388: How To Trick Yourself Into Achieving Your Financial Goals – Tips Backed By Science With Steve Chou

Podcast: Download (Duration: 19:08 — 22.2MB)

Sticking to your goals works better when you redesign the conditions around the goal instead of relying on willpower: remove the specific friction that stops you, pick the enjoyable path over the efficient one, bundle unpleasant tasks with things you like, and build accountability through a mastermind group. Willpower runs out, and structure does not.

In this solo episode I walk through the nine strategies my wife and I used to escape years of complacency and eventually build two businesses generating over $2 million.

Below is the full set: finding a fresh start, diagnosing your real hurdles, the enjoyable path principle, temptation bundling, masterminds, flexible routines, task associations, money on the line, and drastic situations.

Key takeaways

• Most people fail because they get in their own way. The ability is usually there.
• Use any occasion as a starting excuse. Birthdays, New Year’s, a life disruption. I used the pandemic to finally start YouTube.
• Diagnose the specific friction. My YouTube problem was camera setup time and editing, not motivation.
• Choose the enjoyable path over the efficient one. I play tennis for two hours instead of running for one.
• Bundle unpleasant tasks with things you enjoy. The two average out to something tolerable.
• Join a mastermind group. Mine helped me grow a business 42% in seven weeks.
• Keep routines flexible. Assign tasks to days, never to specific time blocks.
• Use if-then task associations. Every bathroom trip triggers five pull-ups.

Why New Year’s resolutions fail

Resolutions fail because motivation is temporary and nothing about your environment changed to support the new behavior.

My wife and I spent years in what I call complacency: get up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, watch TV, sleep, repeat. No purpose, not much money, and she hated her job.

I asked my dad whether spending all day at work was just part of adulthood. His answer was that I could not expect life to be different without changing my behavior.

We started a business right after that conversation and it went nowhere. The excitement faded inside a month and we were back to the same drudgery.

Find an excuse for a fresh start

Use any remotely significant occasion as a launch trigger, because an arbitrary starting line still produces real momentum.

Take a page from Hallmark. It is my birthday, so I will lose the weight. I am stuck at home during the pandemic, so I will start a YouTube channel.

That last one is mine. I dragged my feet on YouTube for over five years and used the pandemic as the excuse to finally launch. The channel was approaching 70,000 subscribers at the time of this recording.

Meet new people to escape old expectations

New people give you a clean slate, because long-standing friends carry a fixed picture of who you are that pulls you back toward old behavior.

What I heard from friends when we started: Steve is going through another start-your-own-business phase. Steve, you do not even like writing, so why a blog? Steve, you hate putting yourself out there, so YouTube will never work.

When you are already stuck, a few offhand comments do real damage to momentum. Interacting with people who have zero history with you is liberating.

Conferences are the easiest way to do this. The Seller Summit runs every May.

Remove the mental hurdles stopping you

Sit down and diagnose the specific reason you keep quitting, because willpower cannot overcome a process that is genuinely painful.

My chemistry teacher’s framing stuck with me: matter gravitates toward higher entropy and lower energy. People do the same thing.

My YouTube failure had two concrete causes. Each video took two hours to film and six hours to edit, and I was earning nothing from the channel, so I came to dread the whole process.

The fixes were mechanical. I built a mini video studio in my office so I could press one button and start filming, and I hired a video editor.

Since finding MJ, my editor, I have published one video a week for two years without missing a week. Once you fix the root cause, the routine sustains itself.

Choose the enjoyable path over the efficient one

Pick the method you enjoy even when a more efficient one exists, because you will actually keep doing it.

Research by Ayelet Fishbach on behavior change found that people weight instant gratification more heavily than long-term reward. An unpleasant activity rarely survives unless results are immediate.

My own version: running 30 minutes twice a week reliably takes 10 pounds off me over six months. I hate running.

So I play ultimate and tennis for about two hours instead. It takes roughly double the time for the same result, and I enjoy both, which means staying in shape stopped being a chore.

Bundle difficult tasks with enjoyable activities

Pair a task you dislike with something you genuinely enjoy, and the combination averages out to something you will tolerate.

Some things resist being made fun. I hate doing accounting, writing product descriptions, and lifting weights, and no amount of reframing changes that.

The pattern comes from childhood. My mom took me to Swensen’s for ice cream after every piano lesson, and I looked forward to the caramel turtle fudge cone even though I never enjoyed piano.

I still use it. Product descriptions come with snacks, and lifting weights comes with my favorite music.

Join a mastermind group for accountability

A mastermind group is a small cohort with similar goals meeting regularly, and it solves the isolation and accountability problems at once.

When my wife and I started, we had nobody to test ideas against and nobody tracking whether we made progress. Our ecommerce mastermind met about once a month.

Four things it delivers: advice you would never have generated alone, a confidence boost from solving problems for others that you have already solved, an accountability partner, and forward momentum. Mine helped me grow a business 42% in seven weeks.

There is a less obvious benefit. Research from Kellogg School of Management professor Lauren Eskreis-Winkler found that giving advice improves the advisor’s own outcomes.

I notice it directly. After giving advice to the group, I follow through on it myself to avoid being a hypocrite, and the same happens with every lesson I teach in my course.

Create a flexible weekly routine

Assign tasks to days rather than to specific times, with the only rule being that everything gets done by end of week.

My week looks like this:

• Monday: film a YouTube video and prep the podcast for publication
• Tuesday: build a lesson plan for my course
• Wednesday: office hours for Profitable Online Store members
• Thursday: office hours for Profitable Audience members
• Friday: ecommerce store marketing and planning the following week
• Saturday: nothing
• Sunday: write a blog post while my kids are in Russian math class

I work roughly 7:30am to noon on weekdays, about 20 hours a week.

I used to assign specific time blocks and stopped. Missing a block made me far more likely to skip the task entirely rather than move it, which is the opposite of what a schedule is for.

Use task associations to trigger habits

A task association pairs a new habit to an existing trigger in an if-then structure, so the habit stops requiring a decision.

My pull-up version: every time I use the bathroom, I do five pull-ups. The bar hangs right outside the door.

I could never get myself to do pull-ups before this. Now I do not think about it at all.

The business version: every time I use my computer for something recreational, I cross one item off my business task list first. Sometimes that is just replying to an email, and something always moves forward.

Put money on the line

Hand a friend $1,000 with instructions not to return it until you have hit your goal, which converts an abstract intention into a concrete loss.

Fear of loss is a stronger motivator than anticipated gain for most people, and this makes the loss immediate and personal.

My business partner Tony and I run a variant where the loser has to do something embarrassing. Whatever you choose has to genuinely sting.

Put yourself in a drastic situation

A sink-or-swim situation forces action through necessity, and I do not recommend it for most people.

The pure version is quitting your job cold turkey so there is no income, betting that desperation will produce solutions.

Mine arrived differently. When my wife became pregnant with our first child, I was pushed into responsibility overnight. I wanted life-changing money, a home in a good school district, and time with my kids.

Having a child rewired how I thought about work. The general point holds regardless of which version applies to you: your life will not improve while you continue down the same path.

Frequently asked questions

Why do New Year’s resolutions fail?

Motivation fades and nothing structural changed to support the new behavior. Most people have the ability to follow through and get in their own way instead. Redesigning your environment and removing specific friction works better than relying on willpower.

How do you build a habit that lasts?

Attach it to an existing trigger using an if-then task association. Every bathroom trip triggers five pull-ups for me, with the bar placed right outside the door. Removing the decision from the process is what makes it stick.

Should you choose the most effective method for a goal?

Choose the one you enjoy. Research by Ayelet Fishbach found people weight instant gratification over long-term reward, so unpleasant methods get abandoned. I play tennis for two hours instead of running for one because I will actually keep doing it.

What is temptation bundling?

Pairing a task you dislike with an activity you enjoy so the combination becomes tolerable. I snack while writing product descriptions and listen to favorite music while lifting weights. The two average out into something you will repeat.

What is a mastermind group?

A small cohort with similar goals meeting regularly to share ideas and hold each other accountable. Mine met monthly and helped me grow a business 42% in seven weeks. Giving advice also improves your own follow-through, since you avoid contradicting yourself.

Should you schedule tasks at specific times?

No. Assign tasks to days with a rule that everything finishes by end of week. Specific time blocks backfire because missing one makes you likely to skip the task entirely rather than reschedule it.

Does putting money on the line work for motivation?

Yes, because loss motivates more strongly than gain for most people. Give a friend $1,000 and instruct them to hold it until you hit the goal. The stake has to be large enough to genuinely hurt, or the mechanism does nothing.