The Quick and Actionable Guide to Behavioral Change

If you look at human history, you’ll see the perennial desire for control express itself in a variety of ways mainly in the form of trying to control others.

Across all the ages, people have done all sorts of tactics to get people to act in a certain way to produce certain results.

Making other people act in beneficial ways can work – up to a point.

But the fact is: you cannot change others, you can only change yourself.

And lasting change only comes from your habits. Your habits come from your perpetual behavior.

Understanding how behavioral change works will help you more effectively guide your own actions so that you can “be the change you want to see in the world” and create positive outcomes.

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What is Behavioral Change?

Behavioral change is the continuous act of modifying human behavior in order to produce a specific result.

All of self-development is based off of behavioral change.

Without behavioral change, there is no growth.

Behavioral change can happen on worldwide, nationwide, and group levels – but it is most effective when applied to the individual level.

As an individual, it is hard enough to get yourself to act in positive ways. What makes you think you’ll get others to act positively without the use of intimidation, blackmail, or other forceful ways?

Even if you did, would you be able to sustain that? Most likely not.

Again, you cannot change others, you can only change yourself.

Behavioral Change and the Paradigm

Every human being operates off of a pre-existing set of subconscious beliefs and concepts of how they view the world to work. This is called a paradigm and overall, it creates your worldview.

This overall meta-paradigm will inform your behavior and then your results.

You have a paradigm for every area of life, especially areas that involve a lot of emotional investment such as relationships/romance and even money.

For example, if I want a girlfriend – a belief of “I am a great person and I’d make a great partner” will make it more likely for me to do the things that lead to having a girlfriend (going out, getting rejected, dating, etc.) than a contrary belief.

If someone wants to change their behavior, they are going to have to find some way to go against all of that past conditioning.

And they’re going to have to be the catalyst for it.

So not only are people operating off of unconscious, unseen thought structures that guide and influence behavior, there are also other obstacles that prevent (immediate) behavioral change.

4 Obstacles to Behavioral Change

If it were easy, everyone would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great. – Tom Hanks, A League of Their Own

If behavioral change was easy, then we would have a society that was healthier, more equitable, and one with much less suffering. As anyone can see, that’s obviously not the case.

But most people want to change. Regardless, wanting is not doing.

There’s 4 main reasons why someone will not change, at least in the short-to-near term. Here’s a brief overview.

No immediate reward

We human beings are the by-product of previous humans who lived in what is called an immediate-return environment. This environment primed humans to think about life in the present or near future.

They were focused on what they were going to eat, how to avoid predators, or how to mate. In this environment it makes sense to place a high value on instant gratification, because life or death could be right around the corner.

It is only in the last couple hundred years that our surroundings has evolved to a delayed-return environment, one where instant gratification is more or less punished.

Human society/civilization was built off of delayed gratification and playing the long game.

Most behavioral change comes on the far side of doing consistent actions over a period of weeks, months, or even years.

Many people do not have the patience required for true behavioral change, so that’s why they give up and go back to the paradigm’s default (whatever that is).

Breaking out of homeostasis (Pain)

Homeostasis is the body’s tendency to want to remain comfortable. This is usually thought of in a physical sense, but it can also be seen in a psychological light.

Changing individual behavior is hard enough because paradigms, once established are hard (and painful) to break/reorient.

Going back to the example of finding a girlfriend: if I have a paradigm of “no woman wants me” and have enough evidence supporting that belief after years and years of rejection; that paradigm will be hard to change.

More so, I will have built an identity off that.

In this case, you will not change your behavior and you will remain the same.

No real motivation (Lack of pain)

On the opposite side of the coin, you also have lack of pain.

You just don’t have enough negative motivation pushing you to make change.

If your doctor tells you that you will die in 6 months if you don’t stop smoking, you will make that change and quit smoking. You have no other option.

Negative motivation isn’t necessarily something you should use to rely on for long periods of time, but it can certainly get you going and can take you far – especially in the early stages of behavioral change.

For many people, there is no urgent situation driving them and they will remain stuck where they are.

No background of discipline

In many Asian or Eastern cultures, there is a long and strong background of self-discipline.

This discipline comes from religions such as Zen Buddhism, Theravada Buddhism, even Taoism.

Western society celebrates spontaneity.

While spontaneity can be good, in the case of behavioral change; you are likely to come out with sub-optimal results.

The more you “wing it”, the less chance you have of hitting your target.

Being completely undisciplined is a norm rather than an exception in (Western) society – which means behavioral change becomes a pipe dream rather than an acute reality.

5 Tenets of Behavioral Change

Now you know the reasons for lack of change, you need to know the rules by which behavioral change is governed. Here’s 5 important ones.

1. What is Easiest is the First Option

“The tendency to follow the path of least resistance guarantees failure in life.” – Brian Tracy

Like water flowing down a stream, human beings will do behaviors that are easiest in the moment.

What is easiest in the moment tend to be things that:

• have a low barrier to entry
• require little conscious thought to execute
• achieve positive feelings

This is why recovering alcoholics should stay far away from a bar or liquor store and why people who want to study shouldn’t go on YouTube.

In the first case, the recovering alcoholic should organize his life and social activities around things that don’t involve drinking. In the second case, the person would be better off with an Internet blocker.

Drinking alcohol and surfing YouTube or the Internet meet all three criteria, which will make it easier to engage in those behaviors.

Structuring your environment to institute good habits is the first prospect of behavioral change.

Takeaway: Make good behaviors the environmental default and bad/counterproductive ones harder to access.

P.S. – Freedom is currently giving a 7-day free trial to new signups. If you’ve always wanted to get an Internet blocker but you don’t know how to do it, here’s your start.

2. What is Rewarded is Repeated, What is Punished is Avoided

“What is rewarded is repeated. What is punished is avoided. You learn what to do in the future based on what you were rewarded for doing (or punished for doing) in the past. Positive emotions cultivate habits. Negative emotions destroy them.“ – James Clear, Atomic Habits

As stated earlier, behavioral change is restricted by one’s paradigm or worldview – beliefs someone has internalized about the world.

If these beliefs are not deeply entrenched (like a child) behavioral substitution and conditioning is easier than someone who is older.

Someone who is older has years and decades of positive or negative conditioning for a certain behavior or set of behaviors and that won’t be erased overnight.

This is why many people who go to rehab relapse.

Their entire worldview has been solidified from an action or behavior that produces “positive” feelings and that doesn’t just go away in a month or two.

Takeaway: Behavioral change must be backed up by a positive or negative charge or else that behavior will not stick.

3. Behavior Will Follow the Status Quo in the Absence of Friction

“Behavior tends to follow the status quo unless it is acted upon by a decrease in friction or a increase in fuel” – Three Laws of Human Behavior

Friction in the Personal MBA is defined as “any force or process that removes energy in a system over time”.

A “system” could be a nation, a community, a business, even an individual – any place where multiple parts interact.

The system will go on the track it has continued to go unless someone hits the breaks or re-routes the direction the system is traveling in.

One recent example is the COVID-19 pandemic. Many businesses were forced to shift their workers to remote work.

The resistance to remote work was moderately high even up to last year, even when there were societal conventions to allow at least moderate telecommuting. Now, employers have no choice or else they will lose productivity.

The pandemic was the major friction that changed the track business was on.

Takeaway: If you want to stop a mindless behavior, insert friction that makes it harder to execute.

4. You Don’t Decide Your Outcome, Only Your Response

Reality doesn’t respond to my will or my wishes or my emotions…it is what I do that affects my world…You don’t need to change how you feel about something to affect it.“ – David Reynolds, Playing Ball on Running Water

Everyone wants something. Some people dream of becoming a millionaire, dating an attractive woman, getting a promotion…all the good stuff in life. Everyone knows what they want.

In fact, society tells you to focus on what you want. But what about the process to get what you want? People think that’s irrelevant to focus on; but in reality, that’s the only thing you truly control – your actions.

You can’t control whether that woman rejects you or not. You can control whether you speak to her.

You can’t control whether or not you’ll eventually become the director of your department. You can control your work ethic.

You can’t control whether you get drafted in to the NBA or the NFL. You can control your practice.

While you can’t control the output, you can control the input. You are not guaranteed a result but you are guaranteed the actions that lead to a potential result.

Takeaway: Be as conscientious as you can. If you come up short, it won’t be because you didn’t try.

5. You Cannot Change Yourself, You Can Only Change Your Behavior

“Change your conception of yourself and you will automatically change the world in which you live. Do not try to change people; they are only messengers telling you who you are. Revalue yourself and they will confirm the change.” – Neville Goddard

If there’s one major takeaway from all of this, it’s that you cannot change yourself and your identity. Your identity is formed from a combination of things you do continuously every day. So by itself, identity is not directly changeable by the will.

However, you can change your thought patterns to think powerful thoughts. Your thoughts create your actions, which will then lead to your behavior.

Going back to the example of getting a girlfriend, empowering thoughts such as “I would make a great partner” will lead you to take the necessary actions to make that happen, which will then result in the outcome of someone who has a girlfriend and who “is a great partner”.

You then no longer see yourself as someone who doesn’t have a girlfriend and your self-image (identity) has changed.

Takeaway: Stop focusing on becoming a new person. Focus on doing (behavior) and the identity change will then follow.

How to Change Your Behavior (Getting Started)

With a knowledge of the obstacles between you and behavioral change in addition to knowing the rules that govern it, you are now ready to learn exactly how to change your behavior.

There are more advanced things you can do, but these are very basic and will help you get very far in the quest to alter your responses to life and its various situations.

Clarify your goals

In the last section, I said that outcome means less than the process. That’s true, but it still doesn’t diminish the fact that you need a goal. The goals will clarify the system you need to execute on.

What is your goal? Stop smoking? Lose weight? Make that visible, make it known. Then, devise a series of steps to get there. These steps will inform the behaviors you have to do every day to make that behavior a part of your lifestyle.

Minimum effective change

In every area of your life, there is something you can remove or add to produce disproportionate lifestyle results.

If you wake up at 7 am, by waking up at 6 am every day, you would add an hour to your day. That’s 7 hours in a week, 28 hours in a month, and 336 hours in a year.

That’s about 8 weeks of full-time work a year just from making that small change. What else would happen if you made these little additions and subtractions to your life?

Maybe you start flossing more. Maybe you start eating one less meal per day for weight loss.

Over time, this compound interest will add up and become 10x more than what was originally put in.

This is known as “kaizen”.

Focus on repetitions

In order to make something a habit, you need to do it repeatedly over and over again in similar configurations.

Neurologically, your brain is creating synaptic connections that wire together and fire together when that action is repeated.

Your brain is the most energy-intensive organ in your body and it wants to make sure it uses those resources wisely. Your brain will keep specific information readily available in short-term memory, but it will not push it to long-term memory unless it sees a need to.

You create that need by constantly being in situations that use relevant information over and over again.

This is why practice makes perfect.

Over time, these synaptic connections become coated in what is called myelin, a substance that makes nerve signals fire with breakneck precision.

The process of learning and changing your brain is called “neuroplasticity”.

Neuroplasticity means you can change and sculpt your brain to virtually any configuration you want.

Want to become a more positive person? Focus on repetitions over time.

Want to become really good at a sport? Focus on repetitions over time.

Want to become someone who can focus? Focus on repetitions over time.

Nothing is out of reach if you focus on repeating a behavior.

Create friction

You’re likely reading this because you want to start doing something positive and stop doing something negative.

To make the latter to occur, friction will be one of your tools.

As said before, friction is any type of force that causes any system to slow down from its pre-determined course.

Friction places a barrier between you and a certain behavior.

If you’re trying to lose weight, removing all of the junk food from your house is friction.

If you’re trying to get up earlier, placing an alarm clock away from arm’s length is friction.

If you’re trying to give up smoking, not buying cigarettes is friction.

Note the behavior you’re trying to change, then ask yourself how friction can help change it.

Establish cues

In the Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg outlines that every habit (behavior) follows a predictable process of activation.

This process is known as “the habit loop” and it contains a cue, a routine, and a reward.

A cue is a signal for the habit to start. This is the alarm clock buzzing in the morning.

The routine is what you do when the habit is in motion. This is you turning off the alarm clock and getting up or going back to sleep.

The reward is the neurochemical or physical reward you get from the behavior. This is the enjoyment of waking up the or the enjoyment of going back to sleep.

In order for a behavior to become a habit, it must go through the habit loop (repetitions) constantly.

Find ways to make that habit easier than necessary to start, execute, then follow through.

Over time, that behavior will become habitual.

Create accountability

It is hard to keep yourself on the straight and narrow when you are trying to change a behavior. Your mind will create all sorts of distortions and rationalizations to prevent from you having to rewire its configuration.

This is where accountability creates a failsafe, compensating for lack of willpower.

You are more likely to follow through on an exercise routine if there are others around you.

We all want to look good to others, so we will do things that highlight our best selves.

Social pressure helps you create good behaviors, so use it to your advantage.

Conclusions + Wrapping Up

Behavioral change is best done at the individual level because you cannot control others, you can only control your behavior.

As such, behavioral change becomes something that is purposeful rather than misdirected in order to attain beneficial outcomes.

You are set up to fail in creating beneficial behaviors because they offer no immediate reward and require you to break out of homeostasis. If you do not have something you are pulling away against or no background for self-discipline, you creating good behaviors will be much harder than someone who has this motivation.

There are 5 tenets that shape behavioral change: availability bias, reward conditioning, status quo, responsibility, and the ability to work on behaviors, not identity.

Each of the steps to start a behavior falls into one or more of these tenets.

Starting a behavior is a combination of environment design, motivation, goal clarification, and social reputation.

You don’t need all of them to start and stick with a behavior, but having all of them guarantees that you will create more good behaviors and less bad ones.

Have you tried to stop doing something and start doing others? How did it go for you? Talk about it in the comments.