10 Scientific Keys to Changing Anything In Your Life

Changing your behavior is hard.

Luckily, there is a scientifically proven way to do it that gives you the best chance of success.

Anyone who is trying to change their behavior without understanding this science needs to stop, now. Read up on the science. Learn to do it the more effective way.

Then, start again, with better strategies, and create the life you’ve always wanted.

Here’s the other thing you should know: behavior change is hard. Hard like algebra. You will work on it for “a while” before you get to that dream-life. What is “a while”? Years.

But that’s okay. The secret of self-development is that everybody has to work hard and put in a lot of work, if they want to achieve something great.

It just so happens that here at Fierce Gentleman we believe that every man is destined for greatness.

So, below we give you the keys to greatness: 10 scientific keys you need to change anything in your life.

Of course, information alone does not lead to life change. (That’s one of the keys.)

But never before has so much high-quality, scientifically-validated information been available for free, to anyone, to get their path started:

10 Scientific Keys to Change Any Behavior

1. Willpower is weak. Environmental influences are much more important than willpower. (1,2)
2. Information does not lead to action. Emotions lead to action. (Tweet this) This one is harder to back up with scientific studies, but it has long been my personal experience….over 8 years of studying both my own behavior, and the behavior of others who I’m trying to help. Information allows us to know in which direction we can go, but ultimately, emotions motivate us to take action. See also (2) 
   
3. The Internet destroys your ability to focus. Unless you’re reading higher-level long-form articles, like this one. Read the book The Shallows by Nicholas Carr.
4. Facebook makes you unhappy. Delete your account (unless you’re using it for business.) (3)
5. Today’s processed foods are engineered to flood the reward centers of your brain, and potentially trigger food addictions that will wreck your health and wellbeing. Eat vegetables instead. (4,5)
6. Exercise makes your brain bigger. It also gives you more self-control, lifts depression, and stamps out anxiety. (6)
7. Meditation makes your brain bigger. It also gives you more self-control, lifts depression, and stamps out anxiety. (7)
8. Give up alcohol. The breakdown of alcohol in your body creates toxins that the body has to remove. It is also extra calories that will contribute to extra fat storage. The additional toxic load can make you sick. And drinking and driving or just being out around other drunk drivers can kill you.  Give up alcohol. (1o)
9. Take time off work. Overwork drains your willpower and makes you stressed and sick. (Personal experience, common sense.)
10. Maximize neurotransmitters oxytocin, GABA and serotonin. Minimize activities that have you “chasing the dopamine dragon.” Activities that stimulate dopamine: shopping, gambling, pornography, binge eating. Activities that stimulate serotonin, oxytocin & GABA: getting a massage, swing in a hammock, spending time with loved ones, meditating, praying, listening to music, reading. (See The Willpower Instinct.)

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Each of the above 23 principles could be a textbook in its own right, given the amount of research that has been done in that area — and there is much, much more to be said about how to actually implement changes using these principles in your own life.

But the information is out there. There is enough knowledge freely available tocompletely change your life and make it into whatever you wish — if you are able to take action.

As I used to say when I was working with adult students, “There are tons of ways to be an F student, but only a few ways to be an A student.”

Whenever I study another person who is really achieving greatness in life, I see them doing one of a small number of very similar things.

If you do the things they do, you will get the results they get.

SOURCES 

I’m a behavior change professional. I’ve spent my entire professional career helping people change things in their lives: ability to focus, study habits, success habits, corporate performance, brain function.

I’ve read tons of books and research articles on the subject of willpower, habit formation, interpersonal neurobiology, and cognitive science, and I’ve been involved on the ground-level of helping other people change their patterns, habits, and lives for over 10 years.

So although the majority of the above assertions are backed by solid science, a few of them, marked “personal experience” are just from my own experience with over 500 individuals and their life-change journeys.

If you’re interested in further reading, see the excellent books, articles and presentations below.

• The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal
• The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
• Review this brief presentation on Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg
• 1. Paper The Physiology of Willpower: Linking Blood Glucose to Self Control; see also studies by Baba Shiv at Stanford
• 2. Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard
• The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr
• Facebook Use Predicts Decline in Subjective Well-Being in Young Adults
• 4. Evidence for sugar addiction
• 5. Daily bingeing on sugar releases dopamine
• 6. Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain by John Ratey
• 7. A whole host of studies on how meditation increases cortical thickness
• 8. Ahluwalia & Burnkrant, 2004; Burnkrat & Howards, 1984; Hotgraves & Yang, 1990; Sheldon et all 2003.
• 9. Literature review of effects of sleep deprivation on decision making
• 10. http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/alcohol-use.htm

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