Top Mistakes in Behavior Change
moonbase.rydia.net
moonbase.rydia.net
tldr: start small, don't set bullshit goals, it acually is hard. much harder than you think
Actually "assuming that behavior change is difficult" is listed as the tenth mistake.
Paradoxes like this always frustrated me so I worked-out a more concrete model for these change systems:
You've got "area of behavior" which you've got good conscious control over and where you can plan and work hard. You've got another "another area of behavior" where you don't have much conscious control and you tend to screw-up in.
You want to work hard within the area you do control to create a framework where things are relatively easy for you in the area you don't control.
You don't want to just throw a lot of effort at the area you don't control, you don't want to discourage yourself concerning the area you don't control. You want to have clearly understandable goals in the area you don't control.
And so you want the "heavy lifting" to be within the area you do control.
Now, "hard" is for the work in creating your framework. "not difficult" is for the experience you have within the framework.
Make sense?
I liked and appreciate MenTaLguY's commentary anyways.
The difficulty/easiness of an action has six components: time, money, physical effort, brain cycles, social deviance, and non-routine.
Thus, the overall difficulty/easiness of an action depends on the resource profile of the person performing that action. That profile varies wildly from person to person, as well as according to context. Awareness of your own resource profile is important for self-control, and awareness of other people's resource profiles is important for persuasion.
The captology site also discusses using triggers to tilt the odds in your favor. The most effective variety of trigger depends on both difficulty and motivation level.
http://web.archive.org/web/20041204095306/http://captology.s...