Make behavior satisfying or unsatisfying
We tend to repeat behaviors that are immediately satisfying and avoid behaviors that are not.
Why is it so hard to resist junk food, even when we’re trying to eat healthier?
Why do we lose motivation with good habits that take time to show results?
How can we resist the pull of immediate rewards and make better long-term choices?
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Increase your chances of successfully building a new habit by making the behavior immediately satisfying, and of dismantling an existing habit by making it less satisfying in the moment.
Immediate rewards are influential because they satisfy cravings and provide an immediate payoff. Some common examples of rewards include a sense of accomplishment, such as feeling proud after completing a task, or the pleasure of relaxing after a workout. Other rewards could be treating yourself to something you enjoy, like a favorite snack, watching an episode of your favorite show, or taking a break to do something you love. We tend to repeat behaviors that give us immediate satisfaction, like eating junk food, watching TV shows or movies, scrolling through social media, playing video games, taking a hot shower, smoking, or listening to music. On the other hand, we often avoid behaviors that don’t provide instant rewards, like studying, learning a new skill, saving money, exercising regularly, eating healthy, or practicing mindfulness.
Evolutionary perspective
From an evolutionary perspective, our brains have a natural tendency to seek immediate rewards. Our ancestors, from non-human relatives to hunter-gatherers, lived in immediate-return environments where their actions had immediate and clear results. To survive, they needed to focus on the present or near future to find food, water, and shelter while avoiding predators. The distant future mattered less to them. Today, however, we live in a delayed-return environment where many of our actions don’t pay off right away; sometimes, it can take years to see the rewards. Our brains haven’t evolved to handle these delayed outcomes. They have evolved to seek immediate pleasure and avoid pain, driving us to pursue rewarding behaviors while steering clear of those that cause discomfort.
Present bias
We tend to value the present more than the future. While this bias is useful most of the time, it can lead to problems. Bad habits are behaviors we repeat that harm us in the long run. We continue these harmful actions because they give us immediate rewards, while the negative consequences aren't apparent right away. Their benefits are felt in the present, while their potential costs come later. For example, smoking cigarettes has many harmful physical effects over time, but it provides immediate rewards, like a feeling of relaxation. Similarly, regularly drinking sugary beverages can lead to obesity and chronic diseases like diabetes, but the immediate enjoyment stimulates our brain's reward system, making us feel good.
Many good habits don’t provide immediate rewards but only benefit us in the long term, making them challenging to build and maintain. The costs—such as enduring discomfort and facing psychological pain—are felt in the present, while the potential rewards are in the future. Healthy eating often requires resisting cravings and dealing with the effort of meal prep, but it leads to better health and vitality over time. Investing time in learning new skills can be frustrating and time-consuming, but it enhances personal and professional development in the long run. Working toward distant goals can demand patience and persistence, but it gives life a sense of purpose and direction.
Peak-end rule
The peak-end rule is a mental shortcut that affects how we remember experiences. Instead of remembering the entire experience, we focus mostly on the emotionally most intense part (the peak) and how it ended. For example, if you have a tough workout but it ends with a satisfying cool-down or a sense of accomplishment, you're likely to remember it as a positive experience. This rule explains why making the end of a task enjoyable or rewarding is important—it shapes how we feel about repeating that behavior in the future. By finishing on a high note, the whole experience feels more satisfying.
Intrinsic versus extrinsic rewards
Intrinsic rewards are the internal satisfactions we get from doing something, such as the joy of learning something new, the pride from completing a challenging task, or the relaxation that comes from reading a good book. Extrinsic rewards, on the other hand, are external incentives, such as money, praise from others, or trophies. These rewards can effectively encourage behavior change at first, like offering a bonus for reaching sales targets. However, for lasting change, intrinsic rewards are crucial. When people find personal meaning or enjoyment in an activity, they are more likely to stick with it over time. This internal motivation helps build sustainable habits that align with their personal values and interests.
While extrinsic rewards can motivate behavior in the short term, they can sometimes undermine intrinsic motivation. This is known as the “overjustification effect.” It happens when people start to think their actions are driven more by external rewards than by their own desires. For example, if a child who enjoys drawing often gets stickers for their artwork, they might begin to draw only for the stickers instead of for the joy of creating. As a result, the child may lose the intrinsic joy of drawing and might stop enjoying the activity if the stickers are taken away. So, it’s important to use extrinsic rewards carefully and in ways that support, rather than replace, intrinsic motivation. Finding a balance between both types of rewards can help keep the joy and engagement that lead to lasting behavior change.
Most rewards are both intrinsic and extrinsic, meaning they provide both internal satisfaction and external recognition. For example, when someone completes a workout, they might feel a sense of accomplishment and improved mood (intrinsic rewards) while also enjoying compliments from friends or earning a fitness badge on a mobile app (extrinsic rewards). Similarly, a student who studies hard for an exam may feel pride in their knowledge and confidence (intrinsic) while also receiving a good grade or praise from their teacher (extrinsic). This combination of rewards can enhance motivation and encourage continued effort.
Make behavior satisfying or unsatisfying
The most effective way to promote behaviors that benefit us in the long run is to attach an immediate reward to those behaviors, making them more satisfying. Conversely, the best way to dismantle habits that are harmful in the long run is to introduce an immediate consequence that makes those behaviors unsatisfying. In this way, we use the principle of immediate gratification to our advantage instead of letting it work against us.
⚒️ Use positive reinforcement
Positive reinforcement means making a behavior more satisfying by rewarding it right after the action. This connects your action to an immediate reward, so you’re more likely to do it again. For example, you might take a bubble bath, have a small piece of chocolate, or take a 10-minute break to do something fun.
Reinforcement can help you quit behaviors you want to stop, like smoking, drinking too much, or spending too much time on social media. Resisting temptation often feels unrewarding. You can make it satisfying by giving yourself a reward right after you avoid doing something. For example, if you want to smoke a cigarette but don’t, you could transfer one euro to a special savings account. This way, resisting temptation becomes something to feel good about.
It’s important to pick rewards that fit with your life purpose , personal values and the type of person you want to be, while also bringing you genuine enjoyment. For example, rewarding yourself with unhealthy snacks or sweets can go against your value of living a healthy life. Similarly, using shopping as a reward can clash with your value of wanting to be financially secure.
In the end, the benefits you feel inside—like feeling better, reducing stress, and having more energy—will make external rewards unnecessary. When a habit becomes part of who you are, you do it simply because it’s part of your identity.
⚒️ Use variable rewards to make habits stick
To build a new habit, you can harness the power of variable rewards—those unexpected 'wins' that keep people coming back, like in gambling. For example, when you check your phone, you might find an interesting message or notification, but often there’s nothing new. It’s this mix of occasional rewards and the unpredictability of what you’ll find that makes you want to check your phone again and again.
When you sometimes reward yourself for completing the habit, rather than every single time, it can make the habit feel more exciting and enjoyable. For example, if you're trying to build a habit of going to the gym, give yourself a reward, like a small treat or time to relax with your favorite show, but only on random days. Some people even use chance, like tossing a coin or throwing dice, to decide if they get a reward, making the process feel more like a fun game. This unpredictability and uncertainty keep your brain interested, because you start to associate the habit with the possibility of a reward, even if it doesn’t happen every time. Over time, the habit itself starts to feel more rewarding, as you look forward to those surprise bonuses, and this keeps you motivated to stick with it.
Our attraction to uncertain rewards may have evolved from early human survival and reproductive needs. In unpredictable environments where resources like food, shelter, and even social connections were often scarce, our brains learned to respond to a mix of wins and non-wins with excitement and motivation. This kept people exploring, trying, and looking for bonds, even when rewards weren’t certain, which improved their chances of survival and reproduction. That’s why activities like fishing, gambling, playing games, and checking mobile phones are popular: they rely on unpredictable rewards.
⚒️ Track your habits
Boost your chances of successfully building a habit by using a habit tracker to make your progress visible. Tracking helps by not only showing your progress—which is satisfying and makes the habit more rewarding—but also by bringing more attention to the habit itself. By giving it regular attention and experiencing the rewards, tracking reinforces the behavior and increases the chance of success. People who track their progress on habits, like losing weight, tend to make more progress than those who don’t.
A habit tracker is an easy way to show whether you've done a habit. For example, you can mark each day you do the habit on a calendar or move marbles from one bowl to another. Tracking your habits makes the behavior obvious: seeing your progress gives you a reminder to do it again. It also makes the behavior attractive: every small win you track makes you want to do it more. And it makes the behavior satisfying: it's rewarding to record your wins and watch your progress grow.
Tracking habits helps you focus on the process instead of just the end result. It motivates you to keep showing up so you don't break your winning streak. Plus, it gives you visual proof that you're acting like the kind of person you want to be. Tracking habits takes some effort, so only track your most important ones. Make sure to record it right after you do the habit. Always remember that the purpose of tracking is to help you build the habit and become the kind of person you want to be. If tracking starts to get in the way of that goal, it's no longer helpful, and you might need to find another way to make the behavior satisfying.
⚒️ Create a habit contract
Habits that are bad for us often make us feel good right away. We can make these bad habits less appealing by adding some immediate discomfort after doing them. On the other hand, good habits usually don’t give us instant rewards. To make skipping good habits feel bad, we can add some immediate discomfort when we don’t follow through.
To build or break habits, the discomfort needs to be immediate. If the discomfort isn’t felt right away, it might affect your actions in the short term, but it’s not effective for creating or changing habits in the long run. For lasting change, it’s important to experience the consequences of your actions as soon as possible.
An effective way to add negative consequences to a behavior is by creating a habit contract. A habit contract is an agreement between you and one or two people who help keep you accountable. In this contract, you promise to stick to a specific behavior and outline an immediate penalty for not following through. For example, you might make a contract with your gym buddy or personal trainer to work out for 30 minutes every day. If you miss a workout, you immediately have to donate 10 euros to a charity you don't like. Another example is making a contract with your financial advisor or a trusted family member to save 10% of your monthly income. If you don’t save this amount in any given month, you have to cook dinner for your family for a week.
The more you have at stake, the more likely you are to stick to your commitment. However, if the punishment is too harsh, it can backfire. Instead of motivating you, it might create stress or make the stakes feel too high, causing you to avoid it completely. The goal is to find a balance where the consequences are tough enough to encourage you but not so extreme that they discourage you from even trying.
⚒️ Get an accountability partner
An accountability partner is someone who helps you stay on track with your commitments. You share your goal of sticking to or dismantling a habit with your accountability partner. They check in with you regularly to talk about your progress, remind you of deadlines and goals, and offer encouragement.
Getting someone else involved in your goals makes you more committed to reaching them because you’ll feel a strong emotional impact if you don’t. As a social being, you care about what others think of you, especially if you know them well. You don’t want to let others down. When you’re around people, you try to make your actions match what you say. If you don’t, others might think less of you, and you may feel guilty or ashamed, which can lead to a sense of personal failure.
⚒️ Gamify your behavior
Gamification can make behaviors more enjoyable by turning them into fun activities. It uses game elements like points, variable rewards, and friendly competition to make tasks more interesting. For example, fitness apps like Strava and Nike Run Club use leaderboards and challenges to encourage people to run more by adding a bit of competition, with immediate rewards like badges or rankings as soon as a run is finished. Apps like Habitica let users gamify their daily habits by earning points, leveling up, and receiving rewards for completing tasks.
However, this only works when people choose to engage voluntarily—if it feels forced, the fun and motivation are lost. Additionally, people need to have a goal they genuinely want to achieve for gamification to be effective. When people willingly take part and have a personal goal in mind, they’re more likely to enjoy the process and stick with the behavior.
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Making a behavior satisfying or unsatisfying is a powerful way to create or dismantle habits. This idea comes from the fourth step of James Clear’s four-step habit model: cue, craving, response, and reward. Always remember your ultimate goal: becoming the kind of person you want to be.
References
Atomic Habits, by James Clear
How to Change, by Katy Milkman
Good Habits, Bad Habits, by Wendy Wood
Poor Charlie’s Almanack, Charles T. Munger
