The Habit Mechanic - Unlock your Human-AI Edge

The Habit Mechanic Games make it easier to get an EXTRA 3 hours of Peak Cognitive Performance DAILY 🧠✨

• Dr. Jon Finn

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The Habit Mechanic Games (Part 2) - how the Games make it easier to change your destructive behaviour.

Anyone can easily join by downloading the app and enjoying a 14-day free trial HERE.

Dr. Finn reveals how spending just five minutes each morning and evening on focused activities can shift your brain state, allowing you to earn points, climb leaderboards, and enhance your overall living quality. With the Games set to run from December 1st to 19th, you stand a chance to win substantial prizes, including personal coaching sessions.

Curious about how to get started? Find out more here.

Whether you're an existing member or entirely new to the platform, the Habit Mechanic University Games offer a welcoming entry point. Dr. Jon Finn explains how anyone can easily join by downloading the app and enjoying a 14-day free trial. It's a perfect opportunity for those who have signed up but haven't yet engaged or for newcomers ready to embark on a transformative journey. 

The Games are designed to be flexible and accessible, making it simple to enhance both individual habits and team dynamics. Tune in to uncover practical strategies for leading a balanced and fulfilling lifestyle, regardless of life's challenges.

In this episode, we discover how these Games activate the Nine Action Factor model, a dynamic brain-based system designed to transform your mindset, motivation, and skills – just like learning to drive. This structured journey reveals how understanding Brain States and crafting your own willpower story can lead to unlocking peak performance and productivity each day.

In a world where traditional mental health support often falls short, the Habit Mechanic offers a groundbreaking solution. By requiring only a few minutes of daily commitment, these games provide tasks that foster reflection, motivation, and habit formation through a supportive community. With insights into reward systems, triggers, and the right brain states for learning, Dr. Jon Finn highlights the app's unique ability to simplify behaviour change. Tune in to discover how role models, ongoing training, and a rewarding system can pave the way for personal development and sustained high-level performance.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the second special podcast about the Habit Mechanic University games. I'm joined by Dr John Finn to talk more about the games and how they're going to help us and help us be our best more often. You might have heard the previous podcast, which gives the overview of the games. If you haven't go back and listen to that, just a reminder that you can take part in the games if you are a member of the Habit Mechanic University app. If you've already signed up but haven't used the app yet, well, this is a great place to start. And if you're not yet a user of habits mechanic university, you can download it from your app store and there's a 14-day trial so you can get involved in the games and you can find out more at tougher mindscouk. John, thanks for joining us once again. Um, how do these habit mechanic games then make it easier for people to change the their behavior and and achieve these extra hours of peak cognitive performance every day that you talk about?

Speaker 2:

yeah. So there are a couple of key ingredients here. The first one is understanding your brain states, and some people may have seen, actually on the home page of the tougher minds website, we've added a new assessment recently which is called the peak cognitive performance assessment, and that essentially gives you a brain state score. So we want to first of all, help people to understand where their brain state is at, and then we want to help them to get a better balance of how they use their brain states in every 24 hour period. That is how they use their recharge, their medium charge, their high charge. Now the vehicle for doing that, the, the backbone vehicle, is the willpower story, and we're going to do a pod completely dedicated to talking about the willpower story.

Speaker 2:

But it's one thing to know how to use a willpower story or even to do a daily tea plan or a three-to-one reflection.

Speaker 2:

It's another thing doing it habitually. So, as always at Tougher Minds, with the Habit Mechanics System, we go okay. Well, what does the science tell us about why people do what they do? And we've, over the past well, nearly 25 years now, we've created our own nine action for the nine action factor model, which is the world's only integrated brain-based behavior change system that has nine components that explain why we do what we do. So what we're doing with the games, and in a way that I don't think we've been able to do this before is, I think we're able to activate those nine factors better than ever before by bringing in the games component and the sort of the points and the prizes and the social support that that brings um. So if we want to help people to build the habits that allow them to access those additional peak cognitive performance hours, it's about using the willpower story more consistently, but getting the nine action factors activated around you in the right way, and I'm sure you're going to ask me how to what well, yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

I know you've talked about them many times before and people may be familiar with them, but just give us a brief overview of these nine action factors which, as you say, the habit mechanic games which are launching make it easier for people to put these nine action factors which, as you say, the habit mechanic games which are launching make it easier for people to put these into action and engage in all the amazing tools in the app. What are these nine action factors?

Speaker 2:

yeah. Well, the example I like to give here is learning to drive. So if you think of learning to drive is the new habits that you, that you want to learn, because you know driving is largely a habit like most things then the nine factors if you've learned how to drive already or you want to learn in the future, the nine factors are central for that um. So I'll explain that first and I'll give a quick um habit mechanic, games Games version of that. So the first factor if you want to learn how to drive is you need the right mindset. So we talk about the Habit Mechanic mindset. You need to believe that you can learn. Some people think that there's no way I'm going to be able to learn how to drive. I won't be able to do it. If you learn how to drive, you will believe that you can. Otherwise you're not going to go there and that's why confidence is so important, and people might be familiar with Carol Dweck's work. That's what that's speaking to. The second factor in the non-action factor is the tiny factor. So when you learn how to drive in your first lesson you typically don't even go anywhere. You just work out where things are in the vehicle and you accept and understand that this is going to be a journey that you're going to start one day and maybe pass your test in six months' time, even 12 months' time, when we're thinking about losing weight or getting better at sleep. If we can't do it within the first week or so, I'll never be able to do it. So we know the rule. We have to break things down into small chunks, so I'll come back to the app piece in a second.

Speaker 2:

The next factor is what we call. So we've got the mindset factor, the tiny change factor. The next factor is what we call so we've got the mindset factor, the tiny change factor. The next factor is what we call personal motivation. So, if you've learned to drive, there was a bigger reason why I wanted to be the first person in my peer group to do it. I needed to get to work, I had to get the kids to school, whatever it is, there was a bigger reason why you did it. So if we can connect the new habits we want to build today with bigger meaningful reasons, that's going to be helpful. Hence why we have tools like the FamStore. The next one is what we call knowledge and skills, so you may have all the motivation in the world to want to learn how to drive, but ultimately, to do it, you're going to have to get some new knowledge and skills, and that's why you have driving lessons. The next factor is what we call community knowledge and skills. So it's really helpful if you're learning to drive, if your parents know how to do it, because they can take you for a free driving lesson at the weekend, something like that, give you tips, share their experience with you.

Speaker 2:

The next factor so recap so far we've got mindset, tiny personal, motivational, personal knowledge and skills, community knowledge and skills. Then we've got social influence. So we know that we model and copy what people around us do because of how our brains are wired and they're really interested in social status. So role models, in simple terms, are going to be really important in influencing what we get good at doing. So if you're learning to drive and your father doesn't believe the speeding limit is a the speed limit is a valid idea that's not going to be a great role model for you. If your mum doesn't believe in car insurance, that won't be a great role model for you. So we've got to take that into consideration as a change factor.

Speaker 2:

The next factor is what we call reward and penalty systems. So when you're when you're driving, you are being rewarded and penalized all the time. You have some social reward and penalty systems going on, but you have lots of very tangible ones, like, if you don't get your driving up to a certain standard, you won't pass your test, and if you're past your test and you drive poorly, you're going to get points on your license. You're going to get monetary fines, your car insurance will go up. Eventually you'll lose your license. So when we're again looking to adopt any new behavior, we have to take those reward and penalty systems into consideration.

Speaker 2:

The next factor is triggers, reminders, um. So when you're driving, you are being reminded what to do all the time. So you know, some of this stuff is so subconscious you don't even think about it. But when you're in the car now, in a modern car, if you don't put your seatbelt on, there's a ping, ping, ping. There's a speedometer in front of you telling you how quickly you're going. There literally is a line in the middle of the road to remind you which side to drive on. There are traffic light signals, speed cameras, police cars all designed to keep your behaviour on track.

Speaker 2:

And then the final factor is what we call brain states, which I've talked about. And if we think about in this context, we need to be in the right brain state to learn how to drive. So if you're trying to learn to drive but you're sleep deprived, it's not going to go very well for you and it's going to take you a lot longer to learn than if you're learning to drive when your brain is functioning really well, when you're in high child brain states. So we've got the mindset factor, the tiny factor, the personal motivation factor, knowledge and skills factor, personal knowledge and skills, community knowledge and skills, social influence, reward and penalty systems, triggers and brain. And I know what some people are thinking. They're thinking oh, I thought it was just about role models, or I thought it was just about timing, or I just thought it was about mindset.

Speaker 2:

No, this is the problem with academia. It segments all these things and presents all of those as potentially the only solution. It is far more complex than that. That is why in the UK right now we're spending over 300 billion a year dealing with mental health problems challenges. Yet everyone who's got a mental health challenge can get access to very robust and sophisticated support. Trouble is the support they're getting access to doesn't work because it's based on outdated black box thinking.

Speaker 2:

Some of it's thinking about the neuroscience, but pretty much none of it is thinking about the behavioral science. What do we actually need to get people to do to change or surround them with to help them to change? And none of it is thinking about the behavioral science. Like I've just mapped it out there, what we're doing inside the Habit Mechanic, inside the habit mechanic games, is we are able to activate all of those factors and instead of thinking about learning to drive, swap that out with doing a willpower story every day. So what we're able to do is is activate the nine action factors around doing the willpower story every day. So I may have blown people's brains there, sorry, without those nine things, but that's what we're doing well, I was going to.

Speaker 2:

That's why it took nearly 25 years to refine this stuff absolutely, john.

Speaker 1:

No, I was going to say you're right that people might um have thought there was one panacea, one cure-all for them and you've kindly showed us the alternative. But I suppose another thing people might say is well, how do I get all these nine factors to combine? But the good news is the app itself will do that. And then taking part in this Habit Mechanic Games that we are launching on the 1st of December makes it even easier to get involved with the app. Use all the powerful tools and change your behavior yeah, exactly so.

Speaker 2:

You know, if people sign up for the games and they start to engage in the habit mechanic literature, read the book they're typically habit mechanic minded. They want to do better. So we've already ticked that box in terms of tiny, by saying that you're only going to have to go in the app for a minimum of 10 minutes per day just to post a t-plan. I said my t-plan today is to do a willpower story, whatever it is, do an end of day reflection. So, in making it small things that you need to do, it isn't monitor every single habit that I'm doing every for every minute of every day, because that's not it's too difficult to do. Um, in terms of personal motivation, we have the fam story on a in our onboarding course. When you're going to the app, we're going to get you to start drafting your fam story. In terms of knowledge and skills, we're going to show you the core knowledge and skills which are creating things like the willpower story in the onboarding course. But you're going to quickly learn how to create a T-plan if you don't know how to do that already. How to create an end-of-day reflection, how to create your FAM story. So we've got you covered there. Community knowledge and skills. You're going to be in a community full of people that already know how to do this stuff really well. The experts are there. They're going to support you. We have live training sessions every single week. Um, role models, social influence again, you're going to be surrounded by people that are doing this same thing.

Speaker 2:

Reward and penalty systems. There are social rewards people get rewarded by helping other people, so there's a massive opportunity to do that. Lots of people are interested in becoming coaches, so this is a great way to sharpen your coaching skills, for example, to take the first step in that career path. But we've now got these really fantastic points and price system that just give people another incentive to. You know, keep going. Um, we're intrinsically interested in, you know, variable reward systems. That's bf skinner's work. So if we're able to put some of this into it in a really healthy, helpful way not in a way that's going to addict you to something, the trigger is going into the app. So the idea that if you go in every day, you're going to get more points, you're going to go up the leaderboard triggering and also the tools that you're going to learn how to use like having that willpower story printed off, et cetera, so you can just be filling it in or using a physical trigger around you. There's loads of social triggers as well that the app will activate.

Speaker 2:

And then the brain state piece. Well, that's what we're working on. That's the centrality of becoming a habit mechanic. It's improving your brain state score. That's going to be the central thing that we want you to focus on. It's improving your brain state so you can measure at the start of the challenge, you can measure it ongoing as you go through the challenge and you're going to see at the end. If you do what we recommend, you do, you will improve. You can't not improve. You will improve. Um, we, we can say that with confidence because we've just done this so many times. We know this formula works. It's just about doing it. So, yeah, so that's why the app is.

Speaker 1:

The games are so exciting, um, because they allow us to activate more of those factors yeah, it sounds um a very enticing prospect and people can get involved in the habit mechanic university games. They start on the 1st of december, but you can join after that date. Don't worry if you miss the start date. If you're already a member of Habit Mechanic University, well, take part in the games. You'll see it in the community. You'll see it taking shape and unfolding there. Get involved. If you've signed up to the Habit Mechanic University app but you haven't perhaps used it yet, well, the games are the perfect place to start. If you're not yet a user, don't worry, you can still get involved in the habit mechanic games. Download the habit mechanic university app from your app store and there's a 14-day free trial so you can take part in the games and john, everyone can find out more on the tougher minds website yeah, just go to the tougher minds website.

Speaker 2:

This is not just an individual thing either. If you're in a team, a group, do it together, because then you're going to have that broader community support. I think the fact it's free is why not give it a go if you've got any sense that this might be helpful? It's interesting. I was just speaking to. I'm not going to say their name or who they are, but they're a very well-recognized brand that a lot of people are probably using now as they consume this podcast. They're using their technologies or hardware, and I mentioned this to them and they were like oh, we want to know more about that. We're looking for something just like that.

Speaker 2:

So this is not going to be. If we want to be healthy and happy in the world we live in, doing this type of stuff is not. It's not optional. We need to do it and um, I don't believe there's a system like this that's out there. So just give it a go, give it a try, nothing to lose, um. Start with the 14 day free trial and then we'll see you in the app well, john.

Speaker 1:

Thanks very much for your time. In the next one of these podcasts about the habit mechanic university games, we're going to talk more about getting extra hours of peak cognitive performance, so look out for that one coming very, very soon. Thanks for listening. We're going to put a link in the description with all the information about the habit mechanic university games, so look out for that. Thanks for listening and bye for now.