Sean D. Young - Stick with it: a scientifically proven process for changing your life--for good

Cover design by Oliver Munday

The information in this book has been carefully researched by the author, and is intended to be a source of information only. While the methods contained herein can and do work, readers are urged to consult with their physicians or other professional advisors to address specific medical or other issues that may be causing an inability to stick with it. The author and the publisher assume no responsibility for any injuries suffered or damages or losses incurred during or as a result of the use or application of the information contained herein.

Names and identifying characteristics of some individuals have been changed to preserve their privacy. In some cases, fictional individuals are used to describe research studies, though the methodology, results, and scientific conclusions of the studies are accurate.

STICK WITH IT. Copyright 2017 by Sean Young. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

ISBN 978-0-06-269286-3

EPub Edition June 2017 ISBN 978-0-06-269289-4

For Melody Isabelle Shira

To forever remember your Dadda-O

How do you change behavior?... Change the processnot the person... Seven forces behind lasting change

Start small. But how small is small?... Find out with the model of Steps, Goals, and Dreams... Use the Power of the Incremental

Make sure the right people are around you... But how do you do that?... Learn from the HOPE intervention model

People change if theyre motivated to change... But what if people dont want to change?... Use our short list of motivators

People will keep doing things if theyre easy to do... But how do you make something easy?... Use the E-Trade test

Conventional wisdom on behavior change is wrong... Use neurohacks instead... Lasting change starts with action... Use these mental shortcuts to reset your brain

Use rewards... But not just any rewards... They have to be captivating

Get the brain on your side... But how do you do this?... Do the behavior again and again

The limits of habits... the ABCs of behavior... and how to apply this book in your life

P eople have trouble making lasting changes. They quit nutrition plans, dont adhere to medication regimens, and cant keep New Years resolutions to lose weight or stop procrastinating.

The advice offered up by recent bestsellers?

Charles Duhiggs The Power of Habit and Gretchen Rubins Better Than Before insist that the secret to success in both your personal and business lives is to develop good habits. Yet they base this on just one study suggesting that habits account for 40 percent of behaviors in life and work. So what are we supposed to do about the other 60 percent of our behaviors?

Conventional wisdom also fails to solve the problem. It tells you the answer is to change who you are. If you want to stick with your fitness goals, learn to love exercising like Richard Simmons. To be a successful entrepreneur, become a creative genius like Steve Jobs. If you want to be a good salesperson, morph into a social butterfly like Mary Kay Ash. And the list goes on of people were told to become like.

Changing your character is easier said than done: every individual has a core personality that doesnt change much throughout life. Fortunately, you dont need to change who you are as a person to make change last. You just need to understand the science behind lasting change and how to create a process that fits who you are. Thats what this book delivers.

Over the past fifteen years, working with some of the top minds in science, I have identified the seven psychological forces that undergird lasting behavior change in any context.

Im a medical school professor at UCLA, and the executive director of the UCLA Center for Digital Behavior and the University of California Institute for Prediction Technology (UCIPT). My research has received more than ten million dollars of funding from organizations such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), corporations like Facebook and Intel, as well as leading hospitals and foundations. Participants in our research studies have made lasting changes in how they eat, sleep, exercise, and manage medication and chronic pain. As a result of our behavior-change work, participants have been able to avoid contracting diseases like HIV, or have sought out medical treatment to save their lives. Ive developed interventions to help thousands of people change their health behaviors. Ive also helped dozens of startups and companies change behaviors related to their businesses.

My approach is similar to what social psychologist Robert Cialdini did in Influence: Science and Practice, one of the most successful business books of all time. Cialdini reviewed three decades of research, integrated it with his own fieldwork, and distilled it into a set of universal principles. Like Cialdinis principles, my forces are additive: using one may be effective, but using two, three, or more will be even more effective.

By using the methods I describe in this book, I have repeatedly achieved almost a 300 percent increase in lasting change for both individuals and groups. This means that people who used these methods were nearly three times as likely to change their behavior as people who did not.

You can harness the forces I present here in your personal life or your business. They transformed the life of Josh Nava, who hated never being able to follow through on projects, whether a daily assignment for school or a book he wanted to complete for pleasure, and who is now a successful business owner who sticks with his work and hobbies. They transformed the life of Rishi Desai, so anxious and shy that he couldnt talk to a stranger, now a successful doctor and creator of the world-renowned Khan Academy medical school curriculum. And they were used by Joseph Coulombe to help Trader Joes go down in history as a company that effectively made lasting changes in consumer grocery buying behavior.

Stick with It offers scientifically proven ideas that will help you achieve your goalsno matter how big or how smallby applying them to your life and work as they fit your needs.

H ellhole Bend is a deep gorge in the Grand Canyon, smack in the middle of Navajo country. Despite its name, its ravishingly beautiful, with majestic pink, brown, white, and gold-colored rock formations rising above the Little Colorado River. But Nik Wallenda isnt enjoying the view. Hes holding his breath as he balances on top of a wire as wide as one of his toes. The wire is held taut between two rocky promontories and is the only thing between Nik and the hard ground 1,500 feet below. The wind is gusting at thirty miles an hour. Thats enough to snap tree limbs and cause telephone lines to whistle. Its certainly enough to make Niks legs shake.

Nik is attempting to walk more than a quarter of a mile across the Grand Canyon under these less than ideal conditions. He concentrates on breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Nik refused to wear a safety harness, or to spread a safety net below him. His only prop is a thirty-foot-long, forty-three-pound balancing pole that he holds at a precise 90-degree angle to his body.