#1212 Prompt Begone!

In our last +1, we talked about some parallel wisdom from BJ Fogg’s Tiny Habits and Alex Korb’s The Upward Spiral.

Quick repetition time…

BJ says: “Prompts are the invisible drivers of our lives.”

And: “No behavior happens without a prompt.”

Plus: “You can disrupt a behavior you don’t want by removing the prompt. This isn’t always easy, but removing the prompt is your best first move to stop a behavior from happening.”

Alex echoes that wisdom when he says: “Figure out your triggers. It is much easier to avoid temptation than to resist it. If you know what triggers a particular habit, sometimes you can get rid of that habit simply by removing the trigger from your life.”

So…

Today I want to talk about a TINY, subtle little change I recently made with a Prompt-Trigger that significantly changed my Behavior.

Super-quick context: As you know, I’m all about Digital Sunsets, moving from Deep Work to Deep Love by shutting down completely—putting the computer away, turning off the Wi-Fi, and… no longer using the ol’ smartphone.

I rarely use my own phone so that doesn’t present a big challenge.

But…

I do often use Alexandra’s phone as a Batphone for a few people on our Team who get in touch with me via that channel and for miscellaneous stuff like ordering things from Amazon, etc.

So…

Whereas my phone is powered off and locked away on the top shelf of my office closet for days and weeks at a time, Alexandra’s phone is left in a drawer in our kitchen—the hub of where we spend most of our time in the evening transition time.

Note: We know better than to leave the phone out in plain sight. That’s just a Kryptonite MAGNET for our attention. So, we put it in the drawer.

But…

I can still hear the phone whispering my name even from within the drawer! 😲

I’ve wired my brain to open that drawer and check it out so the Prompt, although technically not visible is still magnetically tempting me with its siren call.

In the language of our recent +1s, that “Prompt”/”Trigger”/”Cue” needs to be dealt with more effectively.

Which leads us to the super-simple little thing I did that had surprisingly big benefits.

Here it is: I took the phone out of the drawer, walked the 20+ feet down the hallway and put it in the linen closet.

Boom.

Prompt is now not QUITE as salient.

And, guess what?

That micro-Tiny little step (technically, about 25 of those little steps), TOTALLY changed my Behavior.

Note: Not only did I address the Prompt issue in my MAP, I also simultaneously addressed my Ability by making it slightly HARDER for me to engage in the Behavior I didn’t want to be engaging in.

Those simple shifts put me below BJ’s “Action Line” and VOILA.

Behavior changed.

So…

Back to YOU.

Got a Behavior you want to change?

How’s (and where’s!) your Prompt?

Do something about that.

And watch your Behavior change.

TODAY!!!

-1. -1. -1. for the +1. +1. +1. WIN!!!!