The 7-Step Behavior Change Process: all the things you don't do when you fail to change habits

Willpower gets all the credit, but it rarely does the heavy lifting.

Today I’m sharing the exact behavior change process I’ve used for years with clients to help them build habits that stick, whether the goal is better sleep, less stress, healthier nutrition, consistent fitness, or stronger communication.

If you’ve ever thought “I know what to do… so why don’t I do it?” this is your missing piece: a repeatable system that makes consistency easier.

I walk you through a practical seven-step, research-backed framework: ask why, name your top priorities, keep a time diary, start with incremental change, make it easy and then easier, schedule it in your calendar, and finally review, adjust, repeat. You’ll hear how to design your environment, reduce friction, and use small “impossible to fail” actions to build identity-level habits through repetition.

If you want a clear system for personal growth, habit formation, and sustainable behavior change, hit play.

Subscribe, share this with someone who’s stuck, and leave a review so more people can find the tools to keep learning, changing, and growing.

Transcript

Is Happiness Harder Than Math

Don Norman And Behavior At Scale

Why Process Beats Willpower

Step 1 Ask Your Why

Step 2 Set Real Priorities

Step 3 Track Your Time

Step 4 Go Incremental

Step 5 Make It Easier

Step 6 Put It On Calendar

Step 7 Review And Repeat

Recap And Share With Someone

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hey guys, and welcome back to another episode of Change Wired Podcast. My name is Angela Shorina. I'm your host. I'm your partner in change, personal and collective growth, transformation, your executive health, high performance, sleep stress management coach who is on a mission to unlock and use more of human potential to learn more about it, to share more about it, and by doing so creating the most beautiful life experience we can possibly have in today's world and create more positive impact in the world. So if you sign up for this mission, then please stay tuned and share, review the hack out of this podcast. Today, guys, you're gonna learn a much better process for behavior change. Behavior change is probably something I can be talking about forever. But the good news is research is non-stop, and we are learning as a science community, as a community in general, more and more about human psychology and how it works and what makes it tick, and what makes us do certain things and don't do other things. And uh so neuroscience research also gives it a more biological founding, so it works even better. And so don't expect Changewired Podcasts to uh in the near future run out of topics to talk about because human behavior is complex and we are far from knowing everything about it to know. No, it's not all about willpower and discipline and some sort of I don't know, divine power and intervention. A lot of it is about the process, and you're gonna learn a seven-step, tried, and proven and research-backed process how to change your behavior or help others change theirs. So if you struggle with certain behaviors, performing certain habits, not so much today about breaking habits or somebody you know struggles with their habits, then introduce them to the process, share with them this podcast episode. But now let's dig into today's podcast episode. I was talking to a friend on the ride to uh a gym this morning, and we were talking about how the kids these days don't need that much education, but what is more important to learn is, for example, things like how to be happy. And he said, I bet it is a lot more easier to teach somebody math than it is to teach somebody to be happy. And I kind of like stop and I don't know about that. Happiness, we actually have centers, research and science, centers for studying the uh well, the science of human flourishing and human happiness. And we have a lot of data on real humans as well, like what makes people happy? And so I actually wouldn't say that the process of becoming happy is more difficult than learning math, you know, especially if you taught if you think about complex mathematics. Like I remember that from my uh getting computer degree in applied computer science, well, degree in computer science. It's difficult, you know, happiness is easier. But what we agreed with, my friend, is on the fact that happiness compared to learning math requires a lot of behavior change, a lot of behavior change that we are not always ready for or comfortable with, and that would make it harder. Plus, it's something that you gotta do consistently. It's not like you learned how to do math and then you need to do math for the rest of your life. But with happiness, it's kind of like that, and that's what makes it difficult. Another point towards why learning the process of behavior change is so important or vital for us as humanity as well. Yesterday I interviewed Don Norman. He came out with a book Design for a Better World, which focuses predominantly on all of the major issues we have in our world today, specifically things like climate change or waste, and that we might come to a place quite soon where earth resources and the state of things are not able to support us, and we're gonna struggle a lot, right? Everybody knows about that. And and we actually have solutions. So we talked on the podcast with Don about, by the way, Dawn is in his 90s and still traveling the world, inspiring, working towards creating that better world. And he uh used to be vice president at Apple, and he's basically the grandfather of human-centered design and user experience, and he wrote this uh amazing best-selling book that still sells thousands of copies around the world, translated into 20 languages, the design of everyday things. So I had Don yesterday on my podcast, and I asked him, why would you write the book? But then also, like, what's the most challenging part? And just like in the book, he shared that we already have all the solutions. Like we know how to get better. And the reason why we don't is because human behavior is so difficult. What makes it difficult at scale is we have different opinions. Like the first step to changing things at scale is us humans actually agreeing on what better is, and because we haven't developed a process of like agreeing as a planet, as a world, society on certain things, we just argue and we, you know, one person thinks this is good, the other person thinks that is good, and then we have our selfish interests and like a lot of distortions of meaning. So human behavior is hard enough. We agreed on that, but even more so at scale. So it all comes down, like most of our human problems are comes down to the change of human behavior, the process. And again, the the first step is to understanding why it's important and what we need to do and agreeing on that, but then the process is equally important, you know, guys. Sometimes, yeah, you know that when somebody tells you the truth or feedback or some sort of gives you some sort of comment, the way it makes you feel will depend not so much on what's being said, because sometimes you can receive even the harshest feedback, but in a way that is kind, that is thoughtful, that is delivered in a way that makes you feel cared for, cared about. And that makes the whole like feedback that what's being said, and even if it's some harsh truth, it makes you feel better. You're like, yeah, I actually might need to look into that or work on that. Oh, yeah, that wasn't that great that I did. But the way it was said, it makes all the difference. And the the same, you know, for example, in nutrition world, you might be eating the same 2000 calories as I do. But if I eat it in cookies and you eat it in broccoli, potatoes, and uh salmon, it we're gonna have completely different experience. So the how the calories are delivered is even more important than than how many of those calories are delivered. We're gonna get completely different outcomes. So the process is, I'd argue, the most important thing in getting any outcome. It's not just the knowing. We know everything. Like most of us know how to get healthy, fit, happy, at least in theory, rich and get everything that we were ever want. But the hard part is actually doing the behaviors that are needed to be done to consistently to get and keep that result. And of course, part of the what makes it difficult is understanding what are the exact behaviors that are suitable in your life, in your situation, then agreeing to that, finding that right solution that is right for you. And then and then it's all about the process. And so now you're gonna learn all about the process, a seven-step process that I learned uh initially at Precision Nutrition, which uh where they talk mostly about health and lifestyle and fitness and nutrition and sleep and stress management, things like that. But also I applied it in my personal life and with hundreds of clients over the course of 18 years as a coach, right? So you're about to learn the same process that not only I confirmed with my experience and experience of many of my clients, but also precision nutrition itself has coached uh I don't know how many thousands of coaches they coach, and they also coached clients, probably over hundreds of thousands by now, because they've been around for I don't know, 20 years. So it's a lot of people. This process works and it's refined. Precision nutrition is also great because they keep learning, and every time I take a new certification from them, I learn a better way of doing things. So seven-step process that is if not foolproof and bulletproof, then your sure way to getting consistently better outcome with your behavior change. And as we learned at the beginning, the way to happiness or a better world for all of us is through behavior change. So, step number one, ask why. Ask why it's important. The behavior that you're trying to do, what does it mean in your life? What's gonna get better? What are you gonna get out of it? What's in it for you? That is the question that your brain is always asking, even though you're not always aware of that, but it always subconsciously happens. And it's important because in order for you to be consistent with any behavior, there has to be a clear reason why you engage in bad behavior. If there is no compelling reason that matters to you deeply, then the behavior is gonna fall off. If there is no understanding why you do things, there is no consistency. So that's why it's step number one. But only not only that, when you understand the purpose, the reason, that's what helps you to prioritize what things are important to do every day or very frequently, and what things you can do sometimes from time to time or drop after a certain period of time. For example, changing your lifestyle and nutrition for heart health and changing it to run a marathon or become a competitive athlete to completely different goals. And depending on the goal, you will prioritize more certain behaviors over others. That is just a simple example. But your why is a filter what needs to be done and also your source of internal or eternal motivation. So the first ask yourself why, like, why am I doing this? Why do I want to do this? The second step, name your top priorities. In life, you have limited capacity to do things, energy, time. And so you need to make sure that the time that you have actually is distributed among your priorities, not stuff that other people think should be your priorities or stuff that you don't care but you end up doing anyhow. Like at some point I realized, hey, Netflix does not contribute to any of my priorities. It's like, yeah, it's a little bit of entertainment, but you know what? I get a lot more joy from spending time with actual people. So maybe instead of spending hours over the course of weeks and definitely months and years on Netflix, I could bundle up that time and invest it into building relationships that will make me feel entertained, cared for, fun, and just feel happy, right? So what are your priorities? And then then, well, that that's gonna be the the next step, but priorities, figuring them out and writing them down, making them very clear, important again, because once you realize where you spend your time and you look at your priorities and you realize that there is a mismatch, that's your biggest leverage or your biggest resource to rearrange your energy and your time spending so you get to invest with every breath you take into your priorities that make your life better, not just a waste of time. Third step, third step, keep a time diary. And it is important for any kind of goal because at the end of the day, time will define everything else. Time is not expendable, not stretchable, not flexible. You get a certain amount of hours per day, and you need to invest them into your priorities, which you define in step two, in order to get what you want out of life, out of yourself, and to feel happy, fulfilled, and uh on a mission, just any good things you want to feel, it requires time investment. And that's why keeping a time diary, just like you would keep a food diary when you want to figure out where your nutrition goes wrong or right, what you need to improve, it is that accountability, account of your time that will help you to then find the time quite literally and other resources to make the necessary change. Because often this like the first line of excuses, I don't have time. You always have time for what's important. You make the time for what's important. You'll never get additional time, but you'll always can make the time for what's important, right? So that's why step number two is name your priorities. That's why step number one is understanding your why, the reason, your destination, like why you're doing this, right? And then your top priorities, and then keep a time diary to see where you currently spend your time, just like you would see where you currently spend your calories. And then number four is do incremental change. So, okay, now you know what your priorities are, what your why are or reason for doing things. Now you know where you spend your time, and you probably now you can see where you waste your time and where you can reinvest your time. And then uh step number four is with the desired behavior that you have, uh, you need to start incrementally small. Start that small that it feels impossible to fail. Let's say, one example, working out. If you are a very beginner, do not start with trying to do an hour working out every day. Start with 10 minutes at home workout and see how you can do it, how you can maintain it for a whole month. And if you can do that, then build on top of that. Even 10 minutes a day of good exercise will help you move forward. It will start helping you to change your identity, to make your you know, body feel and do better and get used to this idea of moving in certain ways, certain exercises, postures. But even more so, repetition and consistency is required to build a habit. And if you want to keep doing something long term, you need to form a habit. That's why if you do, let's say, one hour of workout, but it happens only once per week, it's very hard and long to actually build a consistent habit. Whereas if you do it every day for 10 minutes, something at the same time, it is it's it is a lot easier and a lot faster to build a habit just because you're gonna put in more reps a lot more faster. And habit, as you know, forms through repetition, through more reps. And so when you do something consistently every day, it builds that repetition, that consistency, that automaticity a lot faster than if you do it every like every week or maybe even once a month, right? It's almost impossible to build any habit if you do something that infrequently. So uh that is step number four build-in increments, not in big chunks. And that actually also what we talked about with Don Norman on our podcast. We talked about how big change in the world by you know politicians, by governments, is often approached through this like big big chunk mentality. And we know a lot about human psychology and human behavior change, and we know that it is very hard to make a big change, especially at scale. And so it actually works better, not just for uh us, for you and me, for change one-on-one, but also change on a global scale is small incremental steps through which you can also learn and adjust, and you build those reps, you build those habits on a global level, and it's a lot more flexible, and you learn a lot more, and it's it's you then also get some success, some confirmation that you're doing the right thing, that the thing is working, and you get more motivation and you build more skill and you can take on more, and it can be consistent, right? So it's like a whole beautiful dynamic when we approach things in an incremental manner. So consistency over intensity. That's step number four. Do it in the increments, not big chunks. Then step number five, make it easy, make it simple, and then make it easier, right? So stop hunting for the best diet or perfect routine and ask instead, like what could I start with that's impossible to fail? And then ask, how do I make that even that even more convenient and even easier? Because uh again, each step, if you noticed, in this process builds on the previous steps, right? So now you are doing it in increments, but then how can you make it easier? How can you make it bulletproof, foolproof? So no matter what situation, no matter what comes up in your life, you can still do it. That's why, you know, also with workouts and nutrition or or sleep or stress management, I always recommend like start small. What is one tiny small thing that you can do right now that what is that one small thing that you can do consistently without fail and start there because again, it will help you to be consistent, and that will help you to build habit and automaticity, and that will help you to build skill and motivation, and that will help you to approach larger and larger change and do bigger and bigger things. At some point, you're gonna stop and you're like, that's enough. But in order to build that consistency and automaticity, you need to start small and then make it even easier and simpler. If you want to eat healthier, for example, prepare all the healthy foods so it's so easy and reachable, and having healthy snacks everywhere you go, and have it as easy, and you would usually have the snacks that you want to eat less of, right? Make the things that you wanna do super easy and simple. Scripting things, putting them in your calendar, preparing your sports shoes in advance, uh, having some social accountability, of making it impossible to fail. So that is step number five. Step number six, schedule meal prep and fitness and your practice to become better at giving feedback or crucial conversations or your specific like skill work-wise, whatever it is you're working on, schedule it, put it in your calendar. A client of mine, when I shared this uh step, he's like, You mean like a meeting? I put it in my calendar. He almost laughed. And I'm like, Yeah, like a meeting. Because if you plan to do it, why wouldn't you put it in your calendar? So your eyes, your brain see it, and you see it. I would even put reminders on your computer screen, on your fridge, on your door, wherever you can, so your brain has no chance to forget. Because there will be a ton of things that will come up and you will want to schedule other things, meetings, uh, time with family, with your kids, uh, time to do more work, time to study. And for example, if you're working on your fitness and your health, meal prep, you know, you you almost need to do that if you want to make it consistent. And like when it requires time. So if you don't schedule it, when are you gonna get that time? It's not gonna appear all of a sudden out of nowhere. You'll always find what to do with your time. So calendar it to show your brain, your eyes, like your whole self that we are spending time on that, and it is, and it happens at that time on that day, and this is exactly what we're gonna do. So schedule it, schedule whatever you need to do. Like, if I need today, I have an exam, if I need to prepare for an hour. That exam. So I scheduled the exam time and I scheduled an hour before to prepare for that exam. Because if I don't schedule it, when is it gonna happen? Like I don't know, so probably never. So schedule it. This is step number six. Step number seven, review, adjust, repeat. Everything you start is built on a bunch of assumptions, especially if that's a thing you never really did succeed with. You have a lot of assumptions about how you're gonna do things, what's gonna work, what's not gonna work, how easy it's gonna be in your life right now. So it's a bunch of assumptions. And doing the thing will start revealing those assumptions and will teach you where your skills match the task and where they don't match, and you have to work on those skills. It's not a process of failing, it's a process of learning, of finding what actually works for you versus what you thought would work for you, even though it never worked for you before that way, and you have no idea how it's gonna work. So, step number seven is just reviewing, adjusting, repeating, being prepared for this process of iteration. If you already knew exactly how to do things, you'd probably already be doing them. If you already had all the skills, all the knowledge and capability in your life, you'd be doing them already. There is a reason why you don't. And maybe it's for all the six reasons that we talked about before in the process, or just not understanding that most of the things you want to do and you don't do them currently, the process is built on a bunch of assumptions that you need to work through before you can actually execute as you envision it. So to recap, but before we recap, A, the process is even more important than the goal, because the goal is just you know a vision, a milestone, how you do it. That's where all the wisdom and all the work and all the learnings and all the you know unknowns, unknowns. So the process is more important to get happy or to change the world, or to have a good conversation, good, important, crucial conversation with a co-worker or a loved one. So the process. The second thing, don't forget to share this podcast with somebody who needs it, who struggles with getting certain consistency in their behaviors, whether that's again their mental, emotional life, their stress regulation, their sleep, maybe weight loss or fitness or nutrition, whatever that is. Share this podcast with them. Help them understand that if they use the wrong process, what I call the dummy process, then they're just more likely to fail. Do they want to fail or do they want to learn how to do it better? And then the process. So step number one, ask yourself why. It will help you to get that motivation when you know what's in it for you, but also will help you prioritize better. Number two, name your top priorities because if you don't name them, your brain will, and you'll be wondering, why am I doing the wrong thing? So name your top priorities, write them down. Step number three, keep a time diary, just like with food diary. Before you want to change something, you want to understand where you are. So time diary will help you get a hand of a handle on your most needed resource for any kind of change, your time, right? So keep a food, keep a time diary. Number four, increase in increments, work on things in small chunks, not in big leaps, which are not sustainable, and they don't allow you to form the habit, which is needed to create consistency. Step number five, make it easy, and they then make it easier, so then you can build that consistency. So then you can build the habit, and so then you can actually change your behavior long term. Step number six, schedule things. If they're not on your schedule, where are they? You need time for most of behavior change, as far as I'm concerned. Whatever that is, it has to be in your calendar. And then step number seven, review, adjust, repeat. The process of change is the process of learning. And if you're not prepared to fail, you're not prepared for change. That's it for today, guys. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for spending your time and attention with me. And then, right after you stop listening to this podcast, just close your eyes for a moment, take a pause, and try to recall all of those seven steps that will help you to learn a lot faster and remember those when you need them the most, when you're about to change your behavior, right? So close your eyes, recall the seven steps, and then see how many you remember, or relisten this uh last beat to recap and and and learn better. And that's it. Till next time, keep learning, keep changing, and keep growing.