Stick with It

Stick with It Plot Summary

Introduction

Have you ever made a New Year's resolution only to abandon it by February? Or tried to start a new habit like daily exercise, only to find yourself back on the couch a week later? You're not alone. Despite our best intentions, lasting behavioral change often eludes us. The science shows that nearly 40% of dieters quit within one week, and more than half end up weighing more than before they started. In business, companies struggle to retain customers, and healthcare providers watch in frustration as patients abandon treatment plans. The problem isn't that we lack motivation or willpower. The conventional wisdom suggesting we need to transform our personalities to make lasting changes is fundamentally flawed. The truth is that you don't need to become someone else to change your behavior. What you need is to understand the science behind lasting change and create processes that work with your existing personality. Drawing from over fifteen years of research with some of the top minds in behavioral science, this book reveals the seven psychological forces that drive lasting behavioral change in any context. These forces—Stepladders, Community, Important, Easy, Neurohacks, Captivating, and Engrained (SCIENCE)—work together to create a powerful framework that has helped thousands of people transform their behaviors for good, achieving nearly a 300% increase in lasting change.

Chapter 1: Understanding the ABC's of Human Behavior

Human behavior follows predictable patterns, yet most of us misunderstand what drives our actions. The science of lasting change begins with recognizing that behaviors fall into three distinct categories: Automatic behaviors, Burning behaviors, and Common behaviors—what I call the ABCs of behavior. Automatic behaviors happen without conscious awareness. These are the things we do on autopilot, like unconsciously checking our phones at stoplights, biting our nails, or mindlessly eating chips from a bowl during a movie. Because these behaviors occur below our awareness threshold, they're particularly difficult to change through willpower alone. Our brains have engrained these patterns so deeply that they require specific approaches to modify. Burning behaviors are those we're aware of but feel powerless to control—like the irresistible urge to check social media, the craving for a cigarette, or the compulsion to play "just one more" level of a video game. Unlike automatic behaviors, we're conscious of burning behaviors but feel an almost magnetic pull toward them despite knowing better. The difference is crucial: with burning behaviors, we're aware enough to potentially intervene in the moment. Common behaviors are conscious actions we simply struggle to maintain consistently, like sticking to an exercise routine, practicing a musical instrument regularly, or completing work assignments on time. We're fully aware of these behaviors and capable of controlling them, but we find it difficult to stay motivated. This is where most traditional advice focuses, but different types of behaviors require different intervention strategies to create lasting change. Understanding which type of behavior you're trying to change is the first essential step in the SCIENCE framework. Once you identify whether you're dealing with an automatic, burning, or common behavior, you can select the appropriate combination of forces to transform it. For automatic behaviors, forces like Easy and Engrained are critical. For burning behaviors, you'll need Neurohacks and Community. And for common behaviors, all seven forces work synergistically to create lasting change. The ABCs of behavior explain why generic advice about habit formation often fails. When you understand which type of behavior you're trying to change, you can apply the right tools for the job, dramatically increasing your chances of success. This insight alone transforms how we approach behavioral change, moving beyond one-size-fits-all solutions to tailored strategies that work with our psychology rather than against it.

Chapter 2: Stepladders: The Power of Small Incremental Steps

Stepladders represent the critical first force in creating lasting change. The concept centers on breaking down ambitious goals into tiny, incremental steps that feel almost effortless to accomplish. While this might sound familiar, most people dramatically overestimate what constitutes a "small" step. What you consider a small step is likely still too large to create sustainable momentum. The stepladders approach introduces a crucial distinction between steps, goals, and dreams. Dreams are long-term aspirations that typically take more than three months to achieve—like learning to speak Spanish fluently or launching a successful business. Goals are intermediate objectives, taking one week to three months to accomplish—like mastering basic conversation phrases or securing your first client. Steps are tiny actions that take less than a week to complete—like downloading a language app today or sending an email to a potential customer. The problem is that when we focus exclusively on our dreams, we tend to create steps that are actually goals in disguise. Research confirms this psychological phenomenon. A study of 126 overweight women trying to lose weight over six weeks found that those who focused on the day-to-day process of eating healthy (stepladders) lost more weight than those who focused on visualizing what weighing less would be like (dreams). Remarkably, the dream-focused group actually gained weight. The science is clear: focusing on small, concrete, immediate actions creates significantly more lasting change than fixating on distant outcomes. This works because of what neuroscientists call "reward relativity." Our brains release dopamine—the feel-good neurotransmitter—when we receive a reward that exceeds our expectations. If you expect either $1 or $5 and receive $5, your brain releases dopamine. But if you expect either $5 or $25 and receive $5, no dopamine is released. Similarly, accomplishing a small step that you expected to complete creates a stronger positive reaction than falling short of an ambitious goal. These frequent dopamine releases from completing small steps create a positive feedback loop that sustains momentum. The power of stepladders extends beyond personal goals to business and organizational change. Companies like MyFitnessPal have mastered this approach in their user onboarding process, gradually increasing commitment by first asking simple questions with few options, then slowly expanding complexity as users build confidence. This stepladder approach has helped them achieve over 90% completion rates for their programs, while competitors who overwhelm users with options see dramatically higher abandonment rates. To apply stepladders effectively, start by radically downsizing your next step. If you want to exercise regularly, don't plan a one-hour gym session—commit to putting on your running shoes tomorrow. If you're learning a language, don't aim to study for an hour—commit to learning just three words today. These seemingly insignificant steps create the psychological foundation for lasting change by building confidence, rewiring neural pathways, and establishing momentum that carries you toward your larger goals.

Chapter 3: Community: Building Networks That Support Change

Community represents one of the most powerful yet frequently overlooked forces for lasting behavioral change. Humans are fundamentally social creatures, and our behaviors are profoundly influenced by the people around us. This isn't just conventional wisdom—it's backed by decades of research showing that behaviors, both healthy and unhealthy, spread through social networks like contagions. The science behind community's influence on behavior is compelling. Studies show that people who live in neighborhoods with more liquor stores drink more alcohol, and those surrounded by marijuana dispensaries consume more marijuana. We see this effect in positive behaviors too—people with exercise partners are significantly more likely to maintain fitness routines than those who go it alone. The key insight is that communities create what I call a "social magnet" that pulls people toward certain behaviors and away from others. Social magnets work through several psychological mechanisms. First, communities establish clear norms about what behaviors are expected and valued. When you join a running club, regular exercise becomes the norm rather than the exception. Second, communities provide accountability—that workout buddy waiting for you at 6 AM creates external motivation when your internal motivation falters. Third, communities offer identity reinforcement—being part of a group that identifies as "health-conscious" or "entrepreneurial" shapes how you see yourself, making behaviors aligned with that identity more likely to stick. In our research, we developed an intervention called HOPE (Harnessing Online Peer Education) that leveraged community to create lasting change in high-risk populations. We found that people who participated in these carefully structured online communities were three times more likely to adopt healthy behaviors compared to control groups. Remarkably, over 80% remained engaged even after 18 months—far surpassing typical online community engagement rates of under 50%. Building effective communities requires six key ingredients: trust, shared norms, opportunities for self-worth, social magnetism, appropriate rewards, and empowerment. The most successful communities designate approximately 15% of members as peer leaders who actively engage others, reach out to less active members, and reinforce group norms. These peer leaders create the social magnetism that keeps everyone coming back. The implications extend beyond personal change to business and organizational contexts. Companies like Trader Joe's have built loyal customer communities not through extensive product selection but through creating a sense of belonging and shared values. Similarly, successful startups often succeed not because they have superior products but because they foster communities of users who identify with the brand and reinforce each other's continued engagement. The lesson is clear: if you want to create lasting change—whether in yourself or others—strategically building or joining the right community dramatically increases your chances of success.

Chapter 4: Making It Important: Finding Personal Meaning

For any behavior to stick, it must feel important to the person attempting the change. This seems obvious, yet understanding what makes something truly important to us—and how to amplify that importance—reveals surprising insights about human motivation. Conventional wisdom suggests that people either have motivation or they don't, but research shows that importance can be engineered and enhanced through specific psychological approaches. Three primary factors make behaviors important to people: money, social connections, and health. But these motivators work in unexpected ways. Consider money—while financial incentives can drive behavior, their effectiveness diminishes beyond meeting basic needs. A Princeton study by Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman found that once a person earns about $75,000 annually, the emotional benefits of additional income virtually disappear. More surprising still, wealthy consumers (those earning over $150,000) are actually 65% more likely to use coupons than those earning under $40,000. Social connections often prove more powerful than financial incentives. Harvard researchers who followed participants for 75 years discovered that strong relationships were the most reliable predictor of happiness and wellbeing—far outweighing wealth, fame, or professional success. Neuroscience confirms this, showing that the brain responds to social rejection in the same regions that process physical pain. Similarly, the brain processes social warmth in the same areas that register physical warmth, explaining why we use phrases like "heartwarming" to describe positive social interactions. Health motivation works differently across individuals. For some, like my grandmother Billie who maintained daily swimming well into her nineties, health-promoting behaviors become central to identity. For others, like my grandmother Doris who rapidly declined after losing her daughter, health becomes secondary when social connections are disrupted. The key isn't just understanding these motivational differences but learning how to enhance importance for behaviors we struggle to maintain. Researchers have developed interventions that significantly increase the importance of previously neglected behaviors. In one remarkable study, participants making retirement decisions while looking at age-progressed photos of themselves saved substantially more money than those looking at current photos. This "future self-intervention" created an emotional connection to a future identity that made retirement savings feel deeply important in the present moment. Making a behavior important often requires linking it to values or identities that already matter to us. When Benjamin Franklin wanted to win over a political rival, he asked to borrow a rare book from the man's library. The rival, flattered by the request, sent the book. Franklin sent a thank-you note, and thereafter the two became lifelong friends. Franklin later explained: "He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged." By aligning the behavior (being friendly) with an important identity (being helpful and respected), Franklin created lasting change in his rival's attitude. The lesson is clear: to make any behavior stick, we must understand what truly motivates us and then connect our desired behaviors to those deeply held values. When we make behaviors important—not through willpower but through meaningful connection—lasting change becomes not just possible but natural.

Chapter 5: Creating Ease: Removing Barriers to Action

People do what's easy. This simple truth explains why so many behavior change efforts fail—not because people lack motivation, but because we've made the desired behaviors too difficult to sustain. The psychology behind "easy" offers profound insights for creating lasting change in ourselves and others. The power of ease is illustrated by Joseph Coulombe's transformation of his struggling convenience store chain into the wildly successful Trader Joe's. While competitors expanded their selections to thousands of items, Coulombe radically simplified, offering just one-tenth the product variety of typical grocery stores. This counterintuitive approach made shopping decisions effortless for customers, who no longer faced the paralysis of choosing between fifteen varieties of peanut butter. The result? Trader Joe's sells more than double the merchandise per square foot than its largest competitor, Whole Foods. Research confirms this psychological principle across domains. In one classic MIT study, researchers found that people primarily formed friendships with those who lived physically closest to them—65% of students' closest friends lived in the same building, with next-door neighbors being the most common friends. Not because MIT students were lazy, but because proximity made friendship formation easier. We see this with health behaviors too—people who live far from gyms exercise less frequently, and those with unhealthy food readily available eat more poorly. The science identifies three key approaches to making behaviors easier. First, control the environment—removing unhealthy foods from your kitchen or placing a water bottle on your desk makes healthy choices the path of least resistance. Amazon's one-click ordering and auto-subscription services exemplify this principle in business, removing all friction from the purchasing process. Second, limit choices—research shows that people offered fewer options (like six jam varieties versus twenty-four) are actually more likely to make a decision and feel satisfied with it. Third, create clear roadmaps—in one study, Yale students were much more likely to get tetanus shots when given specific instructions including a map to the health clinic and available appointment times. Two psychological barriers often prevent us from making things easy enough. The "Curse of Knowledge" occurs when experts forget what it's like to be a beginner, creating unnecessarily complex instructions or interfaces. The "Day Trader Effect" describes our tendency to overestimate our abilities and underestimate difficulties—like entrepreneurs who confidently predict quick success for their startups despite overwhelming evidence that most new businesses fail. The implications extend beyond personal habits to organizational change. Google tackled employee weight gain by redesigning their cafeterias—moving salad bars to prominent locations, swapping large plates for smaller ones, and placing candy in opaque rather than clear containers. These environmental changes reduced candy consumption by 9% and fat intake by 11% without requiring conscious employee effort. Similarly, Yo!, a messaging app that allowed users to send only the word "Yo!" to friends, achieved over one million downloads because it was radically simple to use. The lesson is clear: don't rely on motivation or willpower to overcome difficult behaviors. Instead, use the "E-Trade test" to evaluate whether a behavior is truly easy enough to stick. If a baby couldn't do it (metaphorically speaking), simplify further. By controlling environments, limiting choices, and creating clear roadmaps, we make desired behaviors the path of least resistance—and lasting change becomes not just possible but inevitable.

Chapter 6: Neurohacks: Tricks That Reset Your Brain

Conventional wisdom teaches that lasting behavior change begins in the mind—change your thoughts first, and your actions will follow. But decades of research reveal this approach is backwards. The most effective path to lasting change starts with small behavioral shifts that then transform how we think about ourselves. These psychological shortcuts—what I call neurohacks—reset the brain's understanding of who we are and what we're capable of. Mauricio Estrella discovered this power accidentally when, frustrated by a password change prompt during a difficult divorce, he typed "Forgive@h3r" as his new password. This simple act—typing those words multiple times daily—transformed his mindset. A month later, he changed his password to "Quit@smoking4ever" and overnight stopped a habit he'd struggled with for years. By changing his behavior (typing these words) before changing his thoughts, Estrella created lasting transformation. Neurohacks work through a fundamental psychological principle: we form our self-identity by looking back at our past actions. When we act in new ways—even through tiny, seemingly insignificant behaviors—our brains update our self-concept to maintain consistency between our actions and identity. This explains why getting someone to do you a small favor often makes them more likely to help you again in the future (what Benjamin Franklin called his "favor trick"), and why small commitments lead to larger ones. Research confirms this mechanism across domains. In one study, people asked to hold a pen between their teeth (which activates the same facial muscles used in smiling) rated cartoons as funnier than those asked to hold pens between their lips (which prevents smiling). The participants weren't aware they were smiling—their brains simply interpreted their physical behavior (smiling) to mean they must be enjoying the cartoons. Similarly, people who wrote about their positive qualities using their dominant hand reported higher self-esteem than those who wrote with their non-dominant hand, as the brain interpreted the fluent writing as evidence of confidence. Neurohacks fall into several categories. Behavioral neurohacks involve doing something that changes how you view yourself—like volunteering with a charity to see yourself as compassionate. Body movement neurohacks leverage physical positions to change mental states—research shows that people who nod while listening to messages find them more persuasive than those who shake their heads. Physiological neurohacks use bodily sensations to influence thought—like how Botox treatments that prevent frowning have been shown to reduce depression by limiting negative facial expressions. The applications are powerful and diverse. Want to become more present-minded? Take an improv class where you must respond in the moment. Feeling socially disconnected? Share personal information with others, as self-disclosure creates neural patterns similar to those from physical rewards. Want to improve your public speaking? Record yourself giving successful presentations and watch them later—your brain will begin to recognize "successful speaker" as part of your identity. The most effective neurohacks create what I call "chain links"—repeated behaviors that reinforce new identities. Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps leverages this with his pre-race ritual of stretching, listening to hip-hop, and arm movements. These easy-to-perform behaviors trigger the mindset of a champion swimmer even on days when motivation is low. Similarly, religious practices like mouthing prayers create neurohacks that reinforce spiritual identity through physical action. Understanding neurohacks fundamentally changes our approach to lasting change. Rather than trying to force our minds to change through willpower or positive thinking, we can strategically choose small behaviors that reset our brains' understanding of who we are. By starting with action rather than thought, we create lasting psychological shifts that make continued change feel natural rather than forced.

Chapter 7: Captivating Rewards: The Psychology of Motivation

Conventional wisdom suggests that any reward will motivate continued behavior—give people points, badges, or money, and they'll keep doing what you want. But the science of captivation reveals a more nuanced reality: rewards must be genuinely compelling to create lasting change, and what captivates one person may completely fail to motivate another. The principle is straightforward—people keep doing things that feel rewarding—but implementing it effectively requires deeper understanding. Consider extreme coupon shoppers who spend hours hunting deals, sometimes purchasing items they don't need simply because the acquisition process itself is captivating. Or look at gambling, where intermittent rewards create such powerful motivation that people continue playing despite knowing the odds guarantee eventual loss. These examples illustrate that the reward must be intrinsically captivating, not just externally valuable. Research identifies several counterintuitive principles about rewards. First, making the "right thing" fun dramatically increases compliance. When Moscow officials wanted to encourage physical activity before the 2014 Sochi Olympics, they installed machines in subway stations that would issue a free ticket to anyone who performed 30 squats. This gamified approach to exercise was far more effective than educational campaigns about health benefits. Second, positive incentives consistently outperform negative consequences. A Colorado prison found that rewarding good behavior with privileges like comfortable chairs and movie access reduced violations by 98%, while punishment-based approaches had failed for decades. Perhaps most surprisingly, money often proves an ineffective long-term motivator. Studies show that financial incentives can actually reduce motivation for activities people already enjoy—a phenomenon called the "overjustification effect." In one classic study, children who initially enjoyed coloring were later less interested in the activity after being rewarded for it. The external reward diminished their intrinsic motivation by suggesting the activity wasn't inherently worth doing. This explains why employee incentive programs often show disappointing results—they transform intrinsically rewarding work into something done primarily for external compensation. The most effective rewards follow two models: the Quick Fix and the Trick Fix. The Quick Fix provides immediate reinforcement when someone starts a behavior, like the satisfying "ka-ching" sound of coins dropping from a winning slot machine. This immediate feedback creates a powerful association between action and reward. The Trick Fix uses intermittent reinforcement—unpredictable rewards that create stronger motivation than consistent ones. This explains why social media platforms create such compelling engagement—the unpredictable nature of likes, comments, and shares creates a reward pattern similar to gambling. Successful businesses masterfully apply these principles. Starbucks' rewards program contributed to a 26% profit increase not because customers needed financial incentives to buy coffee, but because the program made the experience more captivating through status recognition and surprise rewards. TOMS Shoes created a captivating shopping experience through their "One for One" model, where each purchase helps someone in need—tapping into customers' desire for social impact rather than traditional discounts. The key insight is that rewards must align with what truly motivates the individual. For some, financial incentives work well. For others, social recognition or health improvements provide stronger motivation. The most effective approach combines immediate feedback (Quick Fix) with unpredictable positive reinforcement (Trick Fix) in domains that already matter to the person. When rewards genuinely captivate us—rather than just checking boxes on a reward chart—lasting change becomes not just sustainable but deeply satisfying.

Summary

The science of lasting change reveals that transforming our behaviors doesn't require changing who we are—it requires understanding the psychological forces that drive human action and creating processes that work with our existing nature rather than against it. The SCIENCE framework provides a comprehensive approach that addresses the full spectrum of human behavior: identifying whether we're dealing with automatic, burning, or common behaviors, then applying the appropriate combination of Stepladders, Community, Importance, Ease, Neurohacks, Captivation, and Engrained patterns to create sustainable change. What makes this approach revolutionary is its recognition that different behaviors require different strategies. We've been taught that willpower and motivation are the keys to change, but the research shows that environmental design, social connections, and small incremental steps often prove far more powerful than sheer determination. By starting with tiny behavioral shifts rather than grand ambitions, leveraging the influence of carefully structured communities, connecting actions to what truly matters to us, removing unnecessary barriers, using psychological shortcuts to reset our self-perception, designing genuinely captivating rewards, and establishing consistent routines, we create a comprehensive system for change that works with human psychology rather than against it. The question isn't whether lasting change is possible—it's whether we're willing to apply the right science to make it happen.

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Sean Young

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

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