A solution - for New Year Re-solutions

New year is the time for resolutions. Hmmm. To be more precise January 1st is the time to make resolutions that get buried after a brief sputtering life span of two weeks. By now if I asked you about your resolution at best you might manage is a sheepish grin. Nothing strange in that - many of our New Year resolutions have gone down the same road.

And this story does’nt end with the New year resolutions alone. The same happens for any of our good intentions, or objectives to create new good habits. These initiatives start all right but peter off within a week or so.

You might think that it is a motivation problem. But no.It is not a motivation problem. If anything it is an imagination problem. 

Let me share a story I came across on youtube a while ago -

Once upon a time….

Mr & Mrs Bill and their two young children were holidaying in Disney Land – Orlando. (what else can you do in Disney Land – apart from holidaying?). They were on a safari in Disney’s Animal Kingdom Park. The safari trail took them through replicas of major regions in the world – and at the instant of this story  – they were passing through the African section. As the Humvee meandered through the mud- road of the lookalike savannahs – they saw graceful giraffes grazing alongside flattened out acacias. They discovered silent cheetahs crouching on shady branches with coal black eyes fixated on them.

The safari moved on, they had just crossed a gang of bisons shining under the noon sun , when all of a sudden appeared a small hillock rising sharply to reveal a majestic lion standing on top of a large rock. Serene and splendid. Out under the mid noon sun - It was a picture postcard scene right out of Lion King!  

It was breathtaking!

Bill was awed. His two children squealed with joy – wow!  , ooooh …..Mufasa!

The Humvee rolled on but Bill and the people in the safari had their eyes pinned on the lion standing serenely on the rock.

Bill was filled with emotion. He turned to the guide and thanked him profusely – “ I am so grateful – you brought us here at the very right moment . I am so very grateful – he repeated. We are so lucky to be able to see the lion – such a wonderful site.  

But the tour guide was’nt impressed. This was routine for him so he said That’s nothing the lion is always there.

At first Bill didn’t register – then his curiosity was a piqued.

Oh really? How come – Is it stuffed? Or  is it made of wax?  

Naw, its real , said the guide , it is not made of wax.

Oh, well then how is it possible ? Have you tied the lion to the rock. Bill was curious and persistent. Finally, his persistence paid off.

The rock is temperature controlled – said the guide.

When it became really hot outside the rock stayed cool, and when it was cold outside the rock became warm.

Awesome!. An awfully simple method to make the lion stand out in the sun so that the people got their money’s worth.

The engineers of Disney land had devised a simple way to control the actions of the lion. The lion voluntarily chose the rock. A simple tweak to the lions’ environment created the desired reflexive behaviour.

A small tweak is all that was needed (and some imagination).

Would’nt it be great if we could tweak our environments to create the actions and habits we wanted. Not having to depend on our limited resource of will power for routine tasks. I say that would be cool.

Creating new useful habits would be such a breeze.  A small tweak and we will automatically follow a different routine, leaving our will power to tackle the more important issues. (Mistakes like Trump could be avoided – perhaps ).

Best part about this is that it isn’t rocket science.

All it requires is a tweak. Introduce a source of pleasure to negate the pain of change.

We could reward ourselves everytime we did something we don’t like but which is important. A pleasure to counter the pain – till the new routine sets in. This is the reward substitution or the pain pleasure principle –  and is explained using different monickers. 

The best part about it, is that it works. If you want to dive deeper into the topic I suggest you start with this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qibHD375buU. Dan Ariely is an authority on this subject. He has used it on himself to great effect.

Human beings are wired to follow the path of least resistance. Rational thought (will power) is not effective in guiding our day to day actions. Good intentions alone do not suffice. The road to perdition as they say is paved with good intentions.  Instead as Dan suggests do the right things even if, for the wrong reasons. Intentions, don’t count. To get ourselves to take the actions that require to be taken the most effective way is to practice reward substitution and let our animal nature do the rest.

Prakash Francis works with organisations to identify candidates for their roles. His other passion is in helping people become great presenters, coaching them to shed their fear of stage and to confidently impact the world with their ideas. He is a distance runner, cyclist and movie buff. He lives in Bangalore.