HOW TO TURN INSTANT GRATIFICATION TO YOUR
ADVANTAGE
The vital thing in getting a habit to stick is to feel successful—even if it’s in
a small way. The feeling of success is a signal that your habit paid off and
that the work was worth the effort.
In a perfect world, the reward for a good habit is the habit itself. In the
real world, good habits tend to feel worthwhile only after they have
provided you with something. Early on, it’s all sacrifice. You’ve gone to the
gym a few times, but you’re not stronger or fitter or faster—at least, not in
any noticeable sense. It’s only months later, once you shed a few pounds or
your arms gain some definition, that it becomes easier to exercise for its
own sake. In the beginning, you need a reason to stay on track. This is why
immediate rewards are essential. They keep you excited while the delayed
rewards accumulate in the background.
What we’re really talking about here—when we’re discussing immediate
rewards—is the ending of a behavior. The ending of any experience is vital
because we tend to remember it more than other phases. You want the
ending of your habit to be satisfying. The best approach is to use
reinforcement, which refers to the process of using an immediate reward to
increase the rate of a behavior. Habit stacking, which we covered in Chapter
5, ties your habit to an immediate cue, which makes it obvious when to
start. Reinforcement ties your habit to an immediate reward, which makes it
satisfying when you finish.
Immediate reinforcement can be especially helpful when dealing with
habits of avoidance, which are behaviors you want to stop doing. It can be
challenging to stick with habits like “no frivolous purchases” or “no alcohol
this month” because nothing happens when you skip happy hour drinks or
don’t buy that pair of shoes. It can be hard to feel satisfied when there is no
action in the first place. All you’re doing is resisting temptation, and there
isn’t much satisfying about that.
One solution is to turn the situation on its head. You want to make
avoidance visible. Open a savings account and label it for something you
want—maybe “Leather Jacket.” Whenever you pass on a purchase, put the
same amount of money in the account. Skip your morning latte? Transfer
$5. Pass on another month of Netflix? Move $10 over. It’s like creating a
loyalty program for yourself. The immediate reward of seeing yourself save
money toward the leather jacket feels a lot better than being deprived. You
are making it satisfying to do nothing.
One of my readers and his wife used a similar setup. They wanted to stop
eating out so much and start cooking together more. They labeled their
savings account “Trip to Europe.” Whenever they skipped going out to eat,
they transferred $50 into the account. At the end of the year, they put the
money toward the vacation.
It is worth noting that it is important to select short-term rewards that
reinforce your identity rather than ones that conflict with it. Buying a new
jacket is fine if you’re trying to lose weight or read more books, but it
doesn’t work if you’re trying to budget and save money. Instead, taking a
bubble bath or going on a leisurely walk are good examples of rewarding
yourself with free time, which aligns with your ultimate goal of more
freedom and financial independence. Similarly, if your reward for
exercising is eating a bowl of ice cream, then you’re casting votes for
conflicting identities, and it ends up being a wash. Instead, maybe your
reward is a massage, which is both a luxury and a vote toward taking care
of your body. Now the short-term reward is aligned with your long-term
vision of being a healthy person.
Eventually, as intrinsic rewards like a better mood, more energy, and
reduced stress kick in, you’ll become less concerned with chasing the
secondary reward. The identity itself becomes the reinforcer. You do it
because it’s who you are and it feels good to be you. The more a habit
becomes part of your life, the less you need outside encouragement to
follow through. Incentives can start a habit. Identity sustains a habit.
That said, it takes time for the evidence to accumulate and a new identity
to emerge. Immediate reinforcement helps maintain motivation in the short
term while you’re waiting for the long-term rewards to arrive.
In summary, a habit needs to be enjoyable for it to last. Simple bits of
reinforcement—like soap that smells great or toothpaste that has a
refreshing mint flavor or seeing $50 hit your savings account—can offer the
immediate pleasure you need to enjoy a habit. And change is easy when it is
enjoyable.
Chapter Summary
The 4th Law of Behavior Change is make it satisfying.
We are more likely to repeat a behavior when the experience is
satisfying.
The human brain evolved to prioritize immediate rewards over
delayed rewards.
The Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change: What is immediately
rewarded is repeated. What is immediately punished is avoided.
To get a habit to stick you need to feel immediately successful—
even if it’s in a small way.
The first three laws of behavior change— make it obvious, make it
attractive, and make it easy—increase the odds that a behavior
will be performed this time. The fourth law of behavior change—
make it satisfying—increases the odds that a behavior will be
repeated next time.
16
How to Stick with Good Habits Every Day
I
N 1993
, a bank in Abbotsford, Canada, hired a twenty-three-year-old
stockbroker named Trent Dyrsmid. Abbotsford was a relatively small
suburb, tucked away in the shadow of nearby Vancouver, where most of the
big business deals were being made. Given the location, and the fact that
Dyrsmid was a rookie, nobody expected too much of him. But he made
brisk progress thanks to a simple daily habit.
Dyrsmid began each morning with two jars on his desk. One was filled
with 120 paper clips. The other was empty. As soon as he settled in each
day, he would make a sales call. Immediately after, he would move one
paper clip from the full jar to the empty jar and the process would begin
again. “Every morning I would start with 120 paper clips in one jar and I
would keep dialing the phone until I had moved them all to the second jar,”
he told me.
Within eighteen months, Dyrsmid was bringing in $5 million to the firm.
By age twenty-four, he was making $75,000 per year—the equivalent of
$125,000 today. Not long after, he landed a six-figure job with another
company.
I like to refer to this technique as the Paper Clip Strategy and, over the
years, I’ve heard from readers who have employed it in a variety of ways.
One woman shifted a hairpin from one container to another whenever she
wrote a page of her book. Another man moved a marble from one bin to the
next after each set of push-ups.
Making progress is satisfying, and visual measures—like moving paper
clips or hairpins or marbles—provide clear evidence of your progress. As a
result, they reinforce your behavior and add a little bit of immediate
satisfaction to any activity. Visual measurement comes in many forms: food
journals, workout logs, loyalty punch cards, the progress bar on a software
download, even the page numbers in a book. But perhaps the best way to
measure your progress is with a habit tracker.
| 