What if our success was less about channeling willpower and more about building sustainable habits?

Too often, when we think about goals we've failed to achieve, we blame it on a lack of willpower. Yet research has shown when we rely primarily on willpower, we're bound to fail. Willpower takes energy, and it's when our energy stores are at their lowest that we need it the most. That's when we default to our old habits, the ones we most want to change. They require a lot less energy because they've become automatic.

If that's the case, what can we do?

Wendy Wood, author of the book, Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes that Stick, can help. Professor of Psychology and Business at the University of Southern California, she's studied the science of habits for decades.

To begin, Wendy argues we need to give ourselves the time we need to develop new habits. We need time for our habits to become unconscious. She explains that, "People who have high levels of self-control, they don't report being distracted by temptations. They don't even see the temptations anymore because they are on autopilot."

Drawing on decades of research, Wendy shares concrete ways we can form new habits. One of these involves environment, especially proximity. For example, researchers found that people who drove around three miles to the gym went five times as often as those who traveled five miles. Wendy shares, "It's not like the people who went five times a month were necessarily more motivated. The big difference here is the distance they had to travel. So making it easy for you to repeat a behavior seems to be key."

Wendy has written for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, and her work has been featured in The New York Times, Time magazine, and on NPR.

The Host

You can learn more about Curious Minds Host and Creator, Gayle Allen, and Producer and Editor, Rob Mancabelli, here.

Episode Links

@ProfWendyWood

http://goodhabitsbadhabits.org/

Hyperfocus by Chris Bailey

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CM 152: Wendy Wood on the Science of Habits

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