Nir Eyal proposes a test: if you'd stop watching Netflix past bedtime to avoid a $10,000 penalty, you can actually control the behavior. He recommends using a pact, a commitment device that enforces the habit you want.
A lot of people say to me, I can't do this, right? I can't stop watching Netflix. I can't get off social media. I can't stop getting distracted. And I give them a very simple test, okay? Not everybody can pass this test, but let me see if you can pass this test. If I told you that if you watch Netflix at night, past your bedtime, past the time that you set for yourself, and you should do that, of course, we talked about that last week, how you should have a bedtime in your schedule, if you do that, you're going to have to pay me $10,000. Can you not watch Netflix? I would bet that almost everybody on this call maybe save some people who are medically diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder. Perhaps they can't, right? But I would probably say that 99.9% of people on this call if I said, if you watch Netflix past your bedtime, you will have to pay me $10,000. Guess what? You're gonna go to bed. So we've established you can. We've established you can. Now we're negotiating the price. So what you might want to do for yourself if you are struggling with getting to bed on time, is to use a pact, which is the fourth step of the indistractible model.
Your Beliefs Are Sabotaging You (Here's Why) - Beyond Belief for Athletes with Nir Eyal
