#347 Neurohacks

In our last +1, we talked about Sean Young’s SCIENCE of Sticking with It.

Pop quiz: Can you remember what each of those letters in his SCIENCE acronym stand for?!

(As we’ve discussed, as per Make It Stick, the best way to make the wisdom from Stick with It stick is to quiz yourself. 🤓)

Answer: Stepladders + Community + Important + Easy + Neurohacks + Captivating + Engrained.

Today we’re going to focus on the “N”: “Neurohacks.”

What’s a neurohack, you ask?

Basic idea: Most people think they need to get their minds right in order to change their behaviors. Sean says that’s completely backward. In fact, he says: “Social psychologists now know that the truth lies in the opposite direction. People need to change their actions and their minds will follow. What you’re doing is ‘tricking’ the brain into realizing that change is possible.”

In short: We want to use our behaviors to trick our brains into thinking we’re the kind of person who does whatever it is we want to do.

(It’s kinda like the Identity → Behaviors → Feeling model. And very much like Acting As If.)

Here’s my favorite little example that we can all immediately apply to our lives: Sean tells us we can use our passwords to reset our identities.

He shares success stories of a guy going through a painful divorce who changed his password to “Forgive@h3r” and someone who wanted to quit smoking who chose: “Quit@smoking4ever.”

I’ve been doing this for years. A couple years ago, I set my iPhone password to 12-13-14 to commemorate the date I rebooted our business from $1m+ rev to $0 and then rebuilt it into a much stronger and better biz. Every time I entered that password I celebrated the courage and clarity it took for me to make that decision antifragile style.

These days, my iPhone password is “ENJOY0.” That zero at the end means: Enjoy NOW!

So… Today’s +1. Got a new Optimized identity you want to install?

What little password neurohack can you install?!

Hav3funw/th@t!