The positive benefits brought about by good habits often take a long time to reap. So the hardest problem in behavior change is this: the costs often occur in the present, while the benefits are far in the future. For example, the benefits of exercise are intangible and take a long time to HE Tuber show up, but the gratification of sitting around eating junk food is immediate.

Imagine it’s two o’clock in the afternoon on a Saturday, you’re lying on the couch, you’ve finished watching an episode of your favorite TV series on Aiyou Teng Mang, and you’re about to click “continue watching,” but you remember you’re supposed to go to the gym today— — Complete a physical exercise program at least 2 times a week. What would you do in this situation?

Temptations fill our daily lives, such as playing mobile phones, playing games, and eating sweets. When faced with the difficult choice between "what to do" and "should do", we usually choose the former.

Are there ways you can develop good habits while reducing the guilt and wasted time associated with tempting activities? Researchers such as Katy Milkman of Wharton Business School and Julia Minson of Harvard University have proposed an ingenious method - they call it "temptation bundling . " This concept bundles "want" activities that are immediately satisfying (watching the next episode of your favorite show) with "should" activities that have delayed benefits and require willpower (going to the gym).

To bolster their theory, they also conducted motivational experiments: using engaging audio novels (a "want" activity) coupled with exercise (a "should" behavior). 

Control group: Participants received a $25 gift card;

Experimental Group 1: Participants had access to an iPod containing four audio novels of their choice, but they could only listen to them in the gym;

Experimental Group 2: Participants had access to an iPod containing four audio novels of their choice, but they could listen to them at any time.

As predicted by the temptation bundling insights, participants in Experimental Group 2 went to the gym 29% more frequently than participants in the control group, and participants in Experimental Group 1 went to the gym 51% more frequently than participants in the control group. This increase highlights the effectiveness of the commitment mechanism, which completely limits what you "want to do" to what you "should do".

Understanding the power of temptation bundling, we can use it to promote a variety of beneficial behaviors, not just exercise.

 For example, if you realize that you lack the willpower to eat healthily, you can make it a rule that you can only watch your favorite shows while eating healthy foods; if you always procrastinate on housework, make it a rule that you can only listen to your favorite shows while doing the dishes or laundry. Audiobooks. If you realize you lack the willpower to do something beneficial, create your own "temptation bundle" by pairing it with a complementary thing you want to do.

Similarly, we often see this strategy in business, such as the point malls of various apps. After completing tasks to earn points, the points can be exchanged for attractive physical goods.

There is a common and easy-to-understand formula: Action = Momentum – Resistance. In addition to the above three incentives to continuously increase motivation, we can also reduce resistance to action and make action smoother and longer-lasting.

Not only are you lazy if you don’t want to go to the gym, but it’s also expensive to get a card? By providing free gym benefits to employees, employees’ exercise frequency increases, their living conditions improve, and their work efficiency improves.

Energy conservation and emission reduction are always slogans, but household energy consumption remains high? Energy bills and energy saving and emission reduction tips are regularly provided to every household, making it easier for ordinary people to participate.

Is it too cumbersome to confirm your address and credit card account number when ordering online? Decades ago, the father of Amazon e-commerce innovated the "one-click input" of last information. Customers only need one operation to make subsequent shopping smoothly. This method is also widely used in up-and-coming e-commerce platforms.

Negotiation is an important form of interpersonal communication, and psychological tactics play an important role in the negotiation process. Incentives are a means of motivating the other party to actively participate in negotiations. By giving the other party certain benefits and rewards, we encourage them to cooperate more actively with us.

Imagine that you are about to change your job in another city and urgently need to sell a house ($850,000) you own . During the negotiation process with buyers, how can you master motivational skills to achieve negotiation success rates and pricing goals?

Before and after a suitable buyer comes along, the first step in selling your home is to make an offer. That puts an anchor on the negotiating table: a price that’s high enough to surprise the buyer ($900,000), but reasonable enough to give the buyer a chance to make a counteroffer adjustment.

By extension, the same applies when negotiating with HR on salary: it should not be too low, which would appear to indicate a low sense of value; nor should it be too high, which would end the negotiation directly. It is best to base it on the market price, with a floating range.

A sufficiently high and optimistic first offer not only serves as an anchor for buyers, but also serves as a reference point for every subsequent offer and the final sale price. It’s the gift that keeps on giving, and everything that comes later in the negotiation will be compared and contrasted with your first offer. We call this automatic comparison the contrast effect.

To demonstrate this effect in action, let’s look at another example from the real estate world – renting a home.

This is a common technique: After hearing the renters' needs and budget, the housing agent will first show them houses with poor conditions within the budget, which the renters are very dissatisfied with; then they will show them houses with good conditions that are far beyond the budget. The renter likes the house, but the price is not suitable; in the end, he will show him a house that is a little over the budget, but the conditions are in the middle. At this time, the renter often agrees to increase the budget, accepts the house and signs the contract.

Why didn’t the agent show the third type of house at the beginning? In fact, the main reason is the contrasting effect of price and conditions. In contrast, the third type of house has become the best choice in a relative sense, regardless of whether it is the best choice in an absolute sense.