How to Change a Habit or Behavior
Getting what you want in life comes down to one thing: changing your behavior.
But anyone who has tried to change their behavior knows how difficult it can be. And without the right strategies, changing your behavior can even be more complicated.
In How to Start a New Habit or Behavior, we discussed a method for starting a new behavior. In this post, we’ll discuss a few different strategies for changing current behaviors.
What Is a Behavior?
Recognizing and defining the behaviors we want to change is the first step to changing them.
But people often make the mistake of confusing non-behaviors with behaviors.
Behavior is the movement of your muscle or glands.
If you do something that someone else could observe, it’s a behavior.
Behaviors make up everything that we do to achieve our goals. They could include aspects of the way we:
Conceptualize, plan, and organize a creative idea or project
Work on and execute creative ideas and projects
Optimize our own unique creative process
Interact and collaborate with others
The Motivation → Prompt → Behavior → Reward Flow
All behaviors occur in a four-part flow:
Motivation - How much you care about doing the behavior
Prompt - What happens right before the habit that “cues” us to do it
Habit - This is the habit (or behavior) itself
Consequence - What happens right after the habit that makes it more likely to happen again in the future
The key to behavior change is manipulating at least one of these variables until you achieve the desired outcome.
Depending on how you’re trying to change your behavior, you can:
Add a more salient prompt or remove a prompt altogether
Change or replace the behavior that’s prompted
Change what happens to you after you do the behavior
How to Change a Behavior
There are three ways that you can change an existing behavior:
You can do the behavior more often or for longer durations of time
You can replace the behavior with a different one
You can stop a behavior or habit from occurring
Scale Your Behaviors: Increase the Frequency or Duration of a Behavior
When you've established a good habit, it's usually a good idea to scale it up.
Scaling a behavior is about doing it more often or for longer periods.
You may want to scale a behavior if:
Doing the behavior more often would help you achieve your goals faster
Doing the behavior for more extended periods would help you achieve your goals faster
The behavior contributes to your well-being and of those around you
Strategies for Scaling a Behavior
Behavior scaling is about:
Setting a target
Making the behavior easier to do
Increasing your motivation to do the behavior
First, set a measurable target for your existing behavior. Measurable targets are a great way to hold yourself accountable for realistic change. If your goal is to scale up a behavior, you first need to define what you want to scale the behavior up to. For example:
If your goal is to do something for a longer period of time, how much longer?
If your goal is to do something for a higher frequency, how many times exactly?
When setting measurable targets, set targets that are incrementally challenging. Your target should be just outside your current level of ability. If you set a target that's too difficult, you'll run the risk of avoiding the behavior altogether.
Next, make the behavior easier to do. When you make a behavior easier to do, you increase the likelihood that it will scale toward your goal.
Start by asking yourself the following question:
What about this behavior makes it difficult to do?
Behaviors can be challenging for one of the following reasons:
Time and routine. Scaling your existing behavior may demand more time or a change to your routine. Start by modifying your schedule to allow more time for the behavior or habit. Consider other activities you could do less (or stop doing) to create more time. Pick the exact time in your day when you'll do the behavior or habit, and ensure you have enough time for it.
Mind, body, and emotions. Scaling your existing behavior may be mentally/physically/emotionally demanding. Humans have a natural resistance to behaviors that are difficult in these ways. Start by decreasing the obvious demands of the behavior so you can do them longer or more often. Depending on your target behavior, there may be many ways to do this. Focus on doing something for less intensity or at lower levels of challenge.
The third strategy to scale your behavior is to increase your motivation. Changing your motivation to do a behavior is no easy task. Although, there are ways that you can affect how motivated you are to do something.
Any behavior you do regularly is because of one of two reasons:
It gets you something you want
It allows you to avoid something you don't want
Every person is different, and because of that, what motivates each of us will be different. There are many ways to increase your motivation to do a behavior. Examples of motivational strategies include:
Setting shorter, public deadlines that others will hold you accountable to
Posting your behavior scaling progress publicly
Creating irreversible, unwanted consequences that would trigger if you don’t follow through
Accessing a major reward that you cannot access unless you follow through
Doing the behavior first, then doing a different preferred behavior right after
When you scale a behavior, you're either:
Trying to do it more often
Trying to do it for more extended periods of time
Using the three strategies you learned in this section, you can scale any behavior you choose.
Next, we'll discuss how to replace an unwanted behavior that's getting in your way.
Replace a Behavior
Let’s imagine that a behavior you’re currently doing is starting to become a problem. It may be inhibiting your productivity. It might be affecting your social life. It could be preventing you from achieving a level of success you know you’re capable of. In any case, you have one of three options:
Replace the behavior with a different one
Scale back the behavior
Stop doing it altogether
Replacing a behavior tends to be more effective than scaling back or stopping it. That's because replacing a behavior uses the Prompt → Behavior → Reward Flow. When you replace a behavior, you keep the same prompt and feedback flow. All you're changing is the behavior.
Define the Behavior
Start by defining the target behavior you want to change. Without a clear definition of the behavior, you won’t be able to replace it.
Think back to the definition of behavior: the movement of your muscles or glands. When you define your target behavior, your definition should be this explicit. Your definition should include a verb and define the exact behavior you're replacing.
Determine the Prompt
Next, you need to figure out what’s prompting the behavior.
Take a few days or weeks and start paying attention to what you’re doing right before the behavior occurs. At this point, you’re not concerned with changing anything about the behavior. You’re only concerned with figuring out what’s happening right before it occurs. Over time, keep a simple list of prompts you’ve observed using your phone or a notebook.
After you've logged prompts for a few days, take your list of prompts and circle the most common ones. These prompts are likely the ones that are prompting the old behavior. They're also the prompts you'll use for your new replacement behavior.
Consider the Reward
For a replacement behavior to work, it has to be reinforcing. That reinforcement also needs to be comparable to the behavior you’re replacing. Depending on the behavior you’re replacing, this can be very difficult or near impossible. Regardless, focus on making the new behavior as reinforcing as possible.
A reinforcer can take four forms:
You get something you want. A behavior can be reinforced because you get access to something you want. Think of this as getting a reward for doing something good.
You get positive attention for it. A behavior can be reinforced because it makes others give you positive attention. Think of this as impressing others or winning the respect of others.
You feel good doing it. A behavior can be reinforced because it gives you a good feeling, emotion, or sensation. Think of this like scratching an itch or stretching.
You escape something unwanted. A behavior can be reinforced because it lets you escape from something unwanted. Think of this as declining phone calls or postponing an uncomfortable conversation.
Take some time to think about what is reinforcing the behavior you're replacing. Allow yourself to be as open and honest about this as possible. Use the four types of reinforcers above as a guide. A question to help you figure this out might be, “This behavior makes me get/feel/escape __________.” Whatever fills in the blank most obviously can be a clue as to why you’re doing this behavior in the first place.
Next, consider alternative behaviors. These behaviors should help you get that same feeling, thing, or anything as close to it as possible. Once you’ve found a reinforcing behavior, you’ve found your replacement behavior.
After you’ve found your replacement behavior and its prompts, complete the following sentence:
When __________ (prompt), I will __________ (behavior) so I can __________ (reward).
This is your new replacement protocol.
Start Replacing
Starting on the first day, begin your replacement protocol. When the first prompt occurs in your day, physically freeze your body for a few seconds. It’s essential that you physically freeze and notice the feeling that arises. Allow yourself to feel and observe it directly. Then, immediately do the replacement behavior.
At first, don’t think about your replacement protocol as a pass-or-fail effort. Think of the success or failure of your replacement protocol like getting feedback from a teacher. You’re not concerned with replacing the behavior 100% of the time. Instead, you’re concerned with whether you found the right replacement behavior. If the first replacement behavior you pick isn’t successful, all it means is you need to try a new one.
Make a deliberate effort to use the replacement behavior as often as possible. The first replacement behavior you pick may be the right one. In these cases, think of it as rehearsing a new version of yourself. Each time the prompt arises, think of it as a unique opportunity to practice or rehearse your new self — the person who does the replacement behavior.
Scale Down or Stop Doing a Behavior
Stopping an existing behavior is one of the most difficult changes. In most cases, you should first try replacing the behavior with a more productive one (see above). Although, in some cases, stopping a behavior may be the most needed approach.
Stopping a behavior is very much like changing a behavior. To prevent a behavior, you need to either:
Remove the prompt
Make the behavior harder to do (or impossible)
Remove the reinforcer
Remove the Prompt
Every behavior gets prompted by some specific stimuli. If you can figure out what’s prompting the behavior, the easiest first step is to remove it.
To figure out the prompt, start by paying attention to what’s currently going on. Take a few days to log all the potential prompts you observe. When the target behavior occurs, what is happening right before it? Whatever precedes the occurrence of the behavior is a hint of what’s prompting it.
Collect as many observations as you can over a few days or weeks. Then, take out your list of potential prompts and circle the most common ones. You may find that only one or two prompts are prompting the behavior. These are the prompts you'll want to remove from your environment.
The challenge is that removing these prompts may be difficult or near impossible. That's because prompts can be anything. Some prompts may be private events, meaning only you can experience them. These usually take the form of a thought or an emotion. Other prompts can be physical. Physical prompts occur in your environment. They could be visual, auditory, geographic, and more. They include seeing something, hearing something, being around a person, or being in a physical space. Each could be a type of prompt that triggers the behavior.
If you can identify one or a few prompts that lead to the behavior, remove them from your environment. Consider how you could interact with each of them less often or altogether. This could include any number of potential options. In any case, focus on what's within your control. Do everything you can to remove these prompts from your routine.
Make the Behavior Harder to Do
After you’ve removed the prompt from your environment, next, make the behavior harder to do. If you can, make it impossible to do.
If a behavior becomes harder to do, it becomes less likely to occur. Making the behavior more difficult to do decreases the likelihood of future occurrences. In most cases, you can make the behavior impossible to do.
Consider the nature of the behavior you're trying to stop. Does it involve access to something? Does it only occur at a particular place? Does it involve the help of other people? In each of these cases, you can take action to make the behavior harder to do. You could remove items from your home. You could resolve never to enter the location where it occurs. You could avoid interaction with the people who assist you in doing it.
You can also make the behavior harder by altering the time it takes or your current routine. You can you make the behavior take longer? Can you change your routine in a way that will get in the way of it? While you may not be able to make it impossible, you can increase the effort required.
No matter how you make the behavior harder to do, stick with it. Get the help of others to keep the behavior challenging to do. In most cases, physical changes to your environment or routine are the best way to stop a behavior.
Start Changing Your Behavior
Have questions about a behavior change you’re trying to make in your life and work? Have a success story using the principles above? Send me an email at gabe@learnchangedo.org.