'How to Change' is a behavioral economist's guide to habit formation

Summary

NPR's Book of the Day: 'How to Change' – A Behavioral Economist's Guide to Habit Formation

Release Date: January 23, 2025
Host: Jane Clayson
Guest: Katie Milkman, Professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and author of How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

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Introduction: Embracing Change with Katie Milkman

In the January 23, 2025 episode of NPR's Book of the Day, host Jane Clayson delves into the perennial challenge of maintaining New Year's resolutions with behavioral economics expert Katie Milkman. Milkman, renowned for her research on habit formation, offers scientific insights and practical strategies to help listeners achieve their personal goals.

The Purpose and Psychology Behind New Year's Resolutions

Jane Clayson opens the discussion by asking Milkman about the underlying purpose of New Year's resolutions:

Katie Milkman [02:00]: "All of us have something in our lives that we could get a little better at. The new year provides a recognized moment of new beginnings, giving us a sense of a breaking point and a clean slate. It makes us optimistic that we can improve upon past shortcomings."

Milkman emphasizes that resolutions represent our desire for self-improvement and the optimism associated with a fresh start. However, she also acknowledges the common struggle of maintaining these resolutions over time.

The Challenge of Sustaining Resolutions

When addressing why many resolutions fail, Milkman highlights that it's not solely about willpower:

Katie Milkman [02:52]: "Willpower is not enough. We often quit because of present bias—we care more about instant gratification than long-term goals. To stay on track, we need strategies that make the pursuit of our goals enjoyable."

She points out that without effective strategies, even the most determined individuals can falter, especially when the activities required to achieve their goals are intrinsically unenjoyable.

Effective Strategies for Habit Formation

Milkman introduces two primary strategies to enhance the likelihood of sticking to resolutions:

1. Bundling Temptations with Necessary Tasks

   Katie Milkman [04:16]: "If you can combine something that's a temptation with a goal that feels like a chore, you can change the nature of the activity so you actually look forward to it and will persist longer."

   Example: Allowing oneself to binge-watch a favorite TV show only while on the treadmill transforms exercise into an enjoyable activity.

2. Implementing Commitment Devices

   Katie Milkman [04:30]: "A commitment device involves setting up constraints and penalties for not adhering to your goals, such as pledging to donate money if you miss gym sessions."

   These devices increase accountability and make the consequences of failure more immediate and salient, thereby motivating continued effort.

Listener Experiences: Success Stories

To illustrate these strategies, Milkman shares real-life examples from listeners:

1. Elaine Berlinger's Concrete Resolutions

   Elaine Berlinger [05:33]: "Past years, I remembered to bring my reusable bags while shopping or tried not to use a straw for my soft drinks."

   Katie Milkman [05:55]: "Elaine's resolutions are concrete and bounded. She set specific, actionable goals like stopping the use of plastic straws, making it easier to implement and achieve them consistently."

2. Mary Linton's Sobriety Journey Supported by Siblings

   Mary Linton [07:07]: "I made a resolution to spend the entire year without drinking any alcohol, and I leaned on my brothers for support through regular check-ins."

   Katie Milkman [07:32]: "Having a strong support system and accountability partners significantly increases the chances of maintaining such goals."

These stories underscore the importance of specificity and social support in successfully adhering to resolutions.

The Role of Social Support and Accountability

Milkman elaborates on the critical role of social support in habit formation:

Katie Milkman [07:36]: "Social support not only provides accountability but also makes the pursuit of goals more enjoyable. In our studies, participants who committed to gym routines with friends attended 35% more often than those who did not."

She explains that engaging in goal-oriented activities with others fosters both enjoyment and a sense of responsibility, enhancing persistence.

Key Takeaways for Successful Habit Formation

As the conversation wraps up, Milkman shares actionable tips from her book:

1. Consistency is Critical

   Katie Milkman [08:59]: "Consistency is critical to habit formation. Repeating the behavior builds it into your routine, making it an automatic part of your life."

2. Flexibility in Routines

   Adapting routines to fit one's lifestyle ensures that habits remain sustainable over time.

3. Leveraging Social Networks

   Katie Milkman [10:02]: "Copying and pasting strategies from friends can be highly effective. By adopting methods that have worked for others, you gain both social support and tailored insights for your specific situation."

Conclusion: Empowering Change Through Science

Katie Milkman's insights provide a scientifically grounded framework for understanding and overcoming the challenges of habit formation. By implementing strategies such as bundling enjoyable activities with necessary tasks, using commitment devices, and leveraging social support, individuals can significantly improve their chances of achieving and maintaining their New Year's resolutions.

Katie Milkman [10:41]: "Copying and pasting other people's habits or strategies is an effective tool because it provides ready-made solutions and the necessary support to succeed."

As the new year progresses, Milkman's advice serves as a valuable guide for anyone looking to transform their resolutions into lasting habits.

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For those interested in exploring these concepts further, Katie Milkman's book, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be, offers an in-depth exploration of the science behind habit formation and sustainable behavior change.

Transcript

[Andrew Limbong]

Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. I keep seeing this Apple commercial talking about something called Quitters Day. Supposedly, it is the second Friday in January where people tend to give up on their New Year's resolutions. Now, if that does not describe you, if you are holding on strong, or you know what, even if you did quit but want to hop back on the horse again, today's interview is for you. It's with Katie Milkman, a behavioral economics expert who's written the book how to change the science of getting from where you are to where you want to be. And in this interview with Here Now's Jane Clayson, Milkman hears from different listeners and their resolution wins and losses and talks about what exactly can help us stay on track. That's ahead.

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[Katie Milkman]

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[Jane Clayson]

Day, New Year, new you. The start of a new year is a time for setting goals and resolutions. Maybe you want to exercise more, learn a new skill or live a more sustainable life. Many of us set out determined to meet our New Year's resolutions. But as the year drags on, many people lose track and fail to reach those goals. So what's the secret to sticking to your New Year's resolutions? Katie Milkman has some ideas. She's a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and author of the book how to the Science of getting from where you are to where you want to be. Professor, welcome to here and Now.

[Katie Milkman]

Thanks for having me.

[Jane Clayson]

So what's the purpose of a New Year's resolution? What do these resolutions represent for us?

[Katie Milkman]

Well, all of us have something in our lives that we could get a little better at. Right. None of us are already perfect. And the new year is a moment. And it's one of many moments, but it's the best recognized when we recognize on our calendar a new beginning. These new beginnings give us a sense of a breaking point and a clean slate. And they make us optimistic because we can say, you know, last year or last week, I didn't accomplish XYZ thing that I hope to, but but now it's going to be different because new year, new Me?

[Jane Clayson]

Well, there are a lot of people listening who think, well, I mean, you know, you. You have a goal, and it lasts for a couple of days, maybe a couple of weeks. I'm raising my hand here, too. We struggle. So many people struggle to stick to our New Year's resolutions. It's hard. It's hard to keep motivated. It's not all about willpower, though. You write. Tell us more about that.

[Katie Milkman]

Yeah, absolutely. And first of all, I really appreciate you pointing out that many of us fail quickly because that's the problem with New Year's resolutions or goals more generally. Whether it's a fresh start on a Monday or after a birthday or at any other point in time, it's not enough to just say, I'm going to make a change. We actually need strategies to support success. And as you note, willpower is not enough. The reality is that if we don't enjoy the activity we need to engage in day in and day out to get to our goal.

[Jane Clayson]

We.

[Katie Milkman]

We quit because of present bias. We care more about the instant gratification and the experience, and so we have to focus on that. How do you make the experience of pursuing your goal something that's enjoyable? If goal pursuit is gonna require repeated engagement in some sort of challenging behavior, which most goals do, not all, but.

[Jane Clayson]

Most so find satisfaction in the activity itself. That's what you're saying. So give me an example of that.

[Katie Milkman]

Not necessarily. Yeah, not necessarily. Sometimes you can't. Right. Some activities may not be satisfying in and of themselves. Like, I find it not that. And satisfying to do household chores. Right. It's sort of hard to say, oh, just find the satisfaction in scrubbing your floors. That may not be possible. So instead, there are strategies we can use. You can make that activity less of a chore by combining it with something you find tempting and enjoyable and will look forward to. So imagine you only let yourself binge watch your favorite TV show while you're on the treadmill at the gym.

[Jane Clayson]

Yep.

[Katie Milkman]

So if you can combine something that's a temptation with a goal that feels like a chore, you can change the nature of the activity so you actually look forward to it and will persist longer.

[Jane Clayson]

All right. Bundle the task with a temptation. All right. What's another strategy?

[Katie Milkman]

Yeah. Okay, great. So another strategy that can be really helpful for people is something called a commitment device. So say you want to exercise more regularly. You could create a commitment device that finds you if you don't do it. So you could say, I am going to penalize myself. I'm going to say, I'm going to have to give $50 every week. I don't go to the gym at least three times. I'm going to donate to an organization, maybe even one that I hate, and choose a referee. Maybe it's a trainer, maybe it's your partner or a friend who you ask to hold you to that commitment. And what research shows is actually that these are tremendously effective when we sort of set up constraints, boundaries and fines for ourself, that can be very motivating and can sort of bring forward the pain of failure in a way that makes it more salient and present in our mind.

[Jane Clayson]

Okay, those are two good strategies. We asked our listeners to share their experiences of New Year's resolutions that actually stuck. So I want to hear first from Elaine Berlinger of Glendale, Arizona. Here she is.

[Katie Milkman]

Past years, I remembered to bring my reusable bags while shopping or tried not to use a straw for my soft drinks.

[Jane Clayson]

I have been able to continue these.

[Katie Milkman]

Resolutions year after year, making them a part of my life.

[Jane Clayson]

So why do you think Elaine's resolution stuck? Why did that work for her?

[Katie Milkman]

Well, I really like that they're so concrete and bounded. Right. She didn't say, like I made a resolution to get healthier or to be more environmentally conscious. She had really concrete actions. Right. I'm gonna stop using plastic straws. That's a really clear and defined goal, and that's the best kind of goal. Those are the ones we're most likely to be able to achieve. It's sort of, it's clear when, when you're going to have to act. Every time there's a drink, you're going to make a different choice. And so those are great goals. A lot of us set goals that are much too vague and we don't think about, you know, when will I do it, where will I do it, how will I follow through? But when we get more into the details and make these really concrete goals, not I'm going to be an environmentalist, but I'm going to stop using plastic straws. The implementation becomes easier and more likely because the follow through action steps are.

[Jane Clayson]

So clear, concrete, and bounded. I like that. Here's another voice memo from our listener. Mary Linton in Dripping Springs, Texas, says she made a resolution going into 2024 to spend the entire year without drinking any alcohol. She says she was able to stick to her sobriety by leaning on her brothers for support. Here she is.

[Katie Milkman]

I have three brothers and I've been in a text conversation throughout the year with Them. Each of us has done various stints of sobriety, things like Dry January previously. And so they checked in with me to see how I was doing. And I'm happy to say it's gotten easier and easier.

[Jane Clayson]

A good support system and accountability, right, Professor?

[Katie Milkman]

Absolutely. I love that example and the research 100% backs the importance of having those kinds of social supports when you pursue your goals. We actually published a study just last year. I'm going to take you to the gym again. It's where we do a lot of our work on habits, where we showed that if you invite people to get paid for trying to come to the gym more regularly and they have to sign up with a friend, and then we randomly assigned some people to get their payment, regardless of whether their friend showed up with them at the gym, and other people could only collect money for coming to the gym when they and their friend both showed up. We actually ended up with people going to the gym 35% more often when they had to go with a friend, even though that's a harder incentive to earn. It's completely counter to what standard economic models would predict. You'd say, you know, incentivize the behavior you want and what was going on. There was accountability, and also, actually, it was fun. So harkening back to what we talked about before, when we pursue our goals with other people, we enjoy them more and there's someone holding us accountable and we're more successful. And I love that this is also an abstention goal, because a lot of the time we focus primarily on goals that involve doing something new. But sometimes we want to quit something. And social support can help with either kind of goal.

[Jane Clayson]

All right. Want to throw in a couple more important things here. Be consistent with the habit you talk about. Be flexible with the routine and set the bar flow.

[Katie Milkman]

Great. Okay. Consistency is critical to habit formation. That's sort of where habits come from. You repeat the behavior so many times that it goes on autopilot. And if you think about learning a skill, right, learning the piano, which is something my kid is working on right now, we understand that that requires practice. But actually, habits come from the same basic process of practicing them. And ideally, there's a reward. So there's something about the activity that you feel good about afterwards, hopefully you enjoyed it, and you just repeat those behaviors as often as you can. And essentially all the research shows that that's how we create these habits. And there's some really nice studies that show if you pay people to repeat a behavior, say, 8 times 10 times that you can then stop paying them and they'll keep doing those behaviors if they've been rewarded and they were intrinsically motivating.

[Jane Clayson]

So leave us with one tip or one personal example from your book. How to Change that can be applied to our New Year's resolutions. Moving forward into the new year, a.

[Katie Milkman]

Key tip is to try to copy and paste strategies you've seen work for your friends. Simply doing a little research by asking your social network how did you get that gym routine built? How did you learn Spanish? How did you become so masterful about meditating every day? What was it that worked for? You can be a big help and a lot of people don't think to do this, but copying and pasting other people's habits or other people's strategies for forming habits is a really effective tool. And part of why it works is you get that social support, but also you get insights that are ready made for your exact situation.

[Jane Clayson]

Katie Milkman is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and author of the book how to the Science of Getting from where youe Are to where you Want to Be. Good ideas. Katie thank you.

[Katie Milkman]

Thank you so much.

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