Four Laws of Behavior Change

1. Cue: Make it Obvious

  • Make the cue obvious. Change your environment to do this.
  • Have a implementation intention: "I will BEHAVIOR at TIME in LOCATION".
  • Habit stacking. "After CURRENT HABIT, I will NEW HABIT"

2. Craving: Make it Attractive

  • Temptation Bundling: Pair an action that you want to do with the new habit you are trying to build.
  • Join spaces where the desired behavior is the normal behavior.
  • Motivation Ritual: Do something you enjoy before starting the difficult habit.

3. Response: Make it Easy

  • Reduce friction. Reduce the number of steps needed to take before the desired behavior.
  • Prime the environment to make future actions easier.

4. Reward: Make it Satisfying

  • What is immediately rewarded is repeated.
  • What is immediately punished is avoided

You can invert these laws to break bad habits.

Reference

Meta