Understanding Behavior Change to that you can make very simple changes in your life. Slides focus on how you might altering your environment might to make these behavior changes occur easily.

1. Leila Moinpour October 2012

2. What if you could create a new habit
that would change your life?

3. What if you could create a new habit
that would change your life?
I want to walk for 30 minutes a day.
I want to learn to like it.

4. What if you could create a new habit
that would change your life?
How…?
I want to walk for 30 minutes a day.
I want to learn to like it.

5. Change your Environment…
…What does this mean?

6. Lets take a look at Behavior Design
A behavior occurs when 3 things come
together:
Motivation, Ability, and Trigger

7. B = MAT
If something is missing from this
equation, the behavior will not happen.

8. So how can we create an environment
that encourages the convergence of all
three factors?

9. So how can we create an environment
that encourages the convergence of all
three factors?
Define triggers for behavior
Celebration, amplification
Reduce triggers for alternative behaviors

10. So how can we create an environment
that encourages the convergence of all
three factors?
Increase your ability to do behavior
Look at: TIME, SKILL, and simply, how easy is this to do?
Create an environment that makes it easier than easy to get started
Decrease your ability to use alternatives to
behavior
Look at: BARRIERS
Create an environment that makes alternatives harder to do

11. Motivation
Don’t think about this. Because you’ve already read 10
slides, I know you’re interested enough to entertain the
possibility of how you could change your own life…
Motivation is not the key.

12. The goal today is to alter your environment in
terms of abilities and triggers so motivation is
never an excuse to not perform the behavior.

13. Here’s Why
Motivation fluctuates throughout your life
each day like a sound wave.

14. Some days, you’ll be really excited to tackle the
‘challenge’ and other days you won’t...

15. The trick in handling motivation
is to make the behavior
easier to do.

17. In altering your environment,
prepare in advance to ride the wave

18. Set up the environment with one or more
of these changes….
Increased Ability to do Behavior
Decreased Ability to do Alternative
With defined Triggers
Reduced Triggers to Alternative

19. Set up the environment with one or more
of these changes….
Increased Ability to do Behavior
Decreased Ability to do Alternative
With defined Triggers
Reduced Triggers to Alternative
so the task can be
accomplished under LOW motivation

20. I want to walk for 30 minutes a day,
Eventually.
Today I want to walk.

21. Walking is an uphill to downhill behavior according
to many experienced walkers
When you start, the goal is
to reduce how high the hill
seems by altering that
environment around you.
No one wants to be where
this guy is…

22. Walking is an uphill to downhill behavior according
to many experienced walkers
When you learn to love it,
your perception of how
large the hill is will get
smaller. The activity itself
becomes easier after
beginning the habit…

23. Each person’s target behavior,
environment, and
solution will be different.

24. A Case Example
I love biking (alternative). In fact, I bike everywhere
because I am a student on a college campus. Walking
is a pain (motivation), and takes too long and I don’t
have the time (ability). In addition, my bike sits
outside my door, and it is beautiful. How can I resist
riding it (trigger)? If I don’t get my way, then I’ll
longboard to class (alternative). It sits by my door
(trigger). Its faster (ability) for when I’m late to class
without my bike and carving with it makes me happy.

25. My goal is to make this uphill perception
disappear, to walk enough times to find a
way to understand for myself why people
who walk love it after they do it
consistently…

26. Day 1: Reducing Trigger
I placed my bike somewhere else by my dorm to put it out of
sight, and to make the time cost of getting it outweigh the time
taking to walk to my destination.
Day 2: Unfortunately out of sight didn’t mean out of mind
Biking was still an alternative because it was near in my mind.
The time I would save later in the day between classes biking
made it such that the time saved throughout the day was worth
getting my bike.
I placed it back at my dorm at the end of the day and told
myself I wouldn’t ride it. I wanted to go somewhere at night on
campus. I then used this as an excuse to ride it instead of walk.

27. Day 3: Eliminating Triggers
I called a friend and lent my bike to her for the upcoming week
to eliminate biking as an alternative. My Longboard also went
into my top closet shelf, as to remind me of my goals. I would
do the ‘uphill’ task because it was now easier then overcoming
the barriers to retrieve my bike and longboard. A wise choice,
because I ended up running a marathon that weekend. When I
came back, my motivation tanked with my soreness. I
discovered that it was kind of cool to walk. If I can walk then, I
can walk anytime.
Day 4: Increasing Ability
I needed to make larger efforts to wake up earlier or to leave
class on time in order to make it to my next meeting. I changed
my alarm time and started to gage the amount of time
necessary to walk places. My ability to arrive on time improved
with my practice.

28. Day 6: Walking is gaining some sort of attraction for
me, comparable to biking. Whoa.
I can see the benefits and kind of like it.
I call my family members
Friends stop to walk with me often
I can listen to music
I get to slow down my day
I get to reflect on what I’ve learned
I get a few moments to myself in this face paced
environment
I feel better after a walk…..
I’m still learning about why I could like this form of
transportation better than my alternatives.

29. I’m doing this with you and I’m one heck of a
step farther than I’ve been. The answers
probably won’t be found in your first attempt to
alter your environment, but keep tweaking.
You’ll find what works with your target behavior
following these guidelines.

30. Now, what behaviors do you
want to change in your own
life?

31. Set up the environment with one or more
of these changes….
Increased Ability to do Behavior
Decreased Ability to do Alternative
With defined Triggers
Reduced Triggers to Alternative
so the task can be
accomplished under LOW motivation

32. Ride that Wave to change
your Behavior
Start today