How to Improve Health Behavior Change: A Powerful Tool

Leila Moinpour October 2012

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

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.

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.

How…?

Change your Environment…

…What does this mean?

Lets take a look at Behavior Design

A behavior occurs when 3 things come together:

Motivation, Ability, and Trigger

B = MAT

If something is missing from this equation, the behavior will not happen.

So how can we create an environment that encourages the convergence of

all three factors?

So how can we create an environment that encourages the convergence of

all three factors?

Define triggers for behaviorCelebration, amplification

Reduce triggers for alternative behaviors

So how can we create an environment that encourages the convergence of

all three factors?

Increase your ability to do behaviorLook 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: BARRIERSCreate an environment that makes alternatives harder to

do

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.

Motivation

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.

Here’s Why

Motivation fluctuates throughout your life each day like a sound wave.

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

The trick in handling motivation is to make the behavior

easier to do.

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

Increased Ability to do BehaviorDecreased Ability to do

Alternative With defined TriggersReduced Triggers to Alternative

Set up the environment with one or more of these changes….

Increased Ability to do BehaviorDecreased Ability to do

Alternative With defined TriggersReduced Triggers to Alternative

so the task can be accomplished under LOW motivation

Set up the environment with one or more of these changes….

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

Today I want to walk.

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…

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…

Each person’s target behavior, environment, and

solution will be different.

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.

A Case Example

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…

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.

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.

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 membersFriends stop to walk with me oftenI can listen to musicI get to slow down my dayI get to reflect on what I’ve learnedI get a few moments to myself in this face

paced environmentI feel better after a walk…..

I’m still learning about why I could like this form of transportation better than my alternatives.

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.

Now, what behaviors do you want to change in your own

life?

Increased Ability to do BehaviorDecreased Ability to do

Alternative With defined TriggersReduced Triggers to Alternative

so the task can be accomplished under LOW motivation

Set up the environment with one or more of these changes….

Ride that Wave to change your Behavior

Start today