In this blog post I am going to share one of the most useful tools I have come across for making change happen in your life. It’s a tool that features in our ‘Making Change Happen’ programme and one that I come back to time and time again.
Changing your behaviours
Changing your life usually involves changing your behaviours. To change your behaviours, whether it’s a big change or a small change, you need to have 3 elements in place*.
Capability
Opportunity
Motivation
Capability is about having the right physical skills and/or the right knowledge and information about how to perform the behaviour. For example, how to cook healthy meals, how to use the equipment at the gym, how to spend money within a budget.
Opportunity is about having the right resources to be able to change. For example, time, money and space. It is also about having the right social opportunity, usually having the right people around you to help you change. For example, supportive people and others who share similar goals.
Motivation is about being more highly motivated to do the behaviour at the relevant time than not to do the behaviour, or to engage in a competing behaviour. For example, to be more motivated to save money than to spend money.
I like to think of this as being a 3-legged stool (like one of those camping or fishing stools) and if any leg of the stool is weak then that is where you focus your action for change.
These 3 elements are all related. For example, if you are trying to change your life by exercising regularly and focus on increasing your opportunity to exercise by arranging to meet up with friends for a walk, you will probably find yourself feeling more motivated. Similarly, if you learn a new physical skill or gain new knowledge about how to exercise you will probably find yourself feeling more motivated to go to the gym.
I frequently come back to this tool when I find it difficult to do something, or change something and am always asking myself…
Do I need to focus on my capability, opportunity or motivation to get this done?
This is a really useful tool that you can add to your toolbox for life and come back to time and time again. I’ve used it to help my son focus on practising his bagpipes more and to help my daughter find a way through exam stress. Our clients have used it to reduce their energy costs, to change processes at work, to sort out their finances, health and diet.
Try out our free short quiz to find out which of these 3 elements you need to work on to make change happen in your life.
Best wishes
Behaviour Works aim is simple. To help make change happen in your personal, family or working life. Every week we help people across the world with their own change journey with our online training. Check us out at Behaviour Works.
Main photo by Ankush Minda on Unsplash
Stool image by Behaviour Works.
Mountain photo by Paola Chaaya on Unsplash
*Michie, S. et al (2011) The behaviour change wheel: A new method for characterising and designing behaviour change interventions. Implementation Science, 6:42. https://implementationscience.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1748-5908-6-42
