Markman - Smart Change: Five Tools to Create New and Sustainable Habits in Yourself and Others

Praise for Art Markmans

Smart Change

This book not only helps you understand yourself but also provides the tools to help you change your behavior. As you work through the innovative exercises in this book, you will create new habits at home, at school, or at workand be on your way to a healthier and happier you. This book will have lasting impact.

Technology promises to make our lives easier and more efficient, but too often it has just the opposite effectwe feel rushed, harried, and always on, and we take refuge in bad habits like procrastination. If this sounds like you, you need to try Smart Change . Its based on the science of motivation and designed to tap into our habit-forming circuits and use them to create a more satisfying life.

Art Markmans smart, engaging, quirky book will teach you how to do more of the things that make you healthy, wealthy, and happy, and less of the things that dont. Smart Change is an important book thats also a delight to read.

A smart book for all of us who have tried to change our behavior and failed... Markman leverages the latest scientific research on habits and motivations to offer a practical guide to successful behavior change. In an engaging, easy-to-follow style, the book explains how habits thwart our best intentions but also help us realize our goals. Markman starts with the insight that repeated, consistent kinds of failures are the real challenges in life. He then walks the reader through a series of simple steps to optimize goals. As Markman explains, changing our behavior often involves changing our environments so that its easy to repeat desired actions until they become the habitual, default response.

Smart Change presents the science and practice of what might be the toughest job that people take onto change themselves. Enlivened by stories from daily life as well as the headlines, five clear and actionable steps outline the most effective ways that people can change their habits, minds, and bodies. Recognizing that behavioral change is not easybut also not impossiblethis books combination of cutting-edge research and narrative storytelling gives insights that are sure to stick.

Change is hard, but it doesnt have to be. In this insightful book, Art Markman gets to the root causes of our habits and explains what it takes to reshape them and make lasting, positive changes in our lives.

A PERIGEE BOOK

Published by the Penguin Group

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Copyright 2014 by Art Markman, PhD

The Road to Wisdom copyright 1966 by Piet Hein. Originally published in Grooks . Reprinted with permission.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Markman, Arthur B.

Smart change : five tools to create new and sustainable habits in yourself and others / Art Markman, PhD.First edition.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-399-16411-8 (hardback)

ISBN 978-1-101-61582-9 (eBook)

1. Habit. 2. Change (Psychology) 3. Habit breaking. 4. Behavior modification. I. Title.

BF335.M26 2014

152.3'3dc232013034778

First edition: January 2014

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

To Dedre Gentner and Doug Medin

the best mentors anyone could hope to have.

CONTENTS

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

FOREWORD

Few books and little of the self-help advice I hear can create lasting change. Thats because behavior change is hard. I should know: I have spent most of my career trying to encourage people to make healthier choices. Everyone knows the general rules for being healthy: Avoid tobacco and secondhand smoke. Walk ten thousand steps a day. Do cardio and resistance exercises regularly. Eat only foods that are good for youand not too much of them. Meditate daily to manage stress. Find time to relax. Get regular sleep.

The problem is not a lack of knowledge about what to do. The problem is that the alternatives are too tempting: Not taking the extra steps to go to the side of the building where youll more likely avoid secondhand smoke as you enter. Ordering a juicy hamburger with fries. Having an extra serving of dessert. Parking closer instead of farther away. Sitting while you talk on the phoneand not using a wired earpiece. Not getting the flu vaccine. Staying up just one more hour to watch a movie. None of these actions on their own seems like a problem. But they add up to a problem in the long run. Or sometimes life just gets in the way.

At the Cleveland Clinic, we have spent the past decade encouraging people to change their behaviors. It hasnt been easy. We have had to take some radical actions to help our caregivers/employees do what they need to do to get healthier. And it has worked. Over the past several years, we have spent a lot less money each year on employee healthcare because the people who work for us have chosen to become healthier.

If you want to change your behavior, it would be great if a big company stepped in and helped you to reach your goals. However, all too rarely does that happen.

But you are not out of luck. Smart Change is on your side.

I think Art Markman is the top cognitive scientist in his field. He has been doing cutting-edge research for two decades, examining thinking and motivation. And for the last ten years, he has been taking this work beyond the scientific community to help people learn about themselves and use science to live better.

In this book, Art unlocks the mysteries of motivation. He explores why your attempts to change your behavior in the past have failed by teaching you about how your brain really works. More important, he teaches you how to succeed.