The 20-Second Rule: A Winning Tactic To Change Behavior
I’ve been leading workshops and coaching on positive psychology in the workplace for a few years now. After months of telling my wife, Jen, about some of the exercises and vital elements of the program, it seems at least one of the lessons has made its way home.
In The Orange Frog Workshop™, based on The Happiness Advantage* from Shawn Achor, we talk about one of the fundamental principles that can help people move toward positive action.
The 20-second rule is a simple lesson with many layers for potential impact on individuals and organizations. Sometimes, the only thing standing in the way of accomplishing what we want to do is our inertia. In business, we might refer to this as opportunity cost or lack of engagement. At home, we’d likely say we’re “in a rut.” The 20-second rule suggests that we need to trick ourselves into overcoming what is known as the “activation energy” of the task at hand.
While science is still looking to unlock the mysteries of how our brains work, we know that electrical and chemical processes are at work. And much like a chemical reaction in any science experiment, there is a catalyst requirement for our brains to overcome inertia, especially when we’re learning new habits. This investment in energy to accomplish a new task is highest at the beginning of the process.
