Latest Unthinking - April

792 words, 3 parts and 3 mins of your time.🚀

1. Tell me something new!

2. Dirt track mindset

3. Highlights

Chat GPTs quick summary of today’s newsletter:

“Habits are like stubborn stains on your favourite shirt—hard to get rid of and always leaving a mark. Remember, if you want to stick to a new habit, just make it as easy as pressing a button for champagne at Bob Bob Ricard. Don't miss out on upcoming events like Unthink's VIP experiences and Love Sundays applications - they're the antidote to Sunday Scaries!”

Enjoy!

Habits are a popular topic. Whether it’s learning, diet, fitness or a hobby, we all have our own habits and want others. Books on habits have received a lot of press in recent years - yep you know the one. Creating new habits is difficult and depending on which research you’re reading, can take up to a year to cement.

If you were to think about your strongest habit in your day (good or bad), you’ll find that it’s probably automatic behaviour - there’s very little friction to carrying it out every day, whether that is intentional or not.

Those weaker habits might need a little more design so they’re where you want them to be. Don’t worry, we got you…

In The Illusion on Choice, Richard Shotton calls this habit formation and shares 6 elements to making habits sticky.

1. Pick the right moments to break existing habits

   Breaking an existing habit is hard. Capitalise on fresh starts or milestone moments to ingrain new habits. New house, new job, new month, your birthday. Research from Katherine Milkman at The Wharton School suggests that when we enter a new time period, our relationship with our past self is weakened it’s easier to change behaviour. New gym just opened up round the corner? That’s your moment.

2. Don’t rely on motivation

   Contrary to what we might think, increased desire doesn’t translate to behaviour change. Psychologists call this the intention to action gap. You need to create a cue that will prompt the desired behaviour. Think about your intention to head to the gym after work 3 days a week. Set time in your diary for that workout to happen, or agree to meet with a friend so you’re not just relying on blind motivation.

3. Habit Stacking

   This is using an existing behaviour to attach the new one to. The more distinctive the cue, the better. The conclusion of your daily 4.30pm meeting? That is your cue to go and pick up your kit and trainers you left at the door.

4. Chunking

   Make the behaviour you’re trying to encourage as easy as possible by making it appear bite size. Don’t commit to 90 minute workouts with 15 exercises and cardio if you’re just starting out. Break it down into smaller more realistic sections.

5. Harness the power of uncertain rewards

   People like to be rewarded when behaviour is embedded. This can be in many forms. Marketers like to use unpredictable rewards to incentivise behaviours. Think about the website you landed on that gave you the option to spin the wheel for a chance to win prizes of varying significance.

6. Repetition, repetition, repetition.

   The three most important tactics. Avoid relying on short bursts and aim for sustained interventions - helped by the above.

Eliminating the friction of a behaviour can be a valuable ploy. Think Netflix’s autoplay feature or Amazon’s one click purchase button.

Those who have enjoyed the fine dining at Bob Bob Ricard in London will be familiar with the ‘press for champagne’ button on the table. Completely novel to some, but the owners will be happy with the feature now they sell the most champagne out of all the restaurants in Britain.

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See you again in May!

Team Unthink 🫶