Flex_ Do Something Different - Ben [41]
44. The ‘golden rules’ for behaviour change
We propose that for personal change to be effective and sustainable, change has to occur in both the experiencing and the reflecting self. Targeting only one might make a short-term difference but will be ineffective in the long term. The following conditions for change interventions are necessary because they affect both selves. They need to:
be pleasurable and relatively pain-free for the person
bring short-term effects or rewards
provide novel experiences that expand the person
reshape future attitudes, memories and beliefs
reduce the power of previous habits and
develop a new, broader set of behaviours/cognitions for the person.
Do Something Different satisfies all these conditions and this is illustrated in Figure 6.
The Do Something Different tasks in our programmes are designed to:
be fun and pleasurable, aiming to minimise the pain of change – by breaking change down into small daily things to do, the rewards and feedback should also be immediate
challenge the person to try something new and unfamiliar, and thereby expand them so they use more of their personality
reshape their future thoughts by gradually changing the core of the person
weaken the pull of old habits
incrementally add new behaviours and cognitions to the person’s repertoire and
enable the person to flex and get more from life.
45. Bringing about long-term behaviour change
If you are somebody who wants to change, or just improve, your life you may be confronted or even confused by the plethora of self-help and personal development programmes around. But when making a choice these are some of the key points to bear in mind:
Does the change process rely on willpower? If so there is a high likelihood that most people will fail most of the time. The most successful personal change frameworks only work when they reduce the demand for willpower.
Do Something Different does not require willpower; the emphasis is not on depriving yourself but on adding something to your life.
Can the changes be easily integrated into everyday living? If not, there’s not likely to be much change. That’s because constant effort will be needed to keep up the new behaviours and this will wane over time (and at the end of each day!).
Do Something Different works on the basis of daily behaviour changes – small, achievable and fun things that can be done in the course of daily life.
Is just one behaviour being targeted for change? Most people try to just change one thing. For example, if a person wants to lose weight, they may embark on a diet but won’t also tackle habits in their relationships, their stress levels, and in their engagement with life generally. For that very reason, failure is likely. Without broader changes the target behaviour will continue to be supported by existing habits.
Do Something Different programmes address all the habits in a person’s life, since even apparently unrelated habits can maintain unwanted behaviour.
Does the change framework require the person to keep the specific target goal in mind? If so, this will work against success for two reasons:
Having to constantly keep the goal in the conscious mind demands constant cognitive effort that will prove too demanding in the long term.
Having a constant focus on the target can lead to ‘behavioural rebound’. Thinking constantly about not doing something (e.g. smoking, eating unhealthily) makes the doing of it more likely, not less. The brain is conditioned to seek out that which it is deprived of (so the dieter is more sensitive to food cues than the non-dieter).
Do Something Different engages the person in new enjoyable behaviours, distracting them from those things they should not be doing. It is the tool with which we increase flexibility and bring about coherence in the person.
46. Coherence comes from doing the right thing