Increase desirable behavior
For most of my young adult life, I avoided sloshing through the behavior changes necessary to create lasting change because, well, it wasn’t as easy as it sounded. There was no “delete” button to erase the existing behaviors that needed changed. No mouse to drag negative behavior to the Recycle Bin, no “Be Kind, Rewind” app, and definitely no “behavioral vacuum” to suck up crappy learned behavior.
Well, if we can’t immediately throw out the bad, how will we ever eventually change?
In order to eliminate negative behavior, explains Watson and Tharp, we need to increase desirable behavior in the place of the undesirable. Here’s their example:
If I want to stop procrastinating (which I’m not sure I want to do yet – I’m so good at it), saying “I have to stop procrastinating” (no matter how emphasized have is) will never actually replace the negative behavior. Instead, I will need to increase my desirable behaviors: Planning out work ahead of time; working out goals, sub-goals, and plans; beginning slowly and steadily to accomplish tasks ahead of time; assigning priorities to my work and then doing it in order; and planning how to deal with distractions.
In this case, I could try fruitlessly to vacuum up, or eradicate the procrastination, but instead, I should spend my time wisely increasing my desirable behaviors. Doing so will automatically decrease my detrimental behaviors. Fascinating, huh? Get this: When you begin to focus on positive behaviors, your mind will begin to replace the negative with those behaviors that are healthy and productive. Powerful stuff, huh? You don’t need a Dyson for that.
