A Few Goal Hacks

Time for new years resolutions!! Now even though you shouldn't procrastinate til new years... most of us will probably do it anyway. And most people (up to 92%) will likely fail. When you're setting some new goals for the next 28 days, here's a hack to help you be successful.

In his book, The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology that Fuel Success and Performance at Work, happiness researcher Shawn Achor discusses how he wanted to make practicing guitar a daily habit.

However, he encountered a problem that plagues everyone: He couldn’t motivate himself to do it. No matter how much he tried to motivate himself, his guitar remained in his cupboard. Achor recalls:

The guitar was sitting in the closet, a mere 20 seconds away, but I couldn’t make myself take it out and play it. What had gone wrong? [1]

The Problem with Willpower

Achor’s problem is a common one:

If you want to change a habit in the long-term, in the beginning, you have to rely on willpower. But willpower is a finite resource and can’t be relied on.

In other words, the more decisions you make on a daily basis – the order in which to organise your agenda, what to order for lunch, when to do your groceries and so on – the more likely you are to experience what psychologists call “decision fatigue”.

Once you experience decision fatigue, improving habits – especially at the end of a stressful day – becomes less of a priority. Habitual, negative behaviours like forgoing the gym in favour of easier ones like watching television, become routine. It becomes an almost inescapable rut.

Given a choice: Disempowering habits almost always trump behaviours that stretch us. They offer us a path of least resistance and when regularly forged, becomes the easier choice.

But, what if you we had a tool to reshape that path entirely? A tool that made positive habits more accessible?

What You Need To Focus On

A common problem people have with changing their habits is learning how to start.

If you think of a habit, you tend to think of the habit in its entirety. All habits are comprised of multiple steps; tiny actions required to necessitate it and thinking about it is enough to overwhelm anyone.

For example, when you think about going to the gym, you don’t focus on the routine part of The Habit Loop (exercising), you focus on everything else you need to do to do the habit.

You think about packing your gym bag, travelling to the gym, changing into your gym clothes, warming up, exercising, showering, warming down and travelling home.

That’s a lot!

You don’t need to think about all of that: Simply focus on the first action you need to take (in my case, when going to the gym, I only focus on picking up my gym bag which is placed by my front door).

However, what if we redirected our focus from not only what we needed to do to start our habits, but also, how we could make that start as easy as possible?

Using Activation Energy

Activation energy, as Achor explains, is that spark you need to start:

In physics, activation energy is the initial spark needed to catalyse a reaction. The same energy, both physical and mental, is needed of people to overcome inertia and kickstart a positive habit.

In Achor’s example, he realised that having to remove his guitar from his closet to practice, increased the effort he needed to practice – even if that effort only cost him an extra 20 seconds.

Those 20 seconds meant the difference between doing his habit – and not.

He came to a resolution: To put his guitar in the centre of his apartment.

The results?

He practiced guitar for 21 days straight without exception.

Achor called this “The 20 Second Rule”. He comments:

Lowering the barrier to change by just 20 seconds was all it took to help me for a new habit.

Using the 20 Second Rule to Replace Negative Habits

The 20 Second Rule can not only be used to build new empowering habits, but it can be used to ease the transition between negative and positive ones as well.

Achor’s next experiment was to replace watching television when he returned home from work with reading and writing his book.

This time, he took the batteries out of his remote and moved them – you guessed it – 20 seconds away in another room.

Here were his findings:

The next few nights when I got home from work, I plopped down on the couch and pressed the ‘on’ button on the remote – usually repeatedly – forgetting that I had moved the batteries. Then, frustrated, I thought to myself, ‘I hate that I do these experiments’. But sure enough, the energy and effort required to retrieve the batteries – or even to walk across the room and turn the TV on manually – was enough to do the trick.

How You Can Use the 20 Second Rule

There are multiple ways you can experiment the 20 Second Rule, just remember as a rule of thumb:

You need to decrease the activation energy you need to do positive habits and increase it to do negative habits.

If you want to replace a bad habit like drinking alcohol after work with a better one, consider moving your pint glasses to another room in your house or leaving alcohol that’s best served chilled, unrefrigerated (no one wants to drink a beer or white wine that hasn’t been chilled).

If you’d like to minimise the number of hours you spend online, delete your social media apps on your smart phone (one I’m currently experimenting with) or install a plugin for your browser that limits you Internet usage. You can’t disable this plugin because it requires extra effort – and activation energy. [2]

If you want to eat more healthily, consider doing one weekly grocery shop for the whole week. Prepare your lunch and dinner meals in advance or leave your credit/debit card at home to minimise the temptation of ordering takeaways on your journey home after a stressful day.

A Final Word

There’s no doubt about it: Changing habits is difficult, but by understanding activation energy, we can replace negative behaviours with better ones – and all in under 20 seconds.

Cheat Sheet for Bad Days

We all have bad days. Days when we're super limbic, and reptilian. In a few weeks is the most depressing day of the year. The good news is there are a lot of things you can do to try to get yourself back to your prefrontal cortex. Remember that's where happiness, productivity, problem solving etc is located. There are a lot of different strategies and not all of them will work for everyone all of the time. I thought I'd start my own cheat sheet of ideas to do when I'm feeling down. This list will grow as I study and learn more.

But first a quick warning. Remember this pic?

Often when we're down, we're looking for a quick & easy fix to make us feel good. Dopamine is a fast feel good chemical that we get from a lot of our pleasure from. Seeking some fun and pleasure isn't bad... as long as it isn't contrary to your values and goals. Make sure that you don't give in to the 'easy' solution at the expense of your long term goals. Too often people to unhealthy things such as junk food, video games, porn, drugs to feel better for awhile.

Now without further ado, the cheat sheet. Scroll down for more details on each one.

1. Hugs - Interaction and touch with those that you love produces oxytocin, which makes you feel better.
   
   
   
    
2. Talk it out - Negative & irrational thoughts in your head will sound more reasonable and believable. Get them out of your head, and get some perspective by talking it out with someone you care about. A caveat is to not choose someone who will enable you in your irrational thoughts. That may feel good short term to be validated, but won't help long term.
3. Service - TONS of benefits to service. Get outside yourself, think of others. This produces a cocktail of good chemicals (Dopamine, seratonin, oxytocin, etc), and helps lift others.
4. Exercise - Produces endorphins and is healthy for your body 
5. Power pose - Our body language affects our brain chemistry and how we feel. Power pose for 2 min will decrease cortisol (stress) and increase testosterone (power). 
6. Smile - Similar to power posing, forcing a smile can actually make you feel a little better. Going through the motions can help create the emotions. 
7. Yoga - Yoga is relaxing, and has been shown to increase production of GABA, a chemical that tempers the nasty feelings from your limbic system & brain stem. 
8. Meditation - Fires up the left prefrontal region of your brain, and produce dopamine.
9. Journaling - 
1. Negative - Once again, get the negative & irrational thoughts out of your head and out of the shadows. Writing the thoughts down helps to do this. Recognize & challenge the thoughts, and replace it with a positive one.
2. Positive - Writing a gratitude journal is more preventative, but as you regularly write positive experiences, you'll fire neurons in your brain. Literally you're rewiring the brain to scan for the positive, instead of the negative.
10. Talking back - After getting the thoughts out of your head, have some righteous attitude towards the thoughts and talk back to yourself. Challenge the thoughts. It's even been found that if you name the feelings you're having, it lessons the limbic response. In the words of Dan Sievel, "Name it to tame it"
11. Laughing - Laughing gives a bunch of good chemicals as well. Find something to laugh about.
    
12. Sunlight - We've seen the affects of less sunlight in cases of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). If possible, get outside and get some sun. This will boost your B6 and B12, helping your mood.
13. Get to work - Doing something that requires work, concentration and productivity will give you a sense of accomplishment (along with healthy dopamine) and boost confidence. Don't sit around feeling bad. Get up and do something productive.
14. Be Around Happy People - Emotions are contagious. Being around someone cheerful can help bring you up. Also there are neurons in our brain called mirror neurons that fire when we see someone doing it, as if we were doing it ourselves. This can help give us a lift.

All these things have something in common. They require action. So get up and do something :)

Making the Impossible Possible

Dr. Amen talks about the ANTS in your head (automatic negative thoughts) and suggests getting them out of your head, and replacing them. Carol Tuttle has a similar approach that she used, to do something that she originally never thought possible. She ran a marathon... which then led to 15 marathons!
http://thecarolblog.com/how-to-make-the-impossible-possible/

The basic idea with all of these is when you have a negative thought or belief, do something to get the thought out of your head (this helps recognize when it's an irrational thought, or one contrary to your values), and then replace it with a positive belief. Here's some excerpts

Have you ever wanted to accomplish something BIG…yet believed there was no way on earth you could possibly do it?

Years ago, if you had told me I was going to complete a full marathon, I would not have believed you.

The thought of running 26.2 miles at one time was inconceivable to me. It truly overwhelmed and scared me. I believed there was no way I could do something like that.

Yet deep within me there was a desire to collapse those limiting beliefs and take on the challenge to believe that I could do it.

If there’s something blocking you from your future accomplishment, here’s the energy clearing process I used in order to go from “No, I can’t” to an unwavering “Yes I can…and I did!”

.....

First, I had to acknowledge my limiting belief, and then challenge it with another possibility and choice.

Identifying and then clearing your limiting beliefs helps you open up your energy so you can “open up” to the possibility of creating your desired outcome.

For me, the next step meant taking some kind of action in the direction of my goal. I was not going to become a marathon runner by remaining in bed saying affirmations.

....

 Since I was a beginning marathon runner, I chose to start with run-walk intervals and run for 9 minutes followed by a 1-minute walk.

During those 1-minute intervals I incorporated my “energy clearing sessions.” These are the phrases I repeated:

• Even though I can’t believe I am doing this, I am excited to take on the challenge.

• Even though it scares me that I may die trying, I am letting go of the fear.

As my distance began to increase week by week, I included statements like:

• Even though I don’t feel like getting up so early and running so far, I am staying true to my goal.

• Even though I don’t feel like running right now, I am committed to the outcome.

Give this a try next time you have something difficult or scary to do. I practiced this week for a presentation I made to a group of business intelligence engineers. Feeling the familiar butterflies in my stomach before it started, I grabbed some post it notes and jotted down what thoughts were popping in my head. I made notes next to those thoughts, to point out irrational beliefs, and challenge them. Then I crumpled up the note and threw it away. This was symbolic for me and my brain that I'm getting rid of those thoughts. The presentation went well, and I was more at ease. Give it a try!

Wired for Caring

Are people inherently good or bad? This is a fascinating video on how our brains are wired to show compassion and caring for others.

http://www.medicaldaily.com/human-brain-hardwired-acts-kindness-vagus-nerve-activated-during-empathy-313020

Acquiring sympathy is actually an intrinsic component of our being. When we feel physical pain a part of our brain lights up. The same happens when we see someone in physical pain. It’s as if we’re hardwired to have the imagine ourselves experiencing what others go through, which is otherwise known as empathy. “It engages the frontal lobes, these newer regions of the cortex that are involved in more complex symbolic processes like language and imagining the future,” Keltner said.

...

Unfortunately, researchers have found compassion can also be blocked by other factors like money. Keltner says when images of suffering are shown to the less fortunate (economically), they have a vagus nerve response. This response is not seen among individuals with a lot of acquired wealth. It is believed lots of wealth actually yields a compassion deficit in certain individuals. Keltner finds impoverished communities actually give more and have an enormous strength in comparison to their financially well off counterparts.

While 60 percent of what we do is really about maximizing our personal gratification and desire, 40 percent of the time we do things for other people, and we sacrifice and risk exploitation. Helping others and doing random acts of kindness releases endorphins in our brain that help us feel good, and can even mimic a “runner’s high.” After all, generosity is actually contagious and kindness spreads like wildfire. Keltner says all it really requires is redefining human self-interest. 

Talking Back to Yourself

http://docamen.tumblr.com/post/104706414639/dont-believe-every-stupid-thought-you-have

Tame Inner Child

You know that little voice in your head that's always talking? If you just thought, "What voice?"...then THAT's the voice. Have you noticed how often it's not your friend? How often it tells you negative, harmful things that don't help you with your goals? Psychologist call it negative self talk. At least to some degree, I believe the thoughts come from Satan. Regardless of where it originates, negative thoughts are counter productive and often harmful.

Strategy

Dr. Amen has a simple strategy, that's immediately actionable. Any time you feel sad, mad, nervous or out of control, write down the thoughts you're having, to get them out of your head. Writing it down makes the distortions and irrational thinking more obvious. You can then catch those thoughts, before they do damage, and even talk back to it! Don't let that voice tell you what to do! You're in charge, not it!

Give it a try, and let me know if it works for you!!

21 Day Happiness Challenge

This is a routine I'm going to try for 21 days, leading up to Christmas
Anyone else in?
Everyday, for 21 days do the following:
1. Write 3 new things you're grateful for - Helps rewire the brain to scan for good, rather than bad
2. Write in a journal, and include one positive thing that's happened in the last 24 hours
3. Excercise - Among the many benefits, also teaches the brain the importance of behaviors
4. Meditation - Helps to focus on one thing, to combat our cultural adhd and attempting to do many things at once
5. 1 random act of kindness a day

Shawn Achor: The happy secret to better work