CM 099: Sean Young on the Science of Changing Your Life

What is the secret to changing our habits? Too often, we are led to believe that we need to study successful people and then use our willpower to act like they do. But UCLA Medical School Professor, Sean Young, reveals that this approach mainly leads to failure. Instead, Young and his colleagues point us to seven forces that succeed in creating lasting change. Sean is the author of the book, Stick with It: A Scientifically Proven Process for Changing Your Life - for Good. He is a Professor at UCLA Medical School, and Founder and Executive Director of the UCLA Center for Digital Behavior and the UC Institute for Prediction Technology. His work has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Science, and CNN. In this interview we discuss: Why we need to shift from self-blame to a thoughtful process for change How education alone is not enough to change behavior The ABCs of behavior -- automatic, burning, and common The seven tools Sean discusses to support behavior change - stepladders, community, important, easy, neurohacks, captivating, ingrained Just how powerful stepladders or very small steps can be in changing unwanted behaviors or habits The importance of creating the right-size steps to stay on track in reaching our goals How success with small steps increases our self-confidence to help us stick with it The fact that community -- the influence key others have on us -- can help us change behavior How purposefully structured online, peer-driven communities can help drive behavior change Why quick mental shortcuts or neurohacks can change our brains to help us change our behavior How taking action helps us see ourselves as someone who engages in the behavior we want to have Why it is important to pair the type of behavior with the right tool, like stepladders with common behaviors Why one of the most game-changing tools is making it easy to engage in behavior changes Episode Links seanyoungphd.com @seanyoungphd Michelle Segar, author of No Sweat Richard E. Petty Yo app If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes - your ratings make all the difference. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!