Hello, and welcome to today's episode of the Action for Happiness podcast.

In this episode, Mark is in conversation with Katie Milkman, who is a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and the host of the popular behavioral economics podcast, Choiceology.

She is the author of the international bestselling book, How to Change, the science of getting from where you are to where you want to be, named one of the eight Best Books for Healthy Living by The New York Times.

Today, she will be teaching us how to get our year off to a happier start and how to overcome barriers and achieve our goals.

We hope you enjoy.

Very warm welcome.

My name is Mark Williamson, and I'm particularly pleased that we're joined today by Professor Katie Milkman.

Katie, thank you so much for being here and sparing your time for us.

Thanks so much for having me.

I'm excited to be here.

To start with, Katie, it would be lovely if you could introduce yourself a little bit.

Obviously, you're a professor, you're an expert on this theme of today's event, how to change your fantastic book of the same name.

It seems so timely right now with New Year's resolutions and beginning of year, but maybe you can remind us about your experience and a little bit about why this topic is of so much interest to you.

Yeah, sure.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity.

So, yes, I'm a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and I live in Philadelphia with my husband and eight-year-old son married to an astronomer.

And my background is actually that all of my degrees are in engineering, believe it or not.

And somehow I ended up a behavioral scientist.

And really, I was always interested in how do we improve things?

How can we think carefully about systems and processes and make them better?

My engineering degrees were in operations research and computer science.

And I realized that that lens could be extremely useful to improving our decision making.

And actually, it was as an assistant professor where I was studying decision making, but wasn't exclusively focused on the topic of behavior change that I realized the opportunity was so big and pivoted my research to be exclusively really in this area of how to change.

And it was because I wandered over to a seminar of all things at the medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, where I saw this pie chart breaking down the percentage of premature deaths in the United States that were caused by different factors.

And that might sound like a really weird thing to change someone's life, but it was a pretty amazing pie chart.

It was pretty jaw-dropping because what it showed is that bigger than genetic factors, environmental risk, bigger than accidents, actually is the factor of decisions we make on a daily basis that we could change about what we eat and how much we drink and whether we smoke, whether we're safe when we get into vehicles, those decisions add up to account for about 40 percent of premature deaths more than any of these other causes.

And when I learned that and sort of realized how big the opportunity was, if I could apply my research to the topic of behavior change and come up with good solutions, not just in health, but I also study savings and education, you can sort of see the snowball effects would be everywhere.

It was so much bigger than I expected.

And that's really why I do what I do, why I wrote the book I wrote, why I host a podcast and a newsletter, to bring science that can help people live longer, better lives to the public.

Thank you, Katie.

Seems like the perfect person to be speaking to at this time of year, particularly when we think about New Year's and new starts.

But of course, one of the things I'm really inspired by with your work is that we can create sort of new starts at any time, really, if we've got the right sort of prompts.

But maybe you could say a bit more about this idea of a fresh start.

I mean, obviously, in January, we might be thinking about New Year's resolutions, but I guess that effect is something we can apply anytime.

Why does it matter and is it helpful?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thanks for asking.

This is one of my favorite things we've learned about the science of behavior change.

And just to illustrate the science, I want to just sort of take you back in time with me.

Shortly, actually, after I saw that pie graph, I'd already pivoted my work to studying the science of behavior change.

And I was out in California in Mountain View at Google's headquarters.

And I was giving a talk there about some of the things I thought were most useful to their HR team, because their HR team was looking at lots of behavior change problems they wanted to solve.

They wanted to encourage more employees to exercise, get flu shots, to save for retirement, and to actually take advantage of trainings they were offering so they could level up their coding skills and whatnot.

And they brought in a bunch of outside thinkers to share evidence-based tools that might be useful.

And I just finished a presentation and I got this great question from one of their vice presidents.

And the question was, okay, Katie, we're convinced that there's a whole lot of behavioral science that can help our employees change for the better, that we can use to sort of nudge them towards adopting these healthy habits.

These educational tools and so on.

But is there an ideal time to make change?

Are there moments when people are more open to change than others?

And I thought this was such an incredible question because, honestly, I had never seen anything in the academic literature on timing and change.

And it was so immediately obvious to me, as it probably is to everyone listening, especially as we're doing this right after New Year's, that there are moments when we feel particularly motivated to make a change and other moments when we're absolutely not even willing to consider it.

And I started to explore with my then-student, Heng Chen Dai, who's now a professor at UCLA, and another collaborator named Jason Reese, is there something there?

Are there some systematic moments when we're more open to change?

And of course, we started with New Year's.

That was the obvious first answer.

Like, we know that at New Year's, 40% of Americans and many people globally are setting New Year's resolutions, right?

What is it about that?

And is that actually, is that just a unique moment?

What we ended up finding is it's actually just one example of broader class of moments when we feel we have a fresh start.

So what we've shown in our work, and it also builds on a lot of other research, is that at many moments when we feel that we are at a new beginning in our life story, New Year's being one moment, we feel more disassociated from our past failures.

So on January 1, you can say, you know, I just closed the chapter on last year.

And, you know, yeah, last year I wanted to get in shape.

Last year I wanted to start meditating.

Last year I wanted to get my finances in order.

Last year I wanted to learn a new language.

I didn't do any of those things.

But that was the old me and this is the new me.

And the new me is going to be different.

So it's not just at New Year's, though, that we do that.

At any moment in our life that feels like we're turning the page on a new chapter, we have a sense of a fresh start.

And we actually think about our lives like we're characters in a book and as if there are chapters.

And these chapter segregations, they're opportunities.

So what we've shown in our research is that on Mondays, the start of a new month, the start of a new semester, if you're a student on the calendar, celebrating holidays that we associate with fresh starts.

So it differs by culture.

Right in the United States, we have Memorial Day and Labor Day that are sort of big markers of the ends of seasons.

But there are different holidays and different religions.

think about a fresh start moment differently.

And also birthdays.

These are all moments where we see upticks and when people search for the term diet on Google, we see people are visiting the gym more, the very same person is more likely to go to the gym.

We see that they set goals on popular goal-setting websites more at these moments, and not just around health and wellness, but around basically every category of goal you can imagine from environmental to savings goals.

So what that work shows is that these are moments when we can take advantage of the science and make change more effectively.

And we should recognize that in ourselves and for others too.

Thank you.

And having engaged with your work, I was reminded of that this Monday, thinking, here we are, new week, fresh start.

So I certainly felt that sense of opportunity.

Before we talk about why sometimes using that opportunity might be harder than we expect it to be, I'd love to just turn to the audience.

We have such a lovely engaged community here.

It is that time of year where people are setting new intentions.

Why don't I just well wherever you are right now take a moment to pause if you want to just stop what you're doing maybe close your eyes if you want to just take a breath and just try and bring to mind an intention you may have set and if you haven't done one already you might want to do one right now but if you have a kind of goal or resolution or something you're wanting to bring into your life or into the world you know over the coming days weeks that might be triggered by the time of year it might just be you know a new week or something that you're working on in a project, but it'll be lovely to see in the chat if you'd like to share just a few words about a particular goal or, fresh start that you're thinking about at the moment.

We'll just have a look at some of what comes up in the chat.

So radical decluttering, more compassion.

I want to write a book, gratitude journal, clean eating, stopping alcohol, more time outside, less procrastination, more mindfulness, be healthier, get fit, more painting.

Healing from trauma, more trend to myself, meaningful rest, power in the mornings, stop emotional eating, less drinking, less negative thinking, finish my thesis, enjoy the journey, play the guitar, and many, many more that I can't see because they're spinning past.

But I'm feeling quite motivated seeing these, Katie.

But I guess none of these are particularly, well, all of these, I guess, are things you've seen before in terms of human behavior.

I think it's one of the most amazing things about people is that everybody has a goal they're hoping to improve on.

It doesn't matter if you've already won the Olympics.

It doesn't matter if you're at the pinnacle of your profession.

Everyone has an area where they see an opportunity to grow.

And I think it's really inspiring that we're all working to become better people.

Indeed.

So New Year's resolutions or indeed any intention setting, especially when these opportunities arise, is great.

As you say, it's inspiring.

It kind of is part of what it means to be a human, be alive.

And yet, we all know from the gym subscription that we never use, the good intentions that have fallen by the wayside before the end of January, that this is hard.

And I guess one of the key reasons your work is so valuable is change is hard.

Why do we find this hard?

What's going on there?

Yeah, thank you for that question.

And I often get the question right when I talk about fresh starts, but so many of these resolutions fail.

So who cares about the fresh start effect?

And I would have had a depressing career if that were all I studied, because, of course, it's only the beginning to be motivated.

And unfortunately, it turns out that the human operating system, excuse me for using computer science nerd speak, but that is how I think, the human operating system is actually not really well set up or not well wired for success.

Even if everything outside of your operating system, by the way, is set up for you, which is pretty hard too, right?

There's all sorts of external barriers that we have to surmount, right?

Does your work-life balance allow you to achieve your goals?

Do you have the financial resources you need?

Is your health right?

Even if all of that is perfectly aligned, internal barriers are a big deal.

So a few of the key ones that research points to and that I've studied and my collaborators have studied include, one, just the problem of getting started, and the fresh start effect helps with that.

Two, we're wired to be impulsive.

We tend to overvalue rewards we'll get immediately and care less about things that are going to be payoffs in the long run.

And that is not great when it comes to achieving our goals, because the goals tend to be long-term payoffs, not short-term hits of enjoyment.

We're procrastinators, which is sort of the flip side of impulsivity.

We're forgetful, actually, which is really important.

It's hard for us to prioritize new things.

We often, they slip to the back of the queue or they're not top of mind in the moment when they need to be.

And that could be a real barrier to making change because we fall back on what's sort of top of mind.

This next one's going to sound like an insult of the human condition.

I don't mean it that way, but we are lazy.

And I mean that actually as a compliment.

Again, let me just say, I'm a computer scientist.

The best algorithms are lazy.

They hunt for efficient solutions, and the human operating system is the same.

We take the path of least resistance.

We look for shortcuts.

But when you want to make a change, falling back on habits and looking for the easiest solution is actually often going to be a barrier.

And then finally, a couple last challenges that we need to grapple with when we're making change are that we often lack confidence to tackle really challenging things.

We might not believe in ourself, and that can be a barrier.

Sometimes, by the way, we're overconfident.

In fact, a lot of the time.

But also we can be underconfident, particularly when it comes to taking on a new challenge or something that seems really daunting.

And finally, and this sort of bridges the last two, this is the last one I'll mention, we're really affected by the people around us.

We conform to the norms of our friends, our colleagues, our family.

And that can be an asset, but also if the people you surround yourself with are showing you a different path than the one you want to take, that can be a barrier.

So it's something else to keep an eye on.

Wow.

No wonder it's hard.

It is.

That was a long list, right?

We need science.

We have a lot to do.

And I'm reminded that the phrase action for happiness is important because if we want to create a happier world and bring that to those around us, it does require a little bit of conscious action.

But the good news, everyone, is that Katie has not only identified the obstacles, but has also identified some strategies to help us deal with impulsivity, procrastination, forgetfulness, laziness even.

Before we go into this, Katie, I spotted something in the chat, which I think is a really important point.

Somebody just said, I think sometimes life stresses also knock us off track.

And that is really true.

I think especially right now, people are dealing with a lot.

And there's a lot of unexpected stuff, uncertainty, financial challenges, health issues.

Sometimes life just gets in the way of our good intentions.

How much does that play a role, do you think?

Oh, it's an enormous barrier.

I do not want to underestimate that at all.

My area of expertise is focusing on, even if everything structurally is set up for you to succeed, how it's so incredible that humans often struggle, even under the best of circumstances, because of our wiring.

But external barriers are a huge issue, and I wouldn't want to say anything else.

And in fact, that's where policy, I think, can be the most impactful, right?

And we look for policy solutions often for that.

Whereas what I study is, okay, you've got everything lined up as well as you can, and still this is hard.

So how can we help you overcome those internal barriers?

And I guess the two overlap insofar as when we're dealing with an external stressor, we might want to choose intentions and aims that are cognizant of what is and isn't possible right now for us and build our strategies accordingly.

But let's go through some of these obstacles because I'd love to hear your suggestions really.

So the first thing you mentioned was impulsivity, this idea that we're, I think I heard you talk about kind of present bias as well.

So remind us what that means.

And then how, what's your favorite way of getting around that instinct that we have?

Yeah, absolutely.

And by the way, I just want to highlight one thing you did that I love, which is you sort of pointed out that the solutions are not going to be global, but they're going to be focused solutions.

And that, by the way, is a step that many skip when thinking about how to achieve change as they look for global solutions, like, you know, how do I set good goals and visualize success and things that will just work for everyone and skip the important work of drilling down on, okay, which barriers apply to me and then what are the solutions I can use to solve for those.

So I just want to highlight, it's really important.

So thanks for doing that.

Okay, so let's talk about impulsivity and let's get specific on tactics.

And P.S., there's a reason I listed this first because it's, I think, one of the, maybe the most important.

It's certainly the barrier I struggle with the most that's internal.

Present bias is this focus we have on the here and now when we're making choices.

We overweight it and overvalue the experience of the here and now.

And this is what leads you when you're sitting on the couch watching Netflix to have a really hard time getting up and going to the gym because I'm having fun on the couch.

This is relaxing.

And yeah, the gym is going to give me the long-term payoff.

And later today, I'm going to be so glad I did it.

But right now, in this moment, I overvalue and overweight my experience.

Okay, so present bias can be a huge problem for everything from savings decisions, because you want to spend that paycheck on a fun business.

Outing the minute you get it, as opposed to saving it for a rainy day, to exercise, to meditation, even to making the investment in relationships, right?

So there's just an education.

Should I go out to the party tonight or study for the test tomorrow?

It's everywhere.

So what do we do about it?

Well, one really important insight is that if we can work with the bias instead of against it, we'll do much better.

Most people, when they're trying to figure out how am I going to achieve my goal, they look for the most efficient path.

And I've been talking about engineering solutions, so you know I love efficiency.

But that actually turns out to be a mistake in a world where we're present biased.

And what we can do that actually works better is we can look for the most enjoyable path that will get us to our goal.

And this is research by Eilat Fischbach at the University of Chicago and Caitlin Woolley that points out this mistake and shows that we can do so much better.

If we can find a way to make it fun to pursue our goals, and if we're encouraged to do so, we persist longer.

And one of my favorite strategies to be really specific about making it fun is something I've studied called temptation bundling, where you can very specifically think, what is it an activity that will help me achieve my goal that feels like a chore, that's going to feel like a burden in the moment, that I can link with something I find tempting and fun.

So I only get that temptation when I'm doing the chore.

So concrete example, let's go to exercise.

I only let myself binge watch lowbrow TV shows on Netflix while I'm exercising.

And what happens is I actually look forward to my workouts to find out what will happen to my favorite characters in those shows.

Time flies while I'm exercising.

And I don't waste time binge watching TV when I could be doing more productive things during the rest of the day.

And it's not just about, you know, TV and exercise.

You can combine temptations with chores all throughout your life, whether it's only eating at a burger place that you crave whose patties aren't so good for you and spending time with an important but difficult relative or saving that bottle of wine for when you're cooking a fresh meal for your family, listening to a favorite podcast while you're doing household chores.

There's a huge number of ways to temptation bundle.

So the basic lesson is, can you find a way to make it more fun to pursue your goals?

And you should think about that as opposed to just efficiency so that instead of having a bad experience while you're exercising or doing your taxes or whatever it is that you need to do to achieve your goal, you're enjoying it.

And present bias actually works for you instead of against you.

I love that.

And I found that I link some things I want to do with other activities I love like listening to podcasts and cycling and other things.

So that's a great tip.

Let's move on to procrastination because I feel like so often...

The good intention is caught out by a like, well, I just got to do this other thing first or I'm just in the middle of something, I'll do it later.

I find I've noticed that even in myself today with something I wanted to work on.

What's going on there and how can we get around that one?

Yeah, no, thank you for asking.

So procrastination is really the flip side of impulsivity, right?

If I am impulsive, if I'm a creature who responds to these instant gratifications.

Then why would I do today what I could put off until tomorrow if it's not enjoyable?

So we often delay doing the things that are good for us.

We already talked about a solution for impulsivity, which is lean into the impulsivity, make it fun to do the thing.

So that's the carrot approach.

But actually, when it comes to procrastination, what tends to work really well is also the stick approach.

It's the flip side of changing this equation with present bias, which is, can you think about ways to actually penalize yourself for putting it off so that the consequence will be so great, you will make the right choice.

So let me give you some concrete examples that won't sound counterintuitive, that aren't quite along these lines, but help illustrate the idea.

So we're really used to other people helping us in this way.

So we're really used to, say, a boss saying, here's a deadline.

You need to turn this work in by Friday or else.

We're used to being told, say, by our government, hey, if you speed, I know it'll get you to your destination faster, so you're going to be tempted to do that, but it is dangerous and you shouldn't.

So we're going to fine you if you speed.

We're going to give you a speeding ticket.

So we're gonna impose these penalties on you if you don't achieve your goals.

We're used to others doing that.

What's weird though about what research shows can really help us when we're looking for these strategies is we can do the same thing to ourself.

And that sounds really confusing.

It's called a commitment device when you actually penalize yourself for procrastination.

So imagine there is some goal you wanna achieve.

I've been talking a lot about exercise, so let's just stick with that.

Say you wanna work out three times a week.

And PS, exercise is one of the best ways to improve your happiness.

So say you want to work out three times a week, But you're worried that you might procrastinate and you might sort of say, oh, no, next week or the week after that.

And before you know it, it's June and you haven't gotten to the gym yet.

Well, you might set up a commitment contract.

You might, for instance, fine yourself.

Say, if I don't go to the gym three times this week, I'm going to have to give $100 to, say, a political candidate I hate.

And you can choose a referee, maybe your person you live with, who will hold you to that commitment.

There are actually websites out there, and I have no affiliation with any of them.

but I'll name a couple, BeMinders, stick.com, that will let you literally formally set up these kinds of commitment contracts.

They're called cash commitments.

And the research done by independent third parties shows that when you penalize yourself, it significantly improves outcomes.

It even helps people quit smoking in randomized controlled trials to have to put money on the line or have a way to put money on the line can help with lots of things.

So that is one suggestion that I have for procrastination is consider penalty contract.

And you can do softer commitments too with just shame, right?

Accountability to other people.

That's a light kind of commitment.

Yeah, I was going to say the version of that that I find myself using most is recognizing that I've got something I'm working towards that I'm pulling off.

And then consciously saying to someone who I might.

Deliver it to or who might care about the outcome.

I'll get that sorted for you by Friday, or we'll make sure you get it to you in a couple of weeks.

And by making a sort of pledge commitment that I then feel, you know, I'd be letting someone down, which is something I don't like myself, then that external pledge has kept me good to my intention.

So it's almost like it's not a cash commitment so much as a sort of social commitment in a way.

Both work.

So we call it a soft commitment when you make a commitment along the lines of a pledge and a hard commitment when you make a commitment where there's some meaningful financial stake or consequence on the line beyond your reputation.

And both work.

For those who have the stomach for it, the cash commitments, the harder commitments do tend to be more effective because those penalties are so steep.

We find a way no matter what.

One of my favorite actually stories in my book is of an entrepreneur named Nick Winter, who put his whole savings on the line and said, you know, if I don't finish writing a book that I plan to write in the next six months and skydive.

He was going to give up his whole life savings.

And guess what?

He achieved an incredible amount in the next six months.

But it's a steep price to pay for some.

So it may make sense to use these stuff.

Before we leave this one, here's an idea for you folks.

Why don't you set yourself a commitment?

And if you don't make it, you can give a donation to Action for Happiness.

And so if you make it, you get happier.

And if you don't, then you're helping to contribute to the happiness of others.

So either way, it's a win.

Anyway, the next one you mentioned was that we sometimes kind of just forget what we're planning to do.

What's going on there?

Is that a bit like this life gets busy?

Is that what's going on?

It is.

I have to say, people underappreciate how important forgetting is.

Whenever I bring this one up, people sort of roll their eyes and say like, yeah, that can't be that important.

But actually, it's shockingly important.

People really undervalue how critical it is to make sure that you have, for instance, a concrete plan of action, which is a big part of overcoming forgetting.

You know, when will you do it?

Where will you do it?

How will you get there?

Gets you a long way in terms of scheduling in your priorities to make sure they aren't overlooked when it comes right down to it.

And there's a lot of wonderful research on this.

My favorite work comes out of Peter Goldwitzer's research group, a psychologist at NYU, where he shows that naturally when we're trying to plan how we'll achieve our goals, about half of people don't bother to get into those details and they are far less likely to succeed.

And so he calls it an implementation intention, thinking, when will you do it?

Where will you do it?

How will you get there?

We can prompt other people to do that, but you can do it for yourself, too.

And then there's some simple things that that often leads you to do.

Like, I put it on the calendar, and so now I get a reminder, and reminders are really important.

And so don't overlook how much forgetting may matter when it comes to doing something you want to follow through on.

Make sure you have a Q-based plan, a trigger that will help you follow through and embed more firmly in memory, you know, when and where.

It can be 5 p.m.

It could be after work.

It can be, excuse me, I'll get my flu shot whenever I see candy on sale at the local drugstore because that's my cue that Halloween means flu shots.

Whatever it is, you just need to make sure that you have that linkage and it's really important to success.

So the thing that I found that really helped me here, which is inspired by your work, among others, was recognizing that I'm the sort of person that had a to-do list and keeps to my to-do list, but it normally tends to be kind of work, tasks, and chores, not resolutions and things I'd like to embody in my life.

So the big shift for me was making my to-do list more of a to-be list and making sure it also included.

You know, meditate in the morning and write down things you're grateful for at the end of the day and stop in the middle of the day for a pause and get back in touch with an old friend you've not seen for a while But once those things became sort of tasks that needed to be ticked off in my list that comes back every day, instead of a kind of vague aspiration outside of work, it suddenly became something that happened every day.

So I found that spotting the things that I'm good at doing, for example, a work commitment, and then putting the life goals into that same format really helped me stick to them.

Absolutely.

It's such a nice way to put it.

You could never imagine a person who has an ambitious goal at work or they have a big project deadline, not breaking that down and figuring out when are they going to get the tasks done, right?

We didn't get to the moon by just saying, we'll get to the moon and we'll see how it all falls out.

You make a detailed plan.

When will this happen?

When will that happen?

And yet somehow we do not take those same steps when it comes to our to-be lists.

And so we do.

We need to schedule it in and make those detailed plans.

And that's how we execute and how we succeed.

We have to think about these as priorities, just the way we treat our work goals as priorities.

This is fabulous.

I feel like I'm learning so much.

Now, talk about laziness.

You were kind enough to note that you weren't criticizing, you were sort of observing that we have a kind of efficiency drive that can mean that we try to make life as easy as possible for ourselves, I guess.

What's going on with laziness and how can we help avoid it when it comes to intentions?

Yeah, this is, it gets such a bad rap, but laziness is so, it's so good.

It's so good that we evolved to want to take those shortcuts in life, right?

It makes so much sense.

If you were designing the optimal human, of course, you'd want them to be lazy and look for shortcuts.

It's brilliant.

There's a couple of things that that has implications for and sort of tools you can use to overcome it.

One really important one is that whatever is easiest, whatever sort of we call the default in the behavioral science literature, we fall back on.

So the most famous example of this is in this context of savings in the U.S., many employers, when you first become an employee, they have different programs or different defaults around whether or not your paycheck, a portion of it starts getting sent to a savings account.

Some employees default you in to a savings program.

Some employers do, excuse me.

And so people automatically start saving.

And they don't have to take any action.

They don't have to fill out any paperwork.

It just happens.

But they can fill out paperwork to say, please don't do that.

And other employers don't have that default.

You have to actively say, oh, please sign me up.

And it's certainly a really easy process.

But it turns out whether you're defaulted into savings or not has this gigantic implication for whether you save something like about a 30 percentage point difference in the likelihood a new employee will enroll in these critically important retirement savings programs.

So what we've learned from that is we need to set defaults really wisely for ourselves and for others to take advantage of inertia and make sure it's working for our goals and not against them.

Whether your goal, if your goals are in savings, an easy thing to do along those lines is you can actually go to your bank account and set up an auto deduct every time you get a paycheck, maybe once a month, once a week, whatever that frequency is.

You could auto deduct a portion and have it just sent straight to a savings account.

So it's out of sight, out of mind.

that's an easy way to put on autopilot, on default, an important goal.

And you can think about the same thing in your environment if you're trying to eat more healthfully.

Well, there's default foods in your pantry, right?

Are those the kinds of foods you want to find when you reach for the easiest thing?

Or are they the kinds of things you don't want to find?

And if you've made choices that may not be wise, rethink that.

You may want to restock so that the default option is the healthy option.

Likewise with social media, you know, are those apps installed?

Is that the default screen when you open a web browser?

Is it Facebook or is it, you know, a reputable news website or action happiness, right?

So think carefully about what those defaults are and then you can use laziness to your advantage.

Hmm.

One that comes to mind for me was I realized I was being distracted by notifications on devices and like I would be in the middle of something I was trying to do and it would be distraction.

And so for me, sort of turning a default off, like making sure that notifications don't grab my attention and making sure that the default is I choose when I look at a device rather than it grabs my attention.

And that made a huge difference to my sort of focus and intention.

Mark, I love that.

And also what you just did with that example, as you pointed out, another human bias that was, frankly, seeping into my examples.

We tend to think about addition more than subtraction.

It's a bias called subtraction neglect.

When we think about how can I make my life better or my organization better or solve this problem, we think, what can I add?

You know, we are less...

Liable to think, what can I subtract off?

And that can be a real barrier to making positive change.

And it's such a great point that I was talking about a bunch of defaults you can set proactively that will be additions, sort of.

And you're talking about thinking about defaults that could be subtractions.

And we should think about both when we're thinking about setting and achieving our goals.

I want to come on to your really important point about social support, who we spend time with, because it's such a key thing.

And it's very much in the community vibe of what we're doing with Action for Happiness.

But I wanted to just pause.

I saw a comment from Louise in the chat, referring back to your reference about the moon.

She said, oh, I love that get to the moon that it needs a detailed plan.

And she kindly said, I suddenly see where I'm going wrong.

And I think a few of us feel like that.

And actually it reminded me, some people have heard me talk about this before, but I have a rather ridiculous life goal, which is to cycle to the moon, in quotes, before I die.

And that's 384,000 kilometers.

And it's, you know, despite being a super keen cyclist, I'm like only 30% of the way there.

and I may get there by the time I'm 80 if I don't get bored or lose my fitness.

But the funny thing about it is it's a ridiculously unspecific, well, far-reaching and kind of nebulous goal.

And yet what I find it does is it keeps me motivated to then do the detailed planning about, well, if I want to do that, I'm going to need to make sure my default is I cycle to work instead of getting on the train.

And so this kind of weird multi-decade sort of silly, funny thing does change the decision I make on a rainy day about my health.

So I wondered if you could talk a bit about how we link long-term goals to daily intentions and whether that matters.

Mark, thank you so much for bringing that up.

And P.S., I absolutely love that moonshot that you just described regarding your cycling goals.

And it's a great example of good goal setting in one respect, which is the goal setting literature says we want to stretch ourselves with our goals, right?

You don't want your goal to be something that sounds easy or that you just naturally accomplish by walking through life.

It needs to be something that's going to require a little more from you than you'd naturally put in.

So that's a great goal.

But another thing we know from the goal-setting literature is those big, distant goals have to be broken down into bite-sized pieces so we know, what am I going to do today or what am I going to do this week?

And we see better results when people break those things down.

So if your goal is to get fit or your goal is to bike to the moon, what's the daily action you can take that gets you closer?

There's a couple of really wonderful research papers showing this in different ways that I think illustrate the power of this.

One was by a team of researchers at UCLA looking at savings goals.

And they either invited people to start saving $150 a month or $5 a day and looked at take-up.

And they're both the same thing.

They were literally exactly the same invitation because $5 multiplied by the number of days in a month is $150.

Right?

So 30 times 5, 150.

But it was more than triple the number of people who signed up for the $5 daily savings idea because it feels bite-sized and approachable.

And likewise, we did a project with volunteers who had all committed to volunteer 200 hours for an organization and were being reminded that meant doing a little bit every week.

But we changed the reminders to remind them not just to do a little bit every week to reach their 200-hour yearly goal, 200-hour yearly volunteering goal.

We said that's four hours a week.

And that led to 8% more volunteering because it was bite-sized and concrete and clear how to make progress.

So always think about breaking down that big goal into the bite-sized component that you can approach.

And P.S., that also helps with procrastination.

Yeah, thank you.

If you wouldn't mind, it reminds me of something I would just like to kind of remind the audience of, which is something that's really blown our minds at Action Happiness, really, because from a behavioral perspective, this shouldn't work.

But I'm just going to briefly share my screen.

Many here will know already that we have these monthly action calendars.

This is a happier January sort of daily actions.

And these things have been going on for years.

There's some 35 million people have downloaded and used one of our calendars now, which is remarkable.

And it's crazy because nobody does all these actions.

And yet there's something about the idea that a little thing you do every day will add up to positive change.

That is a sort of metaphor that people really respond to.

So these calendars get put up on hospital walls and in school classrooms and in workplaces.

And people are always sharing them online and talking about them.

And I don't think it's because they do every action.

But it's because they're being reminded that a little thing I will do today is a step towards something I want, like, you know, better friendships or more resilience or the other themes that we look at all year round.

So I'm always inspired by the idea that when people remember that a little action makes a difference, they're much more likely to do something.

Is that your experience as well?

Absolutely.

I think we have to appreciate the power of the bite size.

And P.S., that's really what habits are all about, is recognizing that with each small step and the celebration of each small step, we can get closer to these big long-term goals and that we can also start to put on autopilot some of the behaviors that we know will lead to positive long-term change.

So I love the calendar idea, and it's really related also to the power of planning.

So let's come back to another key thing for this community about our relationships to each other.

You mentioned earlier on about who we spend time with makes a difference, presumably for others around us as well as for ourselves.

Do you want to say a bit more about the social support system?

Yeah, absolutely.

The people we spend time with show us what's possible, what's normal, whether we're deliberately observing them for that reason and trying to figure it out or actually just going through life.

It matters a lot.

One of my favorite studies looking at this actually shows that the college roommate who you are randomly assigned to live with, if you end up with a college roommate who had better grades in high school, who had higher SAT scores in high school, actually, sort of more studious, better verbal SAT scores, it increases the likelihood that you will earn good grades in college.

And likewise, if they're less studious, then you're less likely to perform well.

And the research basically shows that when we're around people, we notice what they do, and it starts to feel normal to us.

So if you end up with a roommate who, for instance, is studying every Saturday night assiduously, you start to think, oh, that's a normal thing to do on Saturday.

I guess I will also hit the flashcards.

If you end up with a party animal, you're thinking that's the normal thing to do, and it changes your behavior.

And so, of course, we can just sort of passively accept the social influences in our life.

But to the extent that you want to harness that power in order to improve your own outcomes and help you achieve your goals, you can be very deliberate about thinking, who do I want to surround myself with who might share a certain goal?

Say, if you want to cycle to the moon, you might want to try to actively befriend some other cycling enthusiasts because by spending time around them, it is going to normalize waking up in the morning and biking to work.

And they're also likely to have some other habits that rub off on you that you would appreciate.

So think carefully about whatever your goal is and how can you spend more time around the kinds of people who will support that goal.

And P.S., we have shown that...

Not everyone is getting everything out of those relationships that they could be.

A lot comes just naturally, but we did one research study where we showed that if you actually deliberately tell people to copy and paste someone else, look at what are habits that are working for them.

They're trying to achieve a similar goal to you.

Go find someone and see if you can emulate them.

People do better than if they just try to make plans or even are given strategies that others went out and found.

Because once we start looking at other people in our social network as role models and not just friends and realizing we can emulate what's working for them, they're similar enough often that we can relate.

We observe how they're doing it and the social support they may provide when we ask for their help is also going to be valuable.

So try to be deliberate, both about who you spend time with to the extent that you have the ability to do that, to architect your social circle to help support some of your goals, and be really deliberate about learning from those people, what's working for them and trying it yourself.

I love that.

And it's reminded me, just this weekend, I got a real boost because I saw an article about a guy who's a professor and an expert in longevity, but he's also a cyclist at age 87.

And when he was there on his lycra and my wife always laughs at me like, oh goodness, does this mean you're going to still be wearing lycra in your 80s?

And here was a guy who was the living embodiment of the health I'm hoping to achieve.

And so I will try and check him out and find out.

But that's a great tip.

What about the more complex side of this though, Katie, which is if there are people that we're with who we sense are not supporting the habits we want to create, obviously the easy answer is like, we'll spend less time with them.

But obviously that might be a family member, might be a colleague, It might be someone that you can't easily distance yourself from.

That's presumably, you know, we can have a sort of negative ripple effect on each other as well, can we?

Yeah, no, that's sort of the sad side of this, of course, is that you can be hampered by people who are sort of supporting negative habits.

And as you point out, the obvious solution is, oh, just detach.

But, you know, if it's your child or your spouse, it's not always that easy.

You're your boss.

And so I guess one thing I would say that may be useful to those who can't so easily detach, that's a little bit of a more positive spin.

And one tactic we have looked at that turns out to be helpful in improving your own outcomes is when there's somebody who's not succeeding at the same level you are working towards a similar goal, by coaching that person, you can actually improve your own performance.

And so to the extent that maybe there's someone else at work who isn't quite up to speed on the thing you are hoping to grow and get better at, you might think, oh, they're going to hold me back.

But actually, if you are willing to step into the role of mentoring and coaching, you can actually get benefits from that person who's a little behind you because it benefits you to support them.

It leads you to feel more confidence in your own abilities to step into the role as coach or mentor.

It helps you introspect more deeply about strategies you might not have looked for that are likely to both work for you and this other person, because that's where introspection takes us.

And finally, by sort of.

Saying something out loud or encouraging someone else, you'd feel hypocritical if you didn't follow your own advice.

So that's one positive strategy.

I really love that.

We have this sort of phrase that describes our mission.

We just say happier, kinder together, recognizing that our happiness and the happiness of others are very intertwined.

And actually that intervention, which is try and enhance our own intention through advice giving and mentoring and coaching, is just a lovely example of help yourself and help others and how those go hand in hand together.

I think that's really a great place to actually springboard into questions.

And if you have a question for Katie and you haven't already put it in the Q&A, there's some great ones in there already.

We're going to come to those in a second.

But actually, before questions, because I think it's so important, we've spent a lot of time listening and learning from you, Katie.

I'd love to just reconnect with the audience again.

And maybe the best way to do this is to say, what's really resonating with you right now from what Katie shared?

So we've talked about how to overcome this impulsivity, how to avoid procrastinating, how to remind ourselves when we would otherwise forget, how to overcome laziness, how to connect with others.

What would you like to do?

And again, this is for your own sake, everyone.

The more you kind of bring something to mind consciously to put into practice that habit or that intention you said at the start, the more this will make a difference.

So what are you going to do in light of what we've just been talking about?

I'm just going to read a few of these out.

not be so hard on myself, have a to-do, have a to-be list, focus on small steps, reverse the impulse to subtract and add instead.

That's interesting.

Feeling inspired to plan more, break down my goals, be aware of obstacles, a bit of introspection, get some gym buddies.

Yeah, inspiration from others, find things that are bite-sized, love the idea of using defaults positively, and loads of other great things.

So thank you for sharing those, folks.

How are you feeling as you see all these people trying to put your ideas into action, Katie?

I love the takeaways, and I love how many people said fun and joy, and the Gym Buddy is a particular favorite.

We've done some research showing that if you pay people a dollar each to go to the gym, you don't get them to exercise as much as if you pay them a dollar each only if they go to the gym together, which is completely counter what economics would tell us.

They don't always say pay for what you want, but when you pay two people a dollar only if they exercise together, they feel accountable and they have more fun.

And so gym buddies are a great takeaway, but buddies in everything, by mentoring, we gain, we have fun.

It makes us feel great and we gain in so many ways.

So, so many great things here.

I love it.

Katie answers questions from the Action for Happiness community.

We've been mostly talking about positive change, but what about changing negative habits?

There's a lot of overlap, potentially like socializing, but what about when we actually want to stop a negative behavior?

Yeah, it's a fantastic question.

I'm going to point back to something we talked about earlier, actually, which is a commitment contract.

It's truly, I think, the most evidence-based way to break cycles of behavior that we want to end is through, can you change the equation so that it is no longer rewarding?

Because that is ultimately where sort of bad habits or behaviors we want to break come from.

There is some short-term reward that is overshadowing the long-term value and goal that you have.

So can you change the equation?

It may be by making it more fun not to do the thing, right?

But it may be by making it so costly, because, you know, the politician you most hate in the world is going to get $100 if you smoke again this week, that you will ultimately overcome the barrier.

So setting up frictions that make it harder to do the thing, or it can also be helpful, right?

So don't have it in the house, right?

Don't have it nearby.

Make yourself go through as many hurdles as possible to get it.

P.S.

That's a commitment device too.

You're creating structures that make it harder.

And so you're constraining yourself, but you can also use these fine systems.

So friction that works to prevent the behavior you want to stop is the best way we can quit things.

I love that.

I'm also reminded of something that Judson Brewer and others have mentioned, but about mindful attention to a negative habit that we think we enjoy.

So for example, if you really bring your attention into the act of smoking or the act of eating a chocolate thing that you know you shouldn't really be eating, you recognize that maybe your enjoyment isn't quite what you thought it was.

And the more you can become aware of, actually, I'm doing this out of habit rather than out of actual enjoyment, it's almost the reverse of your enjoyment factor.

It's like you're realizing, actually, this thing doesn't bring me much joy.

And that's an extra motivator to stop doing it.

Eloise has asked a question which is close to my heart because I've done this.

Why do we become obsessed with the task apps and the productivity apps and believe they solve our procrastination?

and then we end up spending more time looking for the best app and putting off the actual task.

I've definitely done that.

That is hilarious.

I don't think you need apps for any of the solutions we have talked about.

And so it's a really good, it's a good point that you could sort of over obsess about finding the solution instead of actually implementing the solution.

But hopefully the strategies of sort of how do I make it more fun or how do I make a plan?

They don't really require a lot of search cost or complex technology.

Mostly, I mean, there may be a little search cost in finding the perfect TV show to binge watch while you're exercising.

I'll admit I spent some time on that.

But for the most part, yeah, your to-do list, pen and paper added to your calendar, that's enough to make a plan, for instance.

You don't need an app.

And most of the research doesn't look at apps.

It looks at simple planning actions, even something like being on a phone call with someone who asks you, when will you do it?

Where will you do it?

How will you do it?

Can significantly improve outcomes.

Louise has asked a question, which is kind of building on that and has been quite upvoted, but particularly around does using habit trackers or having some way of externalizing actions to make them repeatable help with this impulsivity versus longer term rewards?

And she says, speaking as a chaotic ADHD human.

So there's something about our sort of attention span here, I guess, and our ability to stick to the course we've set ourselves.

Yeah, tracking behaviors in general is a good way to have a sense of, you know, am I hitting the goals and am I hitting the milestones that I've set out for myself?

And so trackers tend to work, but they don't have to be sophisticated.

So, for instance, research that tries to look at things like, does it matter if I track my steps to my likelihood of walking more?

It does, but you don't necessarily need to have a fancy watch.

You can do it with your phone.

You can do it with a really old-fashioned, anything that's going to give you the piece of data that you need to track.

So any kind of tracking tends to be good.

It draws attention and ensures your understanding of whether you're hitting the goal, going over, going under, so you can adjust.

And also so you can celebrate your victories, because that's actually a big part of building habits.

We haven't talked as much about the science of habit.

But in order to reinforce a positive habit, we need some positive feeling after we've achieved the action we wanted to take each time.

That's the reinforcement you need.

And the positive feeling can come just from your bit, bit jiggling when you get to 10,000 steps.

That's enough to feel really good for a lot of people.

Or from you checking the box and saying, yes, I biked my eight miles today.

So tracking allows you to celebrate victories.

And that's important to habit building.

Let's just wind back to where we started, actually, with the intention for the year or people sharing goals.

And maybe this is, I know your work is focused on once we've got something we want to change, how do we do it?

But Veronica asked a lovely question, which is how do we identify goals that we really want?

E.g., do I really want to wake up one hour earlier than my kids or do I want that just because I read it somewhere?

So it's not just about how we make our goal happen, but like how to set a wise goal in the first place.

Yeah, it's such a fantastic question.

So where do the best goals come from?

I was actually just talking with a really brilliant fellow professor of studies, topics like behavior change.

And he was telling me this year for his New Year's resolution, rather than introspecting, he decided to ask several people who he felt really knew him well, what they thought would make his life better if he made change in that area.

So sometimes you want to look outside as well as inside for the best goals.

You know, there's so many different strategies that could help.

But I think one of the most important things is to think, what's your highest order goal?

What is it that you want to live a happy life?

Is it you want to give back?

And then work downward from there to get more and more specific and detailed.

And this sort of goes back, it's related to the conversation, Mark, about your goal of biking to the moon and then working backwards from there to come up with a more specific goal.

So what are the most important things to you?

What's your life value statement?

Could you write down your mission statement and what you most care about?

And then can you think about breaking that down?

What will help you get there?

And then what should the goal be right now may become clearer as you start to understand where you're going and see the path that will take you to that place?

Love that.

Thank you, Katie.

Michelle has asked, what about too much change at once?

You know, big transition changes all at once can be a bit overwhelming.

How do we deal with lots of change?

Or is there some way we should try and not change too much at once?

Yeah, that's a great question.

Well, there's a couple thoughts on that.

One is just if sometimes people ask, should I pursue multiple goals at once?

And I would say the research isn't as strong as I'd like it to be, but the best work we have suggests that if you plan for many goals at the exact same time, it can be demotivating and overwhelming.

And so one thing at a time, you know, even one resolution a week as opposed to three resolutions a month, right, is going to be, or as opposed to four resolutions a month or five, right?

But one at a time.

Each Monday is better than a whole bunch of things each.

January 1st or February 1st.

And then the other part of that is, you know, maybe you just experienced a major life change.

Sometimes change happens to us.

And how much can you additionally put on yourself to try to accomplish in that moment?

And I think that's going to depend a lot on what kind of transition you're encountering and dealing with and how overwhelming that is, right?

So if you just say had a new family member arrive, maybe you have a new child, which is something I can relate to because I remember that moment of change.

It was not a great moment for me to sit down and make a list of new goals for my exercise regimen because basically I was, you know, desperately trying to stay alive and feed this thing, this little beautiful baby boy.

But it wasn't a moment when I had a lot of bandwidth for personal growth and goals along those lines.

On the other hand, though, sometimes you have a change happen to you that really is an auspicious moment for planning.

Maybe you get a major promotion at work.

And that comes with a lot of responsibility, but also an opportunity to reflect on how have my high-level goals maybe shifted?

What are the opportunities that are new to me?

And it's a perfect time for setting up new goals and making a deliberate set of changes.

So it's going to be a case-by-case basis.

Sorry to give you that sort of answer, but it is going to be a case-by-case basis.

But I'd say lean into opportunities when it feels like a fresh start and a new beginning and you have bandwidth as ideal moments for making a change and recognize also that some moments are going to knock you off your feet and it's okay and give yourself grace and wait until the next fresh start comes around that motivates you and when you have the bandwidth to do something about it.

I have a daily process now, which involves at the beginning of each day saying, what's the most important thing that I can do today?

If I could only do one thing, what would it be?

And what it's helped me with is some days are overwhelming.

My literal aim for the day is like, just kind of want to get to the end of this day in one piece and get to bed.

You know, and all the other stuff that I could put in that list, but actually my main prize here is just kind of almost survival.

And that's just the reflection of what's going on at that time.

And I found that really helpful, actually, just to sort of take the pressure off around.

I don't have to necessarily be doing another thing today.

Susan's asked us to come back to one of the things you mentioned in the barriers, but we didn't perhaps address as much as, I know you know loads about this, but the idea about lacking confidence.

She says she's aware that her fear, she has a fear associated with her desired task, that she might not be good enough or whatever it is.

I know you mentioned that coaching others and providing advice is one way of potentially boosting our confidence, but what else can we do when we feel that we're maybe not up to it?

Well, I know you've talked about this in some of your other events, but I think this is a good moment to tie that back and say, trying to adopt a growth mindset can be really important when you're encountering challenge and when you're encountering setbacks.

And Carol Dweck at Stanford has done such amazing research showing the power of that growth mindset, which means recognizing that in just about everything we do, we are constantly a work in progress.

We can learn and grow and get better.

Everything from your IQ, which many think of as fixed, but actually you can grow with effort to, you know, your level of physical fitness, to what kind of a parent or friend or boss you are, we can get better with effort.

And when you adopt that mindset and you recognize everything we aspire to be, we can learn and grow, what that does is it changes the way you interpret a setback.

Instead of saying, oh, this misstep or this failure, that's reflective of my fixed capacity and I just must not be good enough.

When you encounter a setback, what you can say instead with a growth mindset is, this is an opportunity for me to get better.

What can I learn from this moment and how can I recognize an opportunity here so that the next time I encounter a similar situation, I do better?

So I would just encourage you to do your best to adopt that growth mindset.

And I know we're short on time, but there's some specific strategies that are out there.

I'd encourage you to look at the work of Marissa Sharif at Wharton for some specific strategies that might help with that.

Thank you, Katie.

Is there anything particularly you'd like to draw people's attention to or encourage them to check in with of your work?

Oh gosh, yeah.

No, I love communicating about the science, as you could probably tell from my enthusiasm throughout this conversation.

So I try to do it in as many venues as possible.

So I have a book, How to Change, that I hope people check out if they're interested in this topic.

I do have a new substack called Milkman Delivers, where I share monthly interviews with scientists about insights that can make your life better and help you make better decisions.

And I host a podcast called Choiceology that you can find on any podcasting platform.

So hopefully one of those will speak to you, or maybe all of them.

Those are places to find me.

Just one other thing that I've seen a few people mentioning in the chat.

We have this program, a free online program, 10 Days of Happiness.

It's an introduction to evidence-based practical things you can do to give yourself a boost.

And actually, something you might be aware of in this community already, but 10daysofhappiness.org, if you go there or indeed share it with someone else, could be a great way to give yourself a reminder of how to live a happier life at the start of the year or indeed bring that to someone else you care about.

But Katie, it's been fantastic to connect with you, learn from you, feel like we've all come away so enriched with new ideas and you further galvanized us towards our intentions for the year.

Is there a final sort of thought you'd like to leave us with to wrap this all up?

I think I want to end where close to where we began, which is just say, look for the joy in the things that you want to do.

Find a way to make it fun in the moment, not just because there's some long-term goal and pursue change in that way.

And you will live a happier life and you will accomplish more all at the same time.

So find the ways to pursue your goals that are that are more fun.

I couldn't think of a better action for happiness way of ending this.

And let's just wrap this up by taking a pause wherever you are in the world right now and just notice your appreciation for everything we've learned and shared together in this session today.

And in the spirit of this action for happiness mission, just send someone that good wishing that we've had for each other and ourselves out into the world as well, because our actions and our intentions do also have an impact on the world around us.

So let's try and each leave here with an intention to keep creating a happier and kind of world together.

Katie, thank you so much for your contribution to that, both here and also in the amazing work that you do.

Keep up your great work and look forward to carrying on the conversation.

Thank you again.

Thank you so much for having me, Mark, and thanks to everyone who joined today.

Thank you.