Tag: habit tracker

action triggers, behavior change, environmental design, habit tracker, shape your environment, shrink the commitment

FIVE RULES FOR BEHAVIOR CHANGE

The Four Laws of Behavior Change developed by Atomic Habits’ author James Clear is designed to encourage good habits by reinforcing each component of the habit loop:

Cue: Make it Obvious
Craving: Make it Attractive
Routine: Make it Easy
Reward: Make it Satisfying

He reverses these four laws to break a bad habit. Make the Cue invisible, the Reward unattractive, the Routine harder to do, and the Reward unsatisfying. He does a fantastic job of providing practical suggestions for changing your habits.[i] James Clear’s book complements Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit. The Power of Habit helps us understand habits, but it isn’t a manual for behavior change. Atomic Habits answers that need. I have a narrower focus; combining behavioral science with exercise science to transform your body. Continue reading FIVE RULES FOR BEHAVIOR CHANGE

Jeff EmblenLeave a comment
BDNF, habit tracker, implementation intention, New Year's Resolution

New Year’s Resolutions – Why Wait?

Our desire for a fresh start causes us to waste a lot of time waiting.  Why wait for a new year, a new month, or a new week. Tomorrow is a new beginning. Why not PLAN today – START tomorrow – and NEVER quit! A lot of people will tell us to start NOW, which isn’t bad advice if you are prone to procrastination, but research has shown that we do better when we have a plan. Research on implementation intentions suggests we will be much more likely to follow through if we have a plan. Planning can be exciting, but don’t let it turn into a form of procrastination. 

If you have a strong desire to implement a new habit, put that motivation to good use by planning when you’ll implement the new habit. Motivation not put to work is like water spilling from a leaky damn instead of being put to work by the mill. Motivation gets us started, but without a plan, we will quickly wander off course. Create an implementation intention. Decide when and where you are going to begin. Develop if-then plans. For example, your implementation intention could be to exercise for 20-minutes each morning right after waking up and drinking a glass of water. You prepare by laying your clothing out the night before and deciding what kind of exercise you are going to do. If 20-minutes feels like too much, you can start with a 5-minute commitment. Your if-then plan could be, if I oversleep or somehow miss my workout, I will exercise as soon as I get home from work. Continue reading New Year’s Resolutions – Why Wait?

Jeff EmblenLeave a comment
BDNF, behavior change, habit change, habit tracker, shrink the commitment, small wins, The Progress Principle

SMALL COMMITMENTS BIG RESULTS

Small commitments make it much easier to create an unbroken chain of X’s in our habit tracker. Our primitive brain, where habits reside, doesn’t learn through intensity. It learns through regularity. Repetition is the learning language of our basal ganglia. We want to automate good habits, so they become our default. To do this, we must be consistent; that is why small commitments are more effective. Make the habit so small that even on your worse day, you’ll have enough willpower to do it.  Continue reading SMALL COMMITMENTS BIG RESULTS

Jeff EmblenLeave a comment