How to Change Your Habits | Katy Milkman (May, 2021)
This episode features behavioral scientist Katy Milkman, a professor at The Wharton School, discussing why habit change is difficult. She shares key strategies like temptation bundling, commitment devices, and the fresh start effect to help listeners achieve their goals.
Deep Dive Analysis
18 Topic Outline
Why Human Behavior Change is Difficult
Personal Motivation for Studying Change
Temptation Bundling Strategy for Enjoyable Change
Willpower is Overrated; Make Goals Fun
Commitment Devices: Using 'The Stick' for Motivation
The Importance of Resilience and Self-Compassion
Emergency Reserves (Mulligans) for Setbacks
Elastic Habits: Flexibility in Routine Building
Gamification: Making Goals Fun (When It Works)
Changing Others' Behavior: Identifying Barriers
The Fresh Start Effect: Ideal Times for Change
Social Networks and Role Models for Encouraging Change
Streaks and Tracking for Habit Formation
Piggybacking New Habits onto Existing Routines
Giving Advice as a Tool for Personal Change
The Danger of Taking on Too Many Goals at Once
Growth Mindset for Overcoming Failure
Applying Behavioral Science to Diversity and Inclusion
6 Key Concepts
Temptation Bundling
This strategy involves linking an activity you dread but know is good for you (like exercise) with an activity you find inherently enjoyable and tempting (like listening to an engaging audio novel). By only allowing yourself the temptation during the beneficial activity, you create an immediate incentive to engage in the desired behavior, making it more fun and increasing persistence.
Commitment Device
A commitment device is a tool or structure that restricts your future choices, making it costly to deviate from a goal. This can involve putting money on the line that you'll forfeit if you fail, or using an illiquid savings account that prevents early withdrawals, thereby leveraging 'the stick' to motivate long-term beneficial actions.
What-the-Hell Effect
This psychological phenomenon describes how a single slip-up in pursuing a goal (e.g., eating one donut while on a diet) can lead to a complete abandonment of the goal for the rest of the day, with the person thinking 'what the hell' and indulging excessively. It highlights the importance of planning for setbacks to prevent total derailment.
Emergency Reserves (Mulligan)
This concept involves giving yourself a limited number of 'mulligans' or 'emergency reserves' when pursuing an ambitious goal. These allow for occasional slip-ups without feeling like you've completely failed, helping to prevent the 'what-the-hell effect' and maintain motivation to stay on track.
Fresh Start Effect
The fresh start effect describes how certain temporal landmarks (like New Year's, birthdays, new weeks/months/semesters, or life events like a new job or move) feel like new beginnings. These moments motivate goal setting and change because they create a sense of a 'new me' and disrupt daily routines, offering a clean slate.
Growth Mindset
A growth mindset is the belief that our abilities, intelligence, and other traits are not fixed but can grow and develop through effort and learning. When encountering failure, individuals with a growth mindset interpret it as feedback for learning and improvement, rather than a diagnostic of their inherent capabilities, leading to greater persistence and accomplishment.
10 Questions Answered
Behavior change is difficult due to deep-rooted instincts like the desire for instant gratification, forgetfulness, tendency to take the path of least resistance, low self-efficacy, and social networks that may not support change, all accumulating to work against our long-term goals.
Willpower is often overrated and hard to use; people who appear to have high self-control often aren't exerting it constantly but have instead built habits and routines that put good behaviors on autopilot, making them not require willpower at all.
Self-compassion is crucial because setbacks are inevitable in any change journey; taking it easy on yourself and planning for resilience helps you get back up after falling down, preventing discouragement and giving up.
Gamification can work wonders when individuals volunteer or opt-in and are aligned with the goal, like for Wikipedia volunteers or families walking more. However, it often backfires when imposed by employers, as it can feel like forced fun and be perceived as 'lame'.
Moments that feel like 'fresh starts' are ideal, such as New Year's, birthdays, new weeks/months/semesters, or significant life events like a new job or move. These times create a sense of a new beginning, making people more likely to set goals and feel motivated to change.
One effective method is to leverage social networks by exposing loved ones to positive role models. Seeing others exhibit desired behaviors can provide information, normalize the actions, and create positive peer pressure, making them more likely to follow suit.
Tracking streaks helps by providing a reward (the satisfaction of maintaining the streak) for repeated behavior, making it more likely to become automatic. The caveat is that breaking a streak can be highly demotivating, so it's important to incorporate flexibility or 'emergency reserves' to prevent giving up entirely.
Yes, giving advice to others can be a potent tool for personal change. It boosts your self-efficacy, encourages deeper introspection about how to achieve a goal, and creates a sense of accountability, making you less likely to be a hypocrite by not following your own advice.
No, taking on too many goals at once is a common mistake. While ambition is good, simultaneously pursuing lots of things with utmost attention can be overwhelming and demotivating, making it worse than not planning at all. Prioritization and focusing on one or two clear goals at a time is key.
For individuals, the most impactful approach is to focus on changing behaviors and advocating for systemic changes rather than solely trying to alter attitudes. This includes advocating for fair hiring and promotion processes, and actively mentoring or championing members of underrepresented groups.
24 Actionable Insights
1. Make Habit Change Fun
Instead of relying on willpower to push through unpleasant tasks, find ways to make pursuing your goals enjoyable (e.g., pick Zumba for workouts, drink smoothies instead of only kale). This increases persistence and helps you get farther because you won’t dread the activity.
2. Reduce Willpower Reliance
Design your choices and build habits so that good behaviors are on autopilot and don’t require constant exertion of willpower. Willpower is an unreliable and unpleasant inner resource, so minimizing its use is more effective for long-term change.
3. Implement Commitment Devices
Create formal structures that restrict your future choices and impose costs (e.g., forfeiting money, public shame) if you fail to achieve a goal. This ‘stick’ approach changes the incentive structure, making it costly not to follow through.
4. Leverage Fresh Start Effect
Initiate personal changes or encourage others to start new habits around ‘fresh start’ dates like New Year’s, birthdays, new weeks, or new jobs. These moments feel like new beginnings, making individuals more motivated to set and pursue goals.
5. Plan for Setbacks with Resilience
Acknowledge that setbacks are an inevitable part of any change journey and plan to be resilient by getting back on track when they occur. This prevents discouragement and giving up, which often happens after a slip-up.
6. Create Emergency Reserves (Mulligans)
When pursuing ambitious goals, give yourself a limited number of ’emergency reserves’ or ‘mulligans’ (like in golf) that you can use for slip-ups. This allows you to acknowledge a mistake without feeling completely off track or giving up entirely.
7. Build Elastic, Flexible Habits
While routines are important, build flexibility into your habits by having fallback plans for when your primary routine doesn’t work out (e.g., if you miss your morning workout, have a plan for later in the day). This leads to more robust and lasting habits compared to rigid ones.
8. Practice Temptation Bundling
Link an activity you dread but is good for you (e.g., exercise, homework) with an indulgent entertainment you enjoy (e.g., audio novels, favorite music). This makes the beneficial activity more alluring and helps you persist.
9. Piggyback New Habits
To easily build a new habit, attach it directly onto an existing, well-established routine that you never miss (e.g., doing a workout between brushing teeth and showering). This leverages existing triggers and makes the new habit almost immediately automatic.
10. Give Advice to Others
If you are struggling with a goal, put yourself in the position of giving advice to others who are trying to achieve similar goals. This boosts your self-efficacy, encourages deeper introspection, and creates a desire to avoid hypocrisy by following your own counsel.
11. Cultivate a Growth Mindset
Interpret failures and setbacks as feedback and opportunities to learn and grow, rather than as a diagnostic of your inherent capabilities. This mindset helps you accomplish more by fostering persistence and development.
12. Adopt a ‘Good-ish’ Mindset
Think of yourself as a ‘good-ish’ person, acknowledging that you are a work in progress rather than a fixed ‘good’ or ‘bad’ entity. This perspective provides more opportunity for personal development and faster progress towards goals.
13. Prioritize 1-2 Goals
Avoid trying to pursue too many behavior change goals simultaneously, as this can be overwhelming and demotivating. Instead, be strategic and focus on one or two clear goals at a time, checking in before moving to new ones.
14. Expose Others to Role Models
To encourage positive change in loved ones, strategically expose them to social interactions or peer groups that role model the desired behavior. This provides information, demonstrates feasibility, and creates positive peer pressure.
15. Change Systems for Bias
To address culturally injected biases, focus on advocating for and implementing changes in systems and processes (e.g., hiring, promotion) to make them more fair, and act as a mentor or champion for underrepresented groups. Changing behavior and systems is often more effective than solely trying to change attitudes.
16. Set Specific Monetary Stakes
When using commitment devices, put specific financial stakes on the line that you will forfeit if you fail to achieve your goal, ideally with a referee. This creates a higher cost penalty and is more effective than vague internal anxieties.
17. Utilize Illiquid Savings Accounts
For saving money, consider using a commitment account where funds cannot be withdrawn until a predetermined date or goal is reached. This prevents you from dipping into savings when tempted, leading to significantly higher savings.
18. Combine Carrots and Sticks
For maximum effectiveness in achieving long-term goals, employ both positive incentives (‘carrots’ like making it fun) and negative incentives (‘sticks’ like commitment devices). This aligns all forces towards your goal, leaving nothing to tug you in the wrong direction.
19. Embrace ‘Daily-ish’ Habits
When forming a new habit, such as meditation, aim for a ‘daily-ish’ approach rather than strict daily adherence. This flexibility reduces the likelihood of self-judgment and giving up if you miss a day, making the habit more sustainable.
20. Self-Directed Gamification
If using gamification to make a new habit fun, ensure it’s a game you genuinely want to play and opt into, rather than something imposed by others. Gamification is most effective when it clicks with your personal preferences and feels enjoyable.
21. Diagnose Change Barriers
Before attempting to change your own or others’ behavior, accurately identify the specific barrier standing in the way (e.g., lack of willpower, confidence, memory, or established habit). Tailor your solutions to address that particular obstacle for greater effectiveness.
22. Fresh Starts Need Follow-Through
While fresh starts provide powerful motivation to begin new goals, recognize that they primarily get you started. To achieve success, combine this initial motivation with additional strategies (e.g., making it fun, building resilient habits) to overcome subsequent obstacles and ensure follow-through.
23. Track Streaks with Flexibility
Use streak tracking (e.g., in apps) as a reward mechanism to reinforce repeated positive behaviors, but incorporate safeguards like ’emergency reserves’ or flexibility. This prevents demotivation and the ‘what the hell effect’ if a streak is broken.
24. Rehearse Successes for Planning
After a successful behavior change or positive interaction, mentally or verbally rehearse what went well. This process helps you understand the successful elements better, reconsolidate the memory, boost confidence, and create detailed, cue-based plans for future execution.
5 Key Quotes
Willpower is overrated. And I think that one of the really interesting studies that my friend and collaborator, Angela Duckworth, did with one of her former PhD students, Brian Galla, showed that the people who we think of as having the most self-control actually aren't exerting self-control often when they're making the kinds of decisions that make us look up to them. They've built habits and routines that actually put those good behaviors on autopilots.
Katy Milkman
If you are fighting an uphill battle to change a behavior because it's inherently unpleasant and we dread it, we have to find a way to make it more fun. We can't just, you know, push our way through. And so many of us have that sort of Nike theme in our heads of just do it. And it's just wrong. It's it's not effective.
Katy Milkman
By teaching, we learn.
Katy Milkman
The higher the cost penalty in terms of money or shame or whatever it is you can impose on yourself if you fail, the better. And so stakes get higher when you involve other people, when you put money on the line and so on, rather than just having that dialogue in your head.
Katy Milkman
If you are too rigid about daily, you'll sort of give up on yourself when you have those slip-ups. Is that why you're, you add the ish? Yes, because it gives you a sort of elasticity or flexibility that reduces the odds that the voice in your head will swoop in and tell you that you're a failed meditator if you miss a day.
Dan Harris
4 Protocols
Temptation Bundling
Katy Milkman- Identify an activity you dread doing but know is good for your long-term goals (e.g., exercising, doing homework).
- Identify an indulgent entertainment or activity you love and find tempting (e.g., listening to a specific audio novel, watching a favorite show).
- Only allow yourself to enjoy the tempting activity while you are simultaneously engaged in the dreaded, beneficial activity.
Emergency Reserves (Mulligan) for Goals
Marissa Sharif (described by Katy Milkman)- Set an ambitious goal (e.g., do a task 7 days a week).
- Acknowledge that slip-ups are inevitable.
- Give yourself a limited number of 'emergency reserves' or 'mulligans' (e.g., two per week) that you can use without being considered off-track.
- Use a reserve when you miss a day or have a setback, and then get back on track without letting it derail your overall goal.
Building Elastic Habits
Katy Milkman- Identify an optimal time or routine for your desired habit (e.g., exercising at 7 a.m.).
- Develop fallback plans for when your optimal routine doesn't work out (e.g., if you miss 7 a.m., aim for noon or 5 p.m.).
- Prioritize flexibility within your routine to ensure the habit is robust and lasting, rather than rigid.
Piggybacking New Habits
Katy Milkman- Identify a well-established, robust routine you already consistently follow (e.g., brushing teeth and showering in the morning).
- Identify a new habit you want to build.
- Slip the new habit directly into your existing routine, immediately before or after an established step, so it becomes triggered by the existing routine.