I counsel  lots of people who are trying to get other people to behave differently. This may be a parent who is trying to get their kids to behave better or do their chores.  It may be someone who is trying to get their spouse to treat them more with more respect.  It may also be someone who is trying to change their own behavior.

Whether you’re trying to change your own behavior or someone else’s, you’ll usually get better results if you focus on rewarding or celebrating the things they are doing right rather than criticizing the things that are going wrong.  For example, if your spouse is on the sloppy side and tends to leave things laying around, watch for the next time they put something away without being asked and make sure you compliment or thank them for it.  For example, “I love it when I see you put things away!  That’s so helpful”.  I know it sounds kind of cheesy but it works.  The more you do it the more likely they are to keep putting things away.  Then you can start asking them to do small things and compliment that too.  For example, “Can you do me a big favor and put away those tools you have on the counter”.  If they do it, show appreciation.

If we try to get someone to change behavior by nagging or criticizing, they might develop a habit of doing it, but only because they think you’ll be negative if they don’t.  You really don’t want your teenager to constantly remind themselves of how you’re going to complain if they don’t pick up their room.  It’s better if they have the memory of you being appreciative when you walk by and notice how clean their room is and comment on how mature or responsible they are.

This works on yourself as well.  If you’re trying to develop a new habit, take reading for example,  try to set a time when you will read for at least a minute or two, then give yourself a mental pat on the back for doing the thing you said you were going to do.  I’ve been working on this myself.  I have several habits I’m trying to train myself to do.  Rather than berating myself for not doing something, I focus on celebrating myself when I “do the thing”.  It works.  When I feel successful for doing one thing, I’m eager to keep doing it and I usually do even more constructive things while I’m in such a good mood.

Gary Watson is a Solution Focused Therapist in Grand Rapids Michigan.  He provides counseling for couples, teenagers, and adults.  He can help with anxiety, depression, stress, college and work stress, relationship problems, and more.  For more information, please visit the website at www.turnaboutcounseling.com.

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As I delve more into the science of behavior and motivation, I learn  many of my clients have one thing in common.  They bite off more than they can chew at the start, and then get demotivated and quit. The other thing they do that interferes with their goals is to plan to start “tomorrow”, and tomorrow never happens.

My clients know that starting these good, healthy habits will be a big benefit to them in their lives, so they can’t understand why they can’t just do it.  

The problem is that many of the things we “need” to do in order to feel good about ourselves, cost us in mental and physical effort.  And the human brain doesn’t really like expending energy.  Our brains are geared towards conserving energy, not expending it.  Our brains tell us not to repeat things that are painful or cost a lot of energy.  This may be the same principle in play when we touch a hot stove.  Our brain says to us, “don’t do that again, that hurts.  So goes the motivation when we do something like work out too hard.  We may feel good about burning calories on that first workout, but if we push ourselves and use up all our will power, we are still fighting our brain’s insistence not to do that again because it wasn’t fun.

So, what do you do? You’re trying to start a habit of doing something your brain really doesn’t want you to continue.  How do you convince it otherwise so it will be on your side?

Here’s the trick.  Start small and do just enough so that you’re still enjoying the activity, and then quit for the day while you’re ahead.  Most activities, even math homework, can be enjoyable, or at least satisfying, in short bursts.  For math, for example, you might feel good about the fact that you got out your books and started trying to understand algebra, just for a few minutes.  You want to stop while this still feels good, rather than push through until you’re in agony.

Then, the next day, you add just a little more time to your task.  If you did 5 pushups today and quit before your arms really hurt and your brain is asking why are you doing this, you’ll have the slightest feeling of, “I wanted to keep going”,and then, “I want to do that again”.  This way your brain sees this as enjoyable and instead of dreading when you have to do it again, you’ll be anxiously awaiting the time when you get to do it again.  Then in a few days, you add just a bit more. And in this way, you start to develop a new habit for something that you need to do but don’t necessarily want to do (at first).  Pretty soon,  the exercise or homework or yard work won’t seem like “work” because you let yourself develop an interest in doing it by starting slow and building up.

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I just heard this saying the other day for the first time and it made me think about my own habits. The saying suggests to me that we all have a level of conscientiousness about how we approach things, from our jobs to relationships to keeping up our homes to parenting our kids. If someone were to watch how we do one thing, it would give them a pretty good idea of how we do most things.

My two brothers tend to be slow and methodical about most things. They even walk slow compared to me. When I watch them do physical things such as maintenance on a car, they move slowly and methodically as if every movement is planned. They’re careful and think things through before they do it or while they’re doing it. As a result, they don’t make many mistakes.

I can see similar patterns in how I do things. I won’t go into detail, but let’s just say I can see patterns. Sometimes I move too quickly and then have to retrace my steps because I forgot something. I sometimes end up doing something over because I rushed. It’s an ADHD thing, okay?

This saying also reminds me of the saying, “If the job is worth doing, it’s worth doing right”. The saying about how you do anything is how you do everything seems to add to the meaning of this one. Taking time and effort to do any job the right way, builds self-esteem and you become better at many other things because you are teaching yourself to be more conscientious. In turn, this leads to higher self-esteem, stronger self-concept, and more reason to take pride in who we are.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to go make my bed.

Gary Watson is a Solution Focused Therapist in Grand Rapids Michigan.  He provides counseling for couples, counseling for teenagers, and adults.  He provides counseling for anxiety, depression, stress, college and work stress, and relationship problems.  For more information, please visit the website at www.turnaboutcounseling.com.

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