Strengthening Commitments and Reducing Intent Action Gap with Anurag Vaish [#TBS Eps 24]
Do you often commit to learn a new skill but never start learning?
Do you often decide to go on a run but rarely run?
Do you often aspire to find better career opportunities but do nothing more than consuming a few inspirational videos?
I often do. In fact, all of us do. It’s a problem called the “Intent-Action” Gap.
On this episode, I have Anurag Vaish, Co-founder of India’s leading Behavioural Science firm, Finalmile Consulting, to help us understand the reasons for Intent Action gap – The huge gap between what we commit/Intend to do and what we really do. Anurag is firm believer of Behavioral Design and at Finalmile, he has led various projects across domains such as Financial Services, Health Care, Education with the goal of designing system to achieve compliance and Adherence. On this Episode you will learn 3 major reasons for Intent – Action gap, how to strengthen your commitments and the limitations of “Inspiration” in driving action.
Important Questions from the Episode
1. Does reading Behavioral Science books such as Nudge, Thinking fast and slow etc. help people change their Behaviors (04:50)
2. What are the major reasons for Intent Action Gap? (07:40)
3. Is it practical to recreate the decision making context (13:25)
4. Consider a person who wants to move out of his job and become a food blogger. How can the idea of setting relevant goals and constantly evolving your goals help him stay persistent? (15:54)
5. Do you think tangible, visible feedback for your actions can consistently push you forward (23:21)
6. What is a commitment & how can we strengthen our ability to act on commitments (25:43)?
7. Do you think joining communities (Online or offline) increases our chances of acting on our commitments (31:28)
8. By writing our commitment, do we fool our brains into thinking that we have already acted on it? (35:58)
9. In what situation is removing barriers more beneficial than providing nudges to achieve the required behavioral change? (38:27)
10. Can you walk me through the process you use to identify barriers that a person is facing while performing an action? (40:36)
11. How effective are inspirational books and speakers in influencing human behaviors in the long term? (45:38)
12. Are we humans by default very lazy? (47:30)
13. Summary of 3 big take aways (50:57)
3 Big Takeaways from the Episode
1. Start with Small Commitments – Let’s say you want to go for a run everyday. As Anurag mentioned, don’t start by thinking about running for an hour every day. Assume your commitments are week and start with a small commitment immediately. Go for 1 km run today. If you plan to start a blog, start by writing one blog post today instead of thinking about one every week. Sometimes, getting over initial resistance (or inertia) is a much bigger challenge than actual doing what you want to do. Once you begin and as you get comfortable doing it, you can slowly escalate your goals.
2. Make your Commitments Public – We deeply care about how we are seen by others. While this is a problem generally, we can leverage this for our benefit by making our intentions or commitments public. Find a small group of people you trust and tell them about your intentions. Ask them to inquire about your progress after a week. If you want to go a step further, declare your intent, let’s say of starting a blog, on social media platform. It will not make you the best blogger in the world but it will definitely push you to write for a few weeks. The result of these few weeks work will serve as your source of motivation for the weeks to come.
3. Inspiration is a great trigger but it is not durable, it doesn’t last long, so act on it soon. All of us have moments of inspiration, when we really want do something. As Anurag mentioned, the worst thing we can do at that point is make elaborate plans. You are mostly like you going to feel overwhelmed and do nothing. Instead, just do something. Want to start a blog? start writing. Want to go on 5 km run every day? Go for a 1 Km run today. Just Act and do something. Angel investor Naval Ravikant puts this final lesson very beautifully “Inspiration is a perishable commodity, act no it before it lapses”
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