

Top Mistakes in Behavior Change - gnufied
http://moonbase.rydia.net/mental/blog/personal-development/top-10-mistakes-in-behavior-change.html

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rednum
Previous discussion on HN concerning the same slides (minus the guys
comments): <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2106553>

tldr: start small, don't set bullshit goals, it acually is hard. much harder
than you think

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praptak
_"it acually is hard. much harder than you think"_

Actually "assuming that behavior change is difficult" is listed as the tenth
mistake.

~~~
joe_the_user
Ah, "It's hard but it can't be difficult"...

Paradoxes like this always frustrated me so I worked-out a more concrete model
for these change systems:

You've got "area of behavior" which you've got good conscious control over and
where you can plan and work hard. You've got another "another area of
behavior" where you don't have much conscious control and you tend to screw-up
in.

You want to work hard _within the area you do control_ to create a framework
where things are _relatively easy_ for you in the area you _don't control_.

You don't want to just throw a lot of effort at the area you don't control,
you don't want to discourage yourself concerning the area you don't control.
You want to have clearly understandable goals in the area you don't control.

And so you want the "heavy lifting" to be within the area you do control.

Now, "hard" is for the work in creating your framework. "not difficult" is for
the experience you have within the framework.

Make sense?

~~~
praptak
Definitely. I think that it applies to their method too - setting up the
triggers and making the behaviour easier is the "hard" part within your
control.

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ericlavigne
The best part is the link to captology at the end. I especially like this
video. (I replace "simple" with "easy", because I think it's a better
description of what he's talking about.)

<http://vimeo.com/2094487>

The difficulty/easiness of an action has six components: time, money, physical
effort, brain cycles, social deviance, and non-routine.

Thus, the overall difficulty/easiness of an action depends on the resource
profile of the person performing that action. That profile varies wildly from
person to person, as well as according to context. Awareness of your own
resource profile is important for self-control, and awareness of other
people's resource profiles is important for persuasion.

The captology site also discusses using triggers to tilt the odds in your
favor. The most effective variety of trigger depends on both difficulty and
motivation level.

<http://captology.stanford.edu/projects/behaviordesign.html>

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dmethvin
A related BJ Fogg post from 2004 that would be useful for startups, "Ten Ways
Computers Manipulate People." The only place I could find it was at
archive.org:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20041204095306/http://captology.s...](http://web.archive.org/web/20041204095306/http://captology.stanford.edu/notebook/archives/000078.html)

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code_duck
I was hoping this was going to be about UI behavior change.

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TheSOB88
If anyone wants to read a book on behavioral change, try "Switch" by Chip
Heath and Dan Heath. It's _sooooo goooood_.

~~~
bobf
Indeed. For me, one of the key takeaways was that to successfully implement
lasting change, you must appeal to emotion. Logic is not enough.

