So, when you were at school, did you ever do this?
Or have it done to you?
You’d go up to your mate.
And say “What do you call those big metal things in fields that support the electrical wires?”
“Pylon?” they’d reply if they hadn’t had this trick played on them before or were particularly easy to trick.
“Pile on” you and your 47 friends who’d appeared from nowhere would scream as you dived on top of him in a progressively bigger mound of thrashing limbs and cracking ribs.
No?
Just me?
I found out when I went to Uni that, as well as other strange quirks, southerners call a pile-on a bundle.
“Bundle” my diminutive Surrey born, later to be my Best Man, friend would call as he attempted to push one of us over while the predominately northern majority of our group would glare at him with unhidden contempt.
Bundle is, of course, where you group things together.
Not a pile-on.
Silly southerners 😉
You can bundle all sorts.
There’s a technique called ‘Temptation bundling’ that you might be interested in.
### A little tenuous, I know – but if I just started talking about techniques from the start, how many of you would open this and get this far 😉 ###
Temptation bundling is where you pair up two behaviours.
A ‘like to do’ that you have no problem doing.
And a ‘should do’ that you find a bit more tricky to do regularly.
And you then do these two things together.
Either literally at the same time.
Or they are paired in that you only do the ‘like to do’ when you’ve done the ‘should do’.
It takes deliberate choice on your part to keep these behaviours connected.
To not just do the ‘like to do’ anyway, even if you’ve left the ‘should do’.
But, once you’ve done it a number of times, it becomes second nature.
To start, you can make a list of each behaviour.
The ‘like to do’ list could include;
- Watch a favourite TV programme
- Read a book / magazine
- Spend some time on Facebook / the internet
- Date night with partner
- Cinema / theatre / other night out
- Some hobby you have
- Going out with friends
The ‘should do’ list might look like this;
- Work out
- Healthy food shop
- Batch cook food for the week
- Healthy meal
- Ironing
- Homework / assignment / study
And pair those bad boys up.
So, you might do them at the same time – only watching your favourite programme while doing the ironing.
You might only allow the ‘like to do’ on completion of the ‘should do’.
Only read the book you’re enjoying or watch your programme if you’ve done your workout that day.
Only have ‘date night’ (or other going out activity) if you’ve eaten well 95% of the week.
Only go on Facebook when you’ve done your work.
Etc, etc, etc.
As I said, the only thing that can make you keep these behaviours paired……..
Is YOU!
But once you’ve done it a few times it becomes more natural (myrise.co.uk/briefing-meeting if you like the sound of learning ways of doing it that become natural with time, rather than a life long struggle).
And should help you stick to those things you’re struggling with.
Much love,
Jon ‘The wife spent years at school trying to touch her elbows behind her back’ Hall and Matt ‘And you see that. Spit. That’s your swimming pool’ Nicholson
