When I was in high school I wanted to start going to the gym. After a quick Google search, I picked the first gym that popped up in my town. It was about 15 minutes from my house.
I was motivated to go and went consistently for two months. However, school got busy and I never felt like making the drive to the gym. I didn’t have enough energy to overcome the 15-minute drive-time barrier so I stopped going.
A few months later I discovered a second gym that was only 5 minutes away from my house, so I decided to give it a shot. I started working out consistently and stayed there through the rest of high school. Whenever I didn’t feel like going to the gym I’d think, “It’s only 5 minutes away, just go workout.”
Being 10 minutes closer might seem insignificant, but it was the difference between sitting at home and getting started. Finding the closer gym lowered the amount of energy and willpower I needed to get started.
Do you ever set goals and fail to follow through? You might have a similar goal of going to the gym consistently, but it could also be reading more books, learning an instrument, or mastering a new skill. Why are the things you want to do often difficult to start?
When you want to start something you have to overcome an energy barrier called activation energy. Activation energy is a chemistry concept that refers to the minimum amount of energy required for a process or reaction to begin. Just as a fire needs a spark to start, you need enough energy and willpower to spur action.
Imagine pushing a ball up a hill. When you start pushing the ball, you have to exert energy to overcome the force of gravity and get the ball to the top of the hill. The amount of effort it takes to get the ball up the hill is activation energy. Getting the ball to the top is the hard part because once you get there, the ball rolls down the hill without extra effort on your part.
Getting started is the hardest part of doing anything. The initial amount of energy required to start something (the activation energy) is greater than the energy required to keep going. With enough activation energy, you set off a chain reaction of activity, like a positive feedback loop. This is how momentum is built and maintained.
Think of activation energy as an investment. You have to put in energy to start, but then you get to reap the rewards. If you can find a way to make getting started easier, you’re more likely to follow through and will experience the benefits of momentum.
The concept of activation energy serves as a useful analogy for willpower and the challenge of behavior change.1
Catalysts – Make it Easy
In chemical reactions, catalysts are substances that lower activation energy, making it easier for the reaction to occur. Catalysts cause change and you can use them to make getting started easier.
Here are some ways you can use behavior catalysts to get started.
Start Small
Big goals require large amounts of activation energy. There are two challenges with this. First, if the goal is too big, it will feel overwhelming and you’ll never get started. Second, it’s not sustainable to have to rely on always having a lot of energy to start.
Consider these examples:
- Is it easier to write a book or to write one word?
- Is it easier to workout at the gym or to pack your gym bag?
- Is it easier to run a mile or to take one step?
There is nothing wrong with setting big goals, but they require consistent action to achieve them. If the barrier to get started is too great, you won’t make any progress towards them. However, you can reframe your goal into something smaller, lowering the activation energy. You can start with something simple and still move closer to your goal.
Every book is written one word at a time. By setting a reasonable starting goal you are more likely to actually sit down and write, instead of procrastinating, because it makes it easy to start and stick with. Momentum will take you the rest of the way.
The same thinking can be applied to going to the gym. You don’t have to set a goal to workout for an hour. Instead, you could set a goal to simply drive to the gym. If you arrive and don’t feel like working out you can leave. But you probably won’t because you are already there and ‘might as well do something.’ By setting the goal of simply making it to the gym, you lower the activation energy and increase the likelihood that you will workout.
Architect your environment
Willpower is an unreliable source of activation energy. You may have enough for a while, but inevitably appealing, low activation energy, distractions will get in the way and prevent you from starting.
To combat this you can architect your environment in a way that is conducive to your desired behaviors and makes it easier to get started. This is often referred to as choice architecture or environment design. Here are some examples:
- If you want to read more, set your book on the coffee table instead of keeping it on your bookshelf. It takes more energy to go find your book than to grab it off the table.
- If you want to eat healthier, leave fruit on your counter instead of in your refrigerator drawer. If it’s out of sight, it’s out of mind. If it’s easy to see, it’s top of mind.
- If you want to go to the gym in the morning, set out your gym clothes and pack your bag the night before. When you wake up it will be easier to grab your gear and go.
Your environment is more powerful than your willpower. The solution is to shape your environment in a way that works for you, rather than against you. Think of it as designing for laziness. The more obvious your desired behavior is, the more likely you are to actually do it.
Plan ahead
Planning makes future decisions easier. It’s essentially front-end decision making, so you can more easily get started later.
Let’s say you wanted to prepare a healthy, home-cooked meal on Friday night. You need to plan what you want to cook, gather ingredients, and schedule time to prepare the food. If you plan ahead, it will be easy for you to follow through come Friday night.
However, if you fail to plan and 7 p.m. on Friday night rolls around, it is going to take a lot of activation energy to take care of everything you need you. So you’ll probably open the freezer, pull out a pizza, and settle for the low activation energy option.
Planning reduces the willpower you need when it is time to take action.
Make it easy
When it comes to determining how to make a behavior easier, think about what feels good. Don’t force yourself to do things you hate. Instead, look for ways to make the decisions more appealing.
- If you like to sleep in and hate waking up to go to the gym, that’s fine. If you’d rather go to the gym with your friend after work, do that instead.
- If you don’t like walking outside when the weather is bad, find an alternative that you enjoy doing. This could be a treadmill or indoor bike.
Making behaviors easier is about reducing friction. Anything you can do to make a habit easier will make you more likely to follow through. Take time to reflect on where you run into friction when getting started. Once you’ve identified those sticking points, think about what you could do to remove those barriers and take action.
Inhibitors – Make it Hard
Inhibitors are negative catalysts. They are substances that slow a reaction down and increase activation energy. Inhibitors are useful when you want to stop undesired behaviors.
Distractions get in the way of your desired behaviors because they are easy to start. If you can make distractions more difficult, you’re more likely to get started working on your goals instead.
- If you are easily distracted by watching TV you could unplug it or take the batteries out of the remote. Anytime you want to watch TV you have to take a couple of extra steps, which require more energy.
- If you want to spend less time on social media you can delete the apps from your phone. You can easily re-download them or log in on a computer, but the extra effort may dissuade you.
- If you are tempted by treats sitting front and center in your house you can move them to the far back of your cupboard so you don’t mindlessly grab them.
It is easy to get sucked into bad habits, but if you can make them harder to start, it will be easier to ignore them and focus on what you want to start.
Getting started is hard, but understanding how you can influence activation energy is a useful tool for taking action. With catalysts and inhibitors, you can make desired behaviors easier and make undesired behaviors harder.
You just need to overcome that initial activation energy barrier. Once you do, momentum will keep you going.
Footnotes
- Psychology has adopted the chemistry concept of activation energy. It was initially coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and is covered in his book Finding Flow. Activation energy has also been covered in the works of Mel Robbins – The 5 Second Rule and Shaun Achor – The Happiness Advantage.