The Brain Hack From The 60s That Still Works Today
Your brain works on a reward circuit.
- Stimulus.
- Behavior.
- Reward.
That's the cycle.
Example:
- You see the living room is dirty and kinda smelly.
- You spray Febreeze.
- It smells fantastic.
That's the whole cycle and its part of everything we do as humans. No matter what you want to do, you will need to face this cycle.In fact, super successful products like Febreeze, Listerine, and Coca-Cola have built-in rewards that increase consumption behavior from customers.This isn't new--it's called reinforcement and it was coined by B.F. Skinner and the other Behaviorist Psychologists in the 60s.
It works in business and it works in life.
If you want to build a habit, break a habit, stop dating the same type of person, start exercising more, finish that novel, improve test scores, increase sales, decrease staff turnover, quit smoking, eat healthily, or WHATEVER . . .You're going to need to understand this basic, fundamental human circuit for behavior and how people respond to it.If your employees feel crummy every time they talk to you, they are going to stop talking to you and leave.If your students feel empowered and capable every time they leave your class, they're going to show up and try hard.If your customers feel like they didn't get what they expected, they are not going to tell you (they'll tell their friends) and they are not going to come back.
2 Minute Action
What's a habit or behavior you want to start, stop, or otherwise change?Don't stop there.What's the stimulus, behavior, and reward?It's up to you to identify, test, and solve for this reward circuit. If you're serious about getting your results, you're going to need to figure out how to hack your own behavior and do what you need to do.
"A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying."- B.F. Skinner
The Fastest Way To Supercharged Professional And Personal Productivity
You line up the ball.You walk it down the lane.You roll it down that oily wooden lane.Crash!In an instant, you know exactly how you did.In the next instant, you get the chance to analyze your roll.Was your grip too loose? Did you move your wrist too much?
The point here is that this immediate feedback helps us modify our performance quickly.
Of course, for most of us, daily life doesn't feel like this at all.In fact, many people feel like there's an "invisible ledger" at work, where the boss is keeping score without sharing how you're doing.And it's only after a few months, at our quarterly performance review, that we get the chance to see how we're being graded.Ridiculous!If you want to see change happen fast in your professional and personal life: call it when you see it.There's no substitute for this.The faster you reward or re-direct someone's behavior, the faster they have the opportunity to change it.This isn't new information, it's operant conditioning and it was coined about a century ago.If employees are throwing pennies down a well and they never hear a splash, well, that's a great way to discourage them from throwing pennies down the well.Rewards for good actions. Re-directs for actions that need to be improved.It doesn't matter if it's positive or negative behavior, the reinforcement just has to happen fast.
2 Minute Action:
Be specific.Catch someone doing something right, today.Call it out and praise it publically.It literally only takes 2 minutes to make someone's day.And you have the power to make it so.