388. Precommitment Psychology: Sticking to Your Goals (Refreshed Episode)

Welcome to episode 388 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy Today's episode is all about pre commitments. Ready? Let's get started.

You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now, here's your host, Melina Palmer.

Hello.

Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. Today's episode is about the power of pre commitment. Whether you're committing to yourself or someone else in advance, a pre commitment device can make it so we are much more likely to follow through on what we want or intend to do. It's funny how even when we want to do something and fully intend to, things can fall through the cracks and we mess up from time to time. We we don't make the meeting, we don't complete everything on our to do list. We miss a deadline. This episode is all about the funny way we're more likely to follow through when we pre commit why it works and some tips for you to keep in mind as you consider your upcoming commitments, what you want to do and what really matters. I do think it's important to note that there has been some controversy around a couple of studies related to pre.

Commitment and and that the researchers that.

Worked on those and those specific studies are still under investigation at the time of this recording. And refreshing this episode because the concept is still relevant. We've all experienced and tried out these little pre commitment tricks ourselves. Naturally, over time. Perhaps it's in signing up to take a fitness class with a friend because you're more likely to show up when you know that they're waiting for you or locking your phone in a box at night so you aren't tempted to use it and stay up too late on social media. The concept is still relevant and still matters and there's lots of research showing that it still works and that this happens. So I wanted to revisit the concept here for you today specifically because of the guest I have joining me in this upcoming Friday's episode. His name is Mark Zhao Sanders and he's going to be here to talk about his new book Timeboxing. This book and the conversation around timeboxing is so enlightening and helpful for everyone who wants to get more of the right stuff done and and live a more intentional life.

I can't wait for you to hear it Friday.

And talking about pre commitments and how they work was the perfect way to tee that one up. So you're all ready to try out Time Boxing when you hear about it in a couple days. Don't forget there are links for everything, including past episodes, books and articles, all waiting for you in the show. Notes for this episode, which are found within the app you're listening to and at the brainy business.com 388.

All right.

Let'S talk about pre commitment.

Because we humans, and some animals as well, don't always choose what's best for us, and we can be tempted by treats and wins now at the expense of our future selves. That's time discounting and other biases at play. We will often put barriers in our way to make it so we'll prevent ourselves from choosing something we might not be able to control in the moment, even even though we know it isn't in our best interest. We behave differently when in a cold state, when our logical brain can think clearly and isn't overwhelmed by temptation in front of the more excitable subconscious. So we can set up those barriers to prevent ourselves from being wooed by the subconscious when it's in the hot state and so we don't fall into those traps. That is where pre commitment comes into play. Pre commitments can be external, like throwing all the junk food out of the house or dumping soda down the drain. They can also be internal, like a promise to yourself that you will not break. Like my commitment to have episodes of the podcast come out every Friday, especially at the beginning, no one was sitting on the edge of their seat ready to hit download. The moment an episode came out, that was all a promise to myself in hopes that eventually it might get to be something other people counted on as well. And and these pre commitments can also be a bit of a mix. So the moment I declared this will come out every Friday and I will never miss to the audience, you've become part of my pre commitment device. So when I feel tired or distracted or get sick or whatever, it doesn't matter. I don't get to just skip a week because I've made a commitment and I'm not the type of person who has an inconsistent podcast. To miss an episode would be very difficult for my brain to handle due to something called cognitive dissonance. We aren't going to get into this too much on the show today, as it will have its own episode soon, but cognitive dissonance is essentially the discomfort we feel when our perception of ourselves doesn't line up with our actions. Humans don't like to have these things out of alignment. And when there's ever anything off, we tend to very quickly write a story to explain why it's okay. This is a big piece of how fundamental attribution error can feel like it's working in our favor, but can actually be problematic. Let's say I did miss an episode. As someone who believes I'm the type of person who honors their commitments and would never miss something, I've said a lot. How could I cope with this sharp sting of reality staring me in the face? Would I take a good hard look at myself and say, well, I guess I'm not that type of person. I guess I'm the type of person who lets others down. Or would I be more likely to write it off as a fluke, a coincidence to say, well, if only X, Y or Z wouldn't have happened, it would have gotten out on time. This isn't about me because I'm not the type of person who misses this deadline. You know, it's probably because our brains do this surprisingly quickly. Write off a story that doesn't align with how we want to see ourselves. As another example, I believe myself to be the kind of person who appreciates other people's time, who respects them and honors my commitments. But as you learned about in the episode about planning fallacy recently, I'm also really bad at wanting to do that one more thing before starting the next thing. It's my nature to think I can answer this one email before jumping on that zoom call or running out the door, and that can make me a minute late instead of a minute early. That creates some cognitive dissonance for me. And for a long time I did the easy, natural thing, writing it off and saying things like, but I have so many emails. They must know I have other meetings. When could I answer them if I don't do it now, and all the other good stuff that my brain is going to be creating for me instead of admitting that it's a trend, I can look back at my past behavior and say that I was a minute or two late every single day, at least once a day, usually more for a really, really, really long time, perpetually just a little bit behind. Now comes the choice. Do I accept that this is the person I am and know that I will fall victim to these temptations so other people just have to accept it? Thankfully, no. Instead, I can establish some pre commitment tactics while in a cold state to to help set me up for success when that moment of weakness comes. I could set all my clocks to be a few minutes fast. I can only allow myself to check emails or do other miscellaneous tasks at a certain time of day. Once I'm done with calls, I can set my meetings to have a buffer of at least five minutes to allow for proper transition between them. I can use my time timer and have it set for five minutes before that time to help wrap it up five minutes in advance to actually have the buffer between meetings. I can have a plan and agenda for each meeting and be more firm with myself saying I do not let meetings run long and if it looks like one is going to run long instead of letting it happen preschedule a follow up time before we hit that time limit that we've set in advance. I could have my husband watch my calendar and stand outside my office door to listen if I actually get off the phone when I am supposed to and have some sort of fine that I have to pay to the house fund or a penalty chore I have to do as a punishment if I don't keep my commitment. In a really extreme case, I could set up my phone to shut down at a set time and end calls or not pay for Zoom so It has the 40 minute call time limit no matter what and just kicks you out whether you're mid sentence or not. You get the idea right? The thing to know is there are lots of ways to help keep yourself committed and understanding what's happening in your brain can help you do better. If you've struggled with this in the past, and if you're a human, I can pretty much guarantee you've had this come up at least once. Because we all do it. It's a natural thing. But the thing about pre commitment is while it does help us stick to the right stuff, what we really want to do, what we know is good for us more than if we just wing it because of that cognitive dissonance problem. We can also be really good at ignoring our own best intentions so that it doesn't always work if you aren't ready to face a real problem, to look at yourself in the mirror and say, you know what? I am actually one of those people I have vowed to never be. I've pretended that I'm punctual and that other people's time matters to me more than my own, but in the heat of the moment, I often make the wrong choice and show up late. Even if it's only a minute. It isn't okay. I accept that I have done this in the past, that this has been in my nature, and there's no explanation that will make it okay for me. There's no reason I will accept to say this is acceptable in the future. I will not do this anymore and I will not explain it away. This is the most important thing I can do for my personal brand, keeping my commitments and showing up when I say I will. So this will be my focus now. That was a hard thing to say. It was hard to write it out, and it's hard to read it to you now. It stings a little. It feels very raw and scary and that's how it's supposed to feel. I need to own that past to have a better future. If I don't, if I let the distaste for cognitive dissonance explain it away, it'll never change. I will never change, and no amount of pre commitment tricks will do it for me. Owning the past and accepting it allows me to decide it needs to be fixed because I'm not willing to do that to people anymore, then I can take a hard look at what changes. It's likely a mix of pre commitment devices can help me keep those commitments. Yes, the minute late to the meeting is a problem, but it's part of a bigger system of errors I've been explaining away over time. Scheduling meetings without buffers, saying yes to too many things, not investing in systems or setting up processes that would allow people to help me. As with pretty much every applied behavioral science project I've ever looked at or worked on or talked about with somebody, there's always a bigger problem at the root than what you think is going on at the surface, and it's important to take a step back and make sure you're addressing the whole thing. When you put your pre commitment devices in place, asking great questions like why do I feel the need to respond to this email right now? Or what's the consequence of waiting? How valued would this person feel if I gave them my undivided attention instead of splitting it between multiple things? How is not ending this meeting on time actually being disrespectful to the person I'm talking to, breaking a promise to them and the person who's waiting on the other side? Whether it's my next meeting or a 7 year old ready for his favorite grilled cheese? Once the motivation is clear, it's easier to find a pre commitment device or series of them that will work to help you overcome the problem. I could have conversations with others to help keep me in line and may even come up with some more extreme tactics like the penalties enforced by my husband or because he's really busy too and it isn't his job to sit outside my door. I can just promise to be honest about it and live up to that which is possible when you aren't trying to fix 25 things at once. Back to the advice I've given on goal setting and mindset work over the years. You just can't have too many things you're working on at one time because then you have an excuse to not do any of them. You can just do surface level stuff on 10 of them and never make any real progress. Finding the most important thing to work on and dedicating all your willpower to that one thing is much more likely to succeed and you can be honest about what may be allowed to slide to help accommodate that. In the beginning phases or forever. In my case, it might be the badge of being busy and having a lot going on. I need to accept that having sanity and space in my day is a good thing and doesn't mean I'm not accomplishing things. Often it's quite the opposite as I experience it. The pre commitment devices will work even better then because they're getting results and helping me achieve the cognitive alignment my brain craves without having to tell myself white lies to make it feel fit. I really am becoming the person I want to be. Depending on the goal you choose to use your pre commitment tactics to help with, there are some really cool apps and ideas that can help you get there. The first one is called Stick and that's S T I C K K. I've talked about this on the show before. It's crafted by behavioral economists to help you stick to your goals. Say you need to write your book or release podcast episodes every week, or go live on your social media every day, exercise daily, whatever. You can set up a commitment for yourself and say that for a period of time you're going to stick with it no matter what. You set it up in the cold state and may say I'm going to walk every day, rain or shine for 90 days for a minimum of 30 minutes a day and if I ever miss then a donation of $500 will be made to a cause I hate. So say if you're a Democrat the money goes to a Republican candidate, or if you're an animal rights activist goes to a hunting organization. Whatever is the thing that you can't stand the idea of giving a donation to. That's the right thing for you because it will help you keep that pre commitment when you're feeling lazy or it's raining or whatever. And because it's automatic and uses the GPS on your phone so you can't fake it, you know that if you don't get your 30 minutes in by midnight, it will auto transfer and you can't stop it then. Can you wait a half hour to watch that next episode on Netflix? With motivation like this, it's a lot easier to stick to. The next app is called Forest. This one can be used if you want to be more productive and especially if you have a hard time not getting distracted by your phone. So if you should be writing but always feel tempted to pick up the phone to scroll through Instagram, consider this one. Forest gives you the opportunity to create a virtual forest and each time you have a task you need to commit to, you choose and plant a virtual seed. Let's say you decide to write for 45 minutes. You choose your tree and the spot in your forest and begin to work. It is growing as you work and you can see it getting more lush. But if you pick up your phone and leave the app before the 45 minutes are up, it dies. You watch your new virtual tree, your baby shrivel and die. Killing a tree, even a virtual one, feels bad to the brain and can help you keep your commitments. Plus, Forest has a plan where you can redeem the coins and they plant real trees. It's pretty cool. There are of course links to both Forest and Stick in the show notes if you want to check that out. And also in a few weeks you're going to get to hear an interview with Aline Holzwarth, head of Behavioral science at Pattern Health and a principal at the center for Advanced Hindsight. She and the teams have done some really cool things using a virtual pet to help people keep their commitments and have also tried out some interesting stuff like if you don't take your medications as prescribed, it will send a text to your mom if you don't want the bugging you reminder from mom, you may be more motivated to keep your commitment to take your medication all by yourself without having the app send her a message and dealing with that whole thing. When Nikki Rauch was on the show, we talked about making it easy to do business with you and scheduling your circle back calls in the moment someone is interested. Making that pre commitment is so much more effective in continuing conversations and moving forward in a sales process. If someone says they want to talk about working together, instead of saying great, here's my card, send me an email when you're ready or can I have your card and I'll follow up next week? Get the appointment on the calendar in that moment. It's a pre commitment that's a lot harder to push off than a theoretical conversation that may happen someday. If someone's expecting your call, they already said that it was okay for you to call them. They're much more likely to pick up the phone to keep the appointment, to have even a small part of the conversation. Whereas if you're just going to email them, they might never respond. You may never get that moment on the phone. As another example, if you want your team to work on a project and you want them to get it to you at a certain time, don't say if you can get that done as soon as possible, that would be great because that can be any time. There's no urgency or commitment in place. Instead, if you say I'm hoping to review this first thing when I come in Thursday morning at 8am, will you have it in my inbox before then? When they say yes, they've made a commitment to have it for you and they'll be much more likely to keep it. Especially when you didn't set any sort of expectation in the as soon as possible scenario where nobody really knows when you want it again. You can't ask for everything tomorrow morning. And if someone asks you to do something that's going to be impossible to complete with what you have already on your calendar, you it's important to gently push back and acknowledge if it can't be done. Set the expectations up front to help everyone be on the same page and comfortable with the commitment. For example, let's say I asked an employee to have something for me by Thursday at 8. If they respond to me by saying with the other priorities we've discussed for this week, that's going to be difficult to meet. Is there something on the project list that can have its deadline moved back to accommodate for this? That would force me to look at the list of projects and prioritize for the team member instead of them having to guess, which almost never works out the way that you want and can help reset my expectations? Or maybe I'm going to ask someone else to do it. Maybe I'm going to move a different project to someone else. Maybe I need to move another deadline back. Maybe there's something they thought they needed to work on that's really not that important. It's just an opportunity to realign. You get some good communication and helps everyone to honor their commitments and keep moving Forward on that same team. All right, I want to close out this episode with one of my favorite pre commitment tactics, the loss aversion jar. You heard me talk about this when I first came up with it on episode nine and a few others maybe in a presentation or two, because, oh, I just love it so much. Here's how this pre commitment piece works. Let's say you want to buy a new computer or sign up for a program you're excited about, or finally, stick to that weight loss plan, finish your book, whatever you need to set up a date for when it will be done, for how long you're going to be on this commitment track, as well as a budget for what you're going to have at the end. So if the item at the end is a new computer and you need about $2,000 for it, then say you set your goal for six months out and you decide that you're also going to put this in tandem with writing that book or working on articles or whatever it happens to be. And so you say you're going to write for 30 minutes every day. And for every day that you do, $10 goes in the jar. It's going to be a clear jar you can have in plain view of where you work. So it's a priming reminder as well. Every day you put money in the jar and at the end of six months, when the book is complete, you have all the money for your new computer and you know the book is done. So win, win. Of course, much like stick, if you ever miss, then all the money in the jar goes away and you have to start all over again. It's not that you just don't get to put in $10 that day. You lose it all. And you can choose to have these lost funds do anything. But to help you keep the commitment, having it be something you don't like the idea of is best. So you don't want to say, well, that just goes back in the checking account, I guess, because there isn't really a negative there to keep you motivated. Maybe it's the donation to the thing you don't like, or it could be something that's still useful to you, but not what you really want the money for. Like it could be an extra mortgage or a car payment so it doesn't completely go to waste. But you also have to lose out on that ability to buy the computer that you still really need. And accepting that until you stick to your full plan, you can't buy the computer. Computer, in the case of the Diet and exercise plan. You could set it up that for every day you do what you said you would, the $10 goes in the jar and at the end of six months you get to use that money on new, smaller clothes. Awesome. Seeing the money in the jar and knowing it all goes away if you miss can help you snowball and stick to that goal. Especially if you have a buddy who you know will hold you to it. When I know my husband won't let me slide or argue it away that there isn't an excuse that makes it okay to miss my pre commission commitment, it changes the level of motivation. Don't choose someone who's going to bend at your will and believe the story your brain tells for why it won't happen again or it wasn't your fault or whatever. Because as we already talked about, you're only picking one thing to focus on and it needs to be something really important to you. It needs to be worth the time, worth the effort and sacrifice. And then the pre commitment devices you set up will help propel you forward and jump past the parts where you might have fallen off the wagon before you can celebrate your wins and achieve those goals by using pre commitment in a responsible way, putting all these tools toward one single goal, one thing that matters will help you ensure that those pre commitment tactics and everything else is going to help you stay on track, achieve those goals, and then you can really celebrate your wins with the buddy that's helping you stick to them and someone that you know would have done the extreme thing if you messed up. So if you don't have that holding you to it, if you don't have that person in your life that can do it, instead of the loss aversion jar, you would want to look for something like stick where it's going to transfer whether you like to or not. And it's a cold, unfeeling computer. So it's going to happen. If you don't meet the goal. Understanding that if you can't commit to having the extreme bad thing be the consequence if you don't meet the goal, if you don't do what you said you were going to do, if you don't keep those commitments, then you're just not going to do them at all and you need to pick something else or ask yourself why you don't feel comfortable with that and what other changes may need to be made. Going back to that question of identifying the most important thing to be working on and finding the bigger problem, the most important thing if you're not ready to commit to it, don't work on it right now and maybe find something else that you can work on to help you build that snowball to get a couple of small wins. And if you know that 90 days is too long, you can start with 10 or 5 or whatever it is just something so that you can see that you can do it. When you focus, set your intentions on something and know that you're just not going to give up and it won't be acceptable and it's that one thing, it really truly can make a difference. So I'm asking you now, what will your goal be and when will you achieve it? Make the commitment by sharing it with me on social media. That's a nice pre commitment device for you.

So what got your brain buzzing as you learned about pre commitment today?

For me, this is a really, really.

Cool episode to be working on right now. A little surreal as I'm writing and recording this intro outro to the refresh several weeks in advance, but this episode is going to be the first one to come out after I do my first TEDx talk in Portland on April 27th and I'm actually talking about a lot of similar concepts as we're in this episode. That talk is about understanding how our brains play predictable tricks on us that keep us from accomplishing our go and getting big things done and how if you commit to one most important thing at a time and understand those key four tricks of the brain, you can do truly amazing things. Reading back through this episode which I wrote and recorded four years ago while preparing for the TEDx and to see that yes, I really have been talking about this in a similar way and seeing results for myself and my clients for a really, really really long time and is just so surreal I guess, and reassuring. That video from TEDX Portland is of course not available yet since it will have happened just a couple days ago, so it won't be available yet to put in the show notes. I'm not sure how long it's going to be before I have it, but you can be sure that we will put it all over the website@the brainybusiness.com and social media when it's ready. If you are listening to this a bit after the episode originally aired and you like the idea of what I talked about about here on the episode, please do check to see if that video is available. Watch it, share it with a friend you care about. Let me know what you think. I would love to hear from you and thank you in advance you'll find me as the Brainy biz pretty much everywhere and as molina Palmer on LinkedIn. And of course, do tune in this coming Friday to my conversation with Mark Zhao Sanders on his new book Time Boxing and all the wonder that can come from this amazing practice. Remember, there are links in the show, notes for my top related past episodes and books, articles, a timestamp summary of the episode and more. It's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and at the brainy business.com 388 and just like that, episode 388 on pre commitment is done. Join me Friday for a brand new episode with Mark Zoulo Sanders talking about Time Boxing. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me. And remember to be thoughtful.

Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.