Habit Change Needs a Voice at the Cue, Not a Resolution in January
2 min read
You decide on Sunday to stop the evening snacking. On Monday at 9 p.m. the cue arrives: the kitchen, the quiet, the show. The decision from Sunday is not in the room. What is in the room is twenty years of 9 p.m. The habit wins, not because you are weak, but because the only voice present at the cue is the old one.
Habits are decided at the cue
Every habit has a trigger, a routine and a payoff. The trigger is where the decision is actually made, and it is made in a fraction of a second, mostly out of awareness. Resolutions live in the part of the day where you are rested and reflective, which is the part of the day the habit never visits. To change a habit you need something present at the cue that says what happens instead.
Worth reading on thisThe War of Art by Steven Pressfield — A short, blunt book about the force that stops you starting. Read it in an afternoon; feel it for years.Click hereto see it→
Install the new voice in advance
You cannot think your way through the cue in the moment. You can, however, arrive at the cue having heard, many times, exactly what you do there. “Sam, it is nine, you make the tea, you sit back down.” Heard enough times, on enough commutes and enough nights falling asleep, that sentence is now also in the room at 9 p.m. It does not overpower the old habit. It gives the fraction of a second a second option.
Specific to the cue, in your name
This is why generic habit audio fails: it talks about habits. A script that works talks about your kitchen at nine. It names the cue, names the replacement, names the recovery when you slip, and names you, so the whole thing is a description of your evening rather than a lecture about willpower.
Goes deeperCan’t Hurt Me by David Goggins — Not gentle, and not for everyone. But nobody explains earned confidence more honestly.Click hereto see it→
Give the script a season
A habit took years to install. Give the replacement a few months of daily listening. A chaptered program lets you vary the chapter so it does not go stale, and gives you a short chapter to play in the minutes before the cue on the hard days.
Not a treatment
For habits with a medical dimension, including anything involving substances, a physician comes first and WisdomDeck is not a substitute. Custom Audio is for ordinary habits: the snacking, the scrolling, the skipped workout, the late nights.
Ordering
WisdomDeck Custom Audio for habits starts with a brief about the cue, the routine, and what you want to do instead. You approve the full script before production, choose the voice from samples, and receive private chaptered MP3s that are yours. Quote by email; nothing charged until you agree. If the problem is less the cue and more the week, the accountability partner service handles the asking.
Two more books, and one tool
Launch list
Be there on day one.
One email when the book opens on Kickstarter. Nothing else. Already reading the book? Your Cheat Sheet is at wisdomdeck.com/free.
Coming soon on 
The book itself — 40 laws in ten parts, 320 pages, each ending with The Work — is funded first on Kickstarter.
