironic Theory. A classic example is asking someone not to think of a white bear. They suddenly find it difficult to think of anything else. Their mind keeps checking in to ensure they are not thinking about it, ironically causing them to fixate on it.
Having an alternative routine is crucial to interrupting a bad habit. If we are uncertain or cannot perform the new behavior, we will regress to our conditioned response. Ideally, the new Routine will provide some of the same benefits as the old one.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
My second book, Lean by Habit – A Bulletproof Plan for Body Transformation is NOW available on Kindle and Paperback.
SAMPLE THE FIRST HOUR FOR FREE:Â leanbyhabit.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/LEAN-BY-HABIT-Better-1.m4a
If you prefer audio, did you know that the Alexa App can read Kindle books while you’re driving or going about your day?
Small Changes, Fantastic Results
If you are looking for a simple, common-sense approach to weight loss that creates a strong-firm body for life, Lean by Habit is it! It contains everything you need to get in great shape. You’ll have eight free downloadable training programs to choose from based on your goals, a flexible diet, a habit tracker scorecard, and other execution-focused materials to help you succeed.
Lean by Habit combines the best behavioral and exercise science to produce outstanding results through short-daily bouts of exercise. Fifteen minutes is all you need to start getting leaner, fitter, and stronger.
If you are motivated to improve how you look and feel, the time to act is NOW! Don’t give your motivation a chance to wane and your excuses time to talk you out of it. When it comes to improving your life, there is no place better to start than with your habits, and there is no better program than this one to help you do it.
Click HERE to get it delivered to your device and start taking those small steps that produce tremendous results. Act now before the book increases to its normal price of $9.99.
This book contains:
- The Three-Step Process for Behavior Change
- The Four Elements of Execution
- Eight Programs (with downloadable training logs)
- A Habit Tracker Weight Loss Scorecard
- A Flexible Diet
[i] Chip Heath, and Dan Heath, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, Crown Business; 1st edition (February 16, 2010).
Leave a Reply