165. Changing Your Behaviors 101: How to Decrease Problem Behaviors & Increase Wanted Behaviors

Oct 23

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In this week's solo episode, I share some of the psychology behind behavior and explain exactly how you can change your behaviors! I discuss why changing your behavior is a lot easier than changing your emotions, why acceptance is critical when it comes to changing your behaviors and how to practice radical acceptance, how our behavioral patterns develop, the four methods of behavioral change in DBT, why you might have engaged in problem behaviors and what could have gone differently, strategies for how to increase more successful behaviors and decrease unwanted behaviors, and an exercise you can try at home to practice changing your behaviors. If you're looking to correct your problem behaviors and implement more successful ones but don't know where to start, then this episode is a MUST-LISTEN!

Mentioned In The Episode…

+ She Persisted Ep. 158

+ Chain analysis worksheet

+ The Office Pavlov prank clip

SHOP GUEST RECOMMENDATIONS: https://amzn.to/3A69GOC

About She Persisted

After a year and a half of intensive treatment for severe depression and anxiety, 20-year-old Sadie recounts her journey by interviewing family members, professionals, and fellow teens to offer self-improvement tips, DBT education, and personal experiences. She Persisted is the reminder that someone else has been there too and your inspiration to live your life worth living.

a note: this is an automated transcription so please ignore any accidental misspellings!

Sadie: [00:00:00] Welcome to She Persisted. I'm your host, Sadie Sutton, a 19 year old from the Bay Area studying psychology at the University of Penn. She Persisted is the Teen Mental Health Podcast made for teenagers by a teen. In each episode, I'll bring you authentic, accessible, and relatable conversations about every aspect of mental wellness.

You can expect evidence-based, teen approved resources, coping skills, including lots of D B T insights and education in. Each piece of content you consume, she persisted, Offers you a safe space to feel validated and understood in your struggle, while encouraging you to take ownership of your journey and build your life worth living.

So let's dive in this week on She persisted.

So, in treatment, I was doing a lot of radical acceptance around next steps, going to a therapeutic boarding school, not knowing when I would be able to go home, being in treatment in general.

There was a lot of these things that were completely outside of my control like, it was these things that had been [00:01:00] decided for me, and I had no ability to change. And it was really challenging to change the emotions around them at all.

And so that's when accepting the situation can be really effective to no longer... continue to suffer.

Hello, hello, and welcome back to She Persisted.

I'm so excited you're here today. We're going to do a short and sweet episode getting right into it on behavior change. This is a topic that is relevant to everyone listening, and it's something that I'm constantly thinking about and have on my radar when it comes to mental health and being effective in general.

If you listen to episode 158 with your TikTok therapist, he gave a phenomenal metaphor where he talked about your mental health as a car. And when we're steering, we can control the front two wheels of the car and the back two will follow, but we can't force the back two to change with the steering wheel.

The front two wheels of your car when it comes to your mental health are your behaviors and your thoughts. You can change your thoughts, you can change your behaviors. The back two wheels of the car are your emotions and your physiological. [00:02:00] Responses and those will shift as you're. Behaviors and thoughts change, but you can't just be like, I want to feel happy right now, I don't want to feel sad.

And you can't tell yourself, ugh, just heart rate, please be slower. Like, it doesn't work like that. But as we shift our emotions and our thoughts, those two will follow and we're able to see a difference there as well. And I love that metaphor. I'd never heard that before and it's really stuck with me and I feel like that's some great context for this week's solo episode about changing your behaviors, because.

For me, someone who really likes black and white and struggles with sitting with emotions And once a solution or a step by step path to solve the problem, it can be really overwhelming to think of your mental health as just your emotions and those physiological sensations. Again, not having a sense of control can be really daunting and so Focusing on behavior change and things that are contributing to your negative mental health, whether it's like your sleep routine, movement, how you're showing up in relationships, how you're coping with intense emotions, that can be a little bit more [00:03:00] black and white and give you some specific action steps to work to improve your mental health, which can give a lot of hope and

So, that is what we are talking about today and we have a bunch of worksheets from when I was at McLean. We're talking about DBT's perspective on behavior change and some of the tips learned there.

This is going to be a little psychology heavy, but I love the psychology heavy episodes, so I hope this is helpful for your mental health and changing your behaviors. if you are not familiar with DBT, DBT stands for Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, and all of DBT rests on this idea of dialectics. And dialectics are the idea that two seemingly opposing things can be true at the same time. So your lived experience and someone else's lived experience can both be true.

There are a bunch of dialectics that are at the core of DBT that you're, doing DBT with the understanding that those hold true. So you are trying your best and you [00:04:00] can do better. you might not have caused all your problems, but you're in the position of solving them. Things like that. And so, when it comes to behavior change. , there is this one philosophy that kind of underlies all of DBT, which is that we are accepting our reality as it is, and we are accepting ourselves as we are, and that's the mindfulness in DBT.

But at the same time, we're committing to change our behavior for the better. So that's the behaviorism side of things. So I feel like it's really important to flag and mention at the beginning of this episode is that. When we're working to change our behavior in DBT, that's going hand in hand with the initial acceptance of reality and acceptance of ourself, because if we don't accept where we're at, if we're not like, okay, this is my starting point.

This is how I'm feeling. This is what my life looks like. You're, the changes you're making aren't going to be effective if you're like, oh, I'm doing great, but I mean, I guess I could try to be a little bit better. It really does take that acceptance of who you are and where you're at to then make those changes, , and see [00:05:00] those shifts.

So to kind of explain the difference between mindfulness and behaviorism a little bit better, Here are some, , examples. So, technology of acceptance versus technology of change. Validation versus problem solving. Intuition versus rationality.

Paradox versus logic. Experiential versus experiential. So again, it's two sides of the same coin, and most of these things you can't do without the other. They're both important, and that's again why when we are changing our behaviors, we also are accepting where we're at and our reality as it is.

Because radical acceptance and accepting reality is such a huge part of DBT, and because it is the other side of changing your behaviors, I wanted to add a little bit more context before we get into changing behaviors itself.

So when we are accepting reality, we're presented with a number of choices we can make. There are five optional ways of responding when a serious problem comes into your life. The first is to figure out how to solve it. The second is change how you feel about the [00:06:00] problem.

Third is accept it. Four is stay miserable. Always an option. I loved being reminded of that in DBT because it does feel sometimes like you're backed into a corner and you always have a choice to stay where you're at rather than make things better. And fifth, make things worse. which is acting on impulsive urges.

So when you can't solve the problem or change your emotions about the problem, acceptance can be a really helpful way to reduce your suffering in the situation. So, in treatment, I was doing a lot of radical acceptance around next steps, going to a therapeutic boarding school, not knowing when I would be able to go home, being in treatment in general.

There was a lot of these things that were completely outside of my control that I wasn't like, well, I... am feeling frustrated by what time I'm going to bed, so let me go to bed at a different time. Like, it was these things that had been decided for me, and I had no ability to change. And it was really challenging to change the emotions around them at all.

And so [00:07:00] that's when accepting the situation can be really effective to no longer... continue to suffer. So if you're wondering, like, why would I bother accepting reality, why is that something that I should do in that situation? There's four reasons that we learn in DBT. The first is that rejecting reality does not change reality.

You can push against it, you can pretend it's not there, but that's not going to change anything, especially the situation that you're in. The second is that changing reality first requires accepting reality. So. This episode we're talking all about behavior change, and we can't change our behaviors unless we've first done that acceptance of where we're at.

Third, rejecting reality turns pain into suffering. So if you have heard on the podcast before or in life before, because this is a really common thing that people share in the mental health space, After a quick Google search, I've learned that this is actually from a Japanese poet, but I loved this. It is, pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

So we all experience pain. We're going to experience pain very frequently in our life. That's something [00:08:00] we don't have control over. And so, when we choose to reject reality, that's when pain turns into suffering. And the last reason is that refusing to accept reality can keep you stuck in unhappiness, anger, shame, sadness, bitterness, and other painful emotions. So when it comes to radical acceptance, there are a couple of things that make this difference from just accepting reality.

And radical acceptance is a really key skill in DBT and a very hard skill to master, but an amazing one to have in your toolkit. So Radical acceptance is the skills accepting the things you can't change. When we say radical, we mean complete and total accepting in the mind, heart, and body, and acceptance means seeing reality for what it is, even if you don't like it.

Acceptance can mean to acknowledge, recognize, endure, not give up, or give in, and it's when you stop fighting reality, stop throwing tantrums about reality, let go of bitterness, and it's the inverse of why me? It is instead, things are as they are. [00:09:00] And the last kind of little piece of wisdom to add here is that life can be worth living even with painful events in it. . And one way that life is worth living, even when there is this pain and suffering going on, is through radical acceptance.

To give us a little psychology foundation here on behaviors before we get into changing them, we have to understand how we define a behavior, and that is anything a person does in public or in private, including thinking, feeling, and acting. And behavioral patterns develop in one of two ways. The first is an operant behavior, which is any behavior that is reinforced or maintained because of its consequences.

Behaviors that are reinforced or rewarded will tend to continue, repeat, or become stronger. Behaviors that are punished will tend to stop or become weaker. , so when I hear that I think of habit cycles, and I feel like this is something that people talk a lot about on social media, is creating habits.

And... I'm a big proponent of creating habits and routines, [00:10:00] but I like this definition better, , that behaviors can be reinforced, rewarded, and continued, and they're not necessarily a habit. It's not necessarily on impulse that you're doing these things. You're making the decision, but it's an easier decision to make.

It's a solidified neural pathway because you've done it many times before. So, a note on operant behaviors. Reinforcement and punishment are defined by the way they influence, increase, or decrease behaviors, not by the way they're perceived. So, an event, such as being yelled at, might look like a punishment, but might act as a reinforcement. Also, what works as a reinforcer for one person, as a punishment for another person. Context must always be taken into consideration to understand the impact of events. That's operant behavior, and then respondent behavior is any automatic or reflexive behavioral system.

We are particularly interested in respondent behaviors that are learned by association. For example, fear is an automatic response to being threatened. However, if being threatened is associated with non [00:11:00] threatening events, such as seeing someone wearing a tie, then seeing someone wearing a tie might also cause fear.

So noting that operative respondent forces often work outside of awareness. A behavior that is reinforced will tend to continue even if a person is attempting to stop it. A person might not be aware of the associations that cause such strong negative responses.

So those are our two types of behaviors to be aware of, and then when we talk about behavior change in DBT, there are four methods of behavior change. So behaviors that are targeted for change are carefully analyzed. Think chain analyses, which we'll go over in this episode. We love a good chain analysis.

Once the chain of events preceding and following a target behavior a solution analysis is applied using one of four methods for changing behavior.

If the behavior relates to a skills deficit, skills training is applied. So mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and self management. And slight tangent here, this is why I'm so big on learning coping skills and doing skills education on the podcast and on social [00:12:00] media.

Because not knowing what skills you should be using in a situation can be a big cause of behavior. and working to target that skills deficit can in itself improve some of these behaviors and in turn improve the emotions, thoughts, and mental health in general. So second, if the behavior change is operant, contingency management is applied.

For example, positive and negative reinforcement, shaping, extinction, and punishment as a last resort when a behavior is self reinforcing and no alternative behavior is available to be reinforced. Third, if a behavior is responded or inhibited due to fear or guilt, exposure based procedures are applied.

For example, non reinforced imaginal or in vivo gradual exposure. We've talked about this on the podcast before. We've done episodes on exposure therapy, overcoming anxiety. We've talked about OCD, and so this is another way to change behaviors, especially when you are really avoidant of engaging in a behavior or thought or being in an environment.

And the last method of behavior change, [00:13:00] if the behavior is inhibited by faulty beliefs, assumptions, expectancies, or self tasks, cognitive modification procedures are applied.

Okay, so the chain analysis in DBT is a skill where you are looking at ineffective moments, especially behaviors, but it could also be a thought, it could be a belief system, it could be an interaction,

and the goal is to look at the scenario that occurred identify moments you could have used your skills, and then make a plan going forward, which is what that solution analysis is, that you don't make the same mistake in the future.

So, when we have a chain analysis, and I'll put a link in the show notes to what this looks like, you are examining your vulnerability factors, the trigger, the chain of events, the problem behavior, and then there are two different paths that you can take at the end. One is the consequences of the problem behavior and the consequence of using skills.

So when we are looking at a chain analysis, we have our vulnerability factors, we have our trigger, we have a [00:14:00] chain of events, a problem behavior, and then the consequences of the problem behavior.

So that's kind of describing what's happened. And then what we do after we have all the facts out on the paper, we've looked at what happened, is we start to do that solution analysis. go in and you mark when I could have used certain skills, how they would have been effective, and how that would have impacted the situation.

So when you have your chain of events, you put in different skills usages, like, I should have asked for help. I should have done deep breathing. I should have taken a step away from the situation I should have done an ice dive, etc. And then at the end of the chain, rather than doing the consequences of the problem behavior, you do the consequences of using skills.

And again, when we're talking about behavior, consequence can be positive or negative. So the consequence could have been, I improved my skills competency, and I was really proud of myself, and I didn't end up engaging in this problem behavior. So consequence doesn't necessarily have to be a negative thing.

So, like I mentioned, there's going to be a worksheet in the show notes where you can see what a chain analysis looks like, but I highly, highly, highly [00:15:00] recommend writing this out. I swear to god, for probably six months, every time I went into therapy appointments, we were just doing chain analyses.

And it was like, well, this happened again, or this argument took place, or you engaged in this behavior. Let's do a chain analysis. We could not move forward without doing the chain analyses because what had happened was ineffective. And so we had this whiteboard and we talked about, what are the vulnerability factors?

What happened? What can we do differently next time? And not only what can you do differently next time, but how can we make sure you do that and like put things in place to make it more likely that you'll use those skills? So, I highly recommend writing it out, whether it's on a piece of paper, on a whiteboard, I suppose you could type it out, but doing it where you can kind of write all over is really helpful.

And then the other thing that you can also do that's really helpful if you are not someone that puts names to your emotions really easily is identify what emotions were happening at what point and also what belief systems were at play. So as you write out the behaviors and the thoughts that took place in the chain of events, say, [00:16:00] okay, that was shame, that was guilt, that was anger, that was sadness, and identify those and also how those can relate to what skills you're using.

So to give a little bit more of an explanation on vulnerability factors, because I feel like that is one thing that isn't necessarily super clear on this, vulnerability factors is anything and everything that contributes to how you're functioning emotionally. This could be your lived experiences. So maybe you are going through your life and you had a bad memory or a bad experience with something.

So, The way that you relate to that certain trigger is different from someone else. So that is the trigger, but include your lived experience as a vulnerability factor. There are other things, like, are you sleepy? Are you hangry? Did you have a lot of caffeine, so you're more anxious? , did you have an argument with your parents, so you're already on edge emotionally?

Are you feeling insecure? Like any of these things that would make you more emotionally on edge or susceptible to being ineffective or feeling your emotions more intensely. And when you're doing this, [00:17:00] focus especially on your plea skills. Make sure you run through that list. So physical illness, ,

Exercise, avoiding mood altering substances, sleeping balanced and eating balanced. Are you doing all of those things effectively? If you're not, put it as a vulnerability factor. Think about your relationships. Think about your relationship with yourself and your self esteem and any belief systems that might already kind of be adding to this situation.

And then also any environmental factors that might be contributing. And then The other thing I'll mention I'm doing a chain analysis before we dive into these strategies for changing your behaviors is for the chain of events, you want to be super, super annoyingly specific.

So be like, I had this thought, I saw myself in the window and that made me feel negative about my body. Whatever it is, you want to be really, really specific with what happened. Like you could say, this person looked at me weirdly and then I, for some reason thought that they were judging me. Or I thought about this argument I had two weeks ago, and that made me more emotional, [00:18:00] or my heart rate started increasing.

My breathing rate was, , a lot higher. It suddenly became really hard to focus on what the other person was saying. Like, anything and everything you can think of, whether it's thoughts, emotions, behaviors, environmental factors, put those in your chain analysis. the same thing goes for the consequences of the problem behavior.

So what is going to be the immediate consequence? So if the problem behavior is that you said something rude to the person you were in an argument with, the immediate consequence is like you said something that hurt their feelings, but the long term consequence is maybe you hurt the relationship.

You have to do a repair. You feel less great about yourself because you hurt someone else's feelings. So as much details you can provide, the better. So, that is a chain analysis. We love a chain analysis. Anytime you're having a behavior where you're like, this isn't so effective, that could have been better, do a chain analysis.

It can be a super in depth one or it can be a simple one. I promise it is so, so, so easy. So now we're going to move on to strategies of increasing the probability of the behaviors that you want to engage in.[00:19:00]

So there are two different ways that we increase probability. One is reinforcements and the other is shaping. So reinforcers are consequences that increase the frequency of a behavior. So we have positive and negative reinforcements. And positive reinforcements are positive consequences. So a reward.

So you say, if I drink my entire bottle of water today, so I stay hydrated, I am going to watch my favorite TV show. Things like that. And so the behavior is increased by consequences that a person wants, likes, or will work to get. Negative reinforcements are the removal of negative events, also known as relief.

So a behavior is increase by consequences that stop or reduce something negative. The best example of this that you've probably heard if you've been in therapy is the seatbelt beeper. When you get in the car and you start driving and your seatbelt's not on, the car is like beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, put on your seatbelt and it only stops once you buckle your seatbelt in.

So that's a negative reinforcement because the removal of the negative [00:20:00] sound gets you to do something. And then shaping is reinforcing small steps towards the behavior you want. So you are reinforcing small steps that leads towards. to the goal. As a new behavior stabilizes, it requires a little bit more reinforcing, and you continue until you reach the goal behavior.

So when I think about like what behaviors I want to reinforce right now or improve the probability of it is going to bed earlier. , and because going to bed later is something that's been reinforced over a longer period of time, I'm going to want to shape the behavior.

I'm not just going to be like, Oh, perfect. I fixed my sleep by going to bed early one night. I'm going to have to slowly shape that behavior and reinforce it to make sure it's consistent and lasts. So, when I turn my electronics off at a certain time, when I shower and get ready for bed at a certain time, when I...

do my work earlier in the day, so that I'm not staying up late to get things done. When I read a book before bed, instead of watching TV, like, all of these little, tiny behavior changes that I'm making, I'm gonna want to [00:21:00] reinforce, because it's shaping the larger behavior of going to bed early. And that also goes to the morning routine, like, did I get up at the time I wanted to, so I wasn't sleeping in and it wasn't harder to fall asleep?

Was I working out and getting movement in, so I was more tired? Did I drink caffeine during the day, so I stayed up and didn't take a nap? Things like that. And then the last thing to mention when it comes to increasing the probability of behaviors you want is timing counts. So reinforce the behavior immediately after it occurs.

And when shaping a new behavior, at first reinforce every instance of the behavior. Once a behavior is established, you can gradually start to reinforce only some of the time. Which if you have taken a psychology class, you've heard all of this before, but it's very helpful to think about because even when I was like thinking about the sleep example, I'm like, okay, I'll myself after a couple of days. Like again, that doesn't work as a reinforcement because it's not right after it happened.

And the last thing that is on this dbt worksheet, this is kind of funny, but it's also very true. And it's that caution when you vary [00:22:00] reinforcement behavior comes fear. Behavior becomes very hard to stop. So having that varying reinforcement schedule means that the behavior is pretty consistent at that point.

And so just not reinforcing the behavior isn't going to stop you from going to bed earlier or whatever the behavior is that you're increasing. So now we're going to do the flip side of behavior change, which is strategies for decreasing or stopping unwanted behaviors. So we have three ways that we can stop and decrease behaviors.

The first is extinction. The second is satiation. Which sounds, I know, I know that's how you say it because it's like satiate, but satiation is not a form of the word I've ever heard before. And the third is punishment. So, extinction. This is when you stop an ongoing reinforcement of a behavior. So, extinction will first lead to a burst of behavior and then to decrease the behavior. I feel like a good example of this is to think about a dog. , our dogs get really excited whenever we get home and whenever we open the door, we're like, Hi, Piper!

Hi, Posy! [00:23:00] We're so excited to see you! We're so glad you're here! Like, petting them, giving them so much attention. But if we didn't reinforce them coming to the door and we just ignored them every time they got so excited to see us, they probably wouldn't come to the door anymore. They'd be like, well, they don't really care that we're here, excited to see them and greeting them.

They're just ignoring us. And so at first they'd probably keep going to the door and still wanting to get attention, and then eventually they would stop. doing that. So thinking of animals is a really great way to think about behavior change. I had a therapist say that to me one time and it's very, very true.

And then satiation is providing relief or what is wanted before the behavior occurs. So satiation reduces motivation for the behavior and thus reduces its frequency. So we are talking about unwanted behaviors. One of my biggest unwanted behaviors is napping. I'm a big napper and it's not effective for me. And so the relief and what is wanted is to feel rested, to not feel tired anymore. So if I drink coffee [00:24:00] And then the third way to stop and decrease unwanted behaviors is punishment, so aversive consequences that decrease a behavior. Behaviors are decreased by consequences the person dislikes or will work to avoid. So I, this is so funny, but before I was doing this podcast episode, it was like, I just need to record this and I can't keep procrastinating.

So I'm going to put on my tennis shoes and I am not going to put my tennis shoes in my bed. So if I'm on my tennis shoes, I'm not going to lay in bed and watch a TV show. I'm instead just going to go eat my stack and podcast episode. And it worked. So, , there's that consequence of something a person dislikes, we'll work to avoid.

I work to avoid putting my shoes on the bed and even doing the work of taking them off because I was like, we're focused, we're recording the podcast, it's getting done. The next note here is that behaviors decrease by consequences that stop or reduce something positive. So, the classic example that comes to my mind is when a parent is like, I'm going to take your phone. A kid will do [00:25:00] anything to avoid getting their phone taken away because it's reducing something that they see as positive. And then the third one is that behavior is decreased when something the person wants is withheld until harmful effects or problem behaviors are corrected or overcorrected.

Same example, having your phone taken away. So, you can understand like how these are done from a parenting perspective and externally influenced, but it can also be really helpful to use these things when changing your own behaviors, especially when you're not totally motivated or aren't able to stick to these goals you're setting for yourself.

So the notes here is , to be sure that the punishment is specific, time limited, and fits the quote unquote crime. Avoid a punitive tone. Let the consequences do the work. And if punishment occurs, don't undo it. Don't add an arbitrary punishment. So again, this does sound like very parenting language, but we are focusing on changing our own behavior.

So when it says avoid a punitive tone, if you took a nap, you're not going to be like, Oh my gosh, you are so lazy. I can't believe you did that. , you instead are going to focus on the consequences, which is. probably you missed [00:26:00] doing something you had planned to do during the day because you took a nap or you don't have as much time to get your work done because you took a nap or whatever it is, or it's harder to fall asleep tonight and you're no longer on track for that larger goal.

and then the last thing I will add here is to be sure to reinforce alternative behaviors to replace the behavior you want stopped. One of my favorite examples of this is when I was scrolling on TikTok before bed, and I'm sure we all do this. It is terrible if you're trying to fall asleep, and best case scenario.

I probably would have been like, I'm going to do a meditation before bed. But seeing as how I was falling asleep was scrolling on TikTok, that wasn't going to be a natural alternative to the behavior I was currently engaging in. So the swap that we worked on therapy was like, okay, you're going to turn off your phone.

You're going to set the alarm. You're going to put on the other side of the You're not going to be on the phone anymore. And you're going to do something that is less engaging. And you're gonna watch a TV show before bed, which still is on a screen. Maybe it's not the perfect end goal, but you are replacing that behavior of scrolling on [00:27:00] TikTok with an alternative one.

And it worked. It definitely helps me fall asleep more quickly. And then now I sometimes do a TV show before bed. Sometimes I read. Sometimes I lay there. I Again, sleep is always a behavioral conundrum, but again, replacing the behaviors rather than just expecting yourself to continue on without a replacement, , is definitely important to remember.

And then some last notes here. Extinction and punishment weaken or suppress behavior, but they don't eliminate it. Extinction and punishment do not teach a new behavior. To keep behavior from resurfacing, reinforce an alternative behavior. Punishment only works when the punisher is or is likely to be present, and punishment leads to avoidance of the person punishing.

So again, this also relates to when someone else is the one that is externally causing these behavioral changes, but it's helpful to also think of when you are doing this yourself. And so, Like we talked about, those are ways to decrease his behaviors, but it also is in tandem with increasing the [00:28:00] probability of the behaviors you want to occur.

so now we're going to talk about a couple of tips to use these behavior changing strategies effectively. And, I threw a lot of words and examples out there, so I just want to kind of go over quickly what your goal is and what the consequence will be. So, if your goal is to increase your behavior, you are going to reinforce.

You're going to add a positive consequence or you're going to remove an adversive consequence. If your goal is to weaken behavior or extinguish the behavior, you're going to remove the reinforcer or provide relief before the unwanted behavior. If you're going to suppress the behavior or punish it, you want to add an adversive consequence or remove a positive consequence.

And then, another thing worth mentioning here is that not all consequences are created equal. So one person's poisoning can be another person's passion. Context counts. So a reinforcer in one situation can be a punishment in another. Quantity counts. If a reinforcer is too little or too much, it won't work.

Natural consequences work best, so let them do the work when possible.

I what [00:29:00] consequence the person would work to get or work to avoid. And you could do this yourself. Journal it out and just write down a list. Like, what am I motivated to work towards? What do I want? What is in my Amazon cart? Things like that. And what are things that I don't want to do? What are things I want to avoid?

So for me, we gave that example. I don't want my shoes in my bed, so I will work to avoid putting them on my bed. And then observe changes in behavior when a consequence is applied to see if it's effective or not. You can do a little bit of trial and error. And then the last thing to mention here is that behavior learning in one situation may not happen in another situation.

So if you go home for winter break, you master your sleep schedule and you come back to school and you're like, well, I am back to going to bed really late. It's because it doesn't always transfer over. A lot of these behaviors are very dependent on our environments, so it's really important to practice and reinforce these behaviors in the environment that you're going to use them in.

And this is one reason that I am such a proponent of doing outpatient treatment and doing treatment in the environment that you're going to be living in or if you're going to residential, doing trips home and being [00:30:00] really engaged with your family because if you're at a boarding school in the middle of nowhere and you go home one time the entire year, what happens when you graduate and you go home and you've never been in that environment before?

The skills don't always transfer. So in treatment, in junior behaviors, making sure that you're in the environment that you're going to be using these new skills in is super important.

And the last thing that we're going to do is I'm going to give you a little exercise to change your behavior and to ask yourself these questions. You can do this yourself because I know we threw out a lot of concepts and ideas here, but I want to give you a really specific exercise and set of steps you can do to do this yourself effectively.

So the first thing we're going to do is identify the behavior you want to increase and the reinforcer you're going to use. So Write that down. When I filled this out in 2018, the behavior I wanted to increase was my attendance, and I was going to reinforce that by doing my DVD player time and watching Gossip Girl.

And then, for someone else, the behavior I wanted to increase was validation, which I think was from my parents, and the reinforcement I was going to use was saying thank you [00:31:00] and showing my appreciation. And then the second step is going to be to describe the situation where you used the reinforcement.

So for myself, I used it three days in classes. I was working on attending classes and being present. And then for someone else, I used it when I was visiting with my dad. And then the outcome, what did I observe? For myself, I was more motivated and felt positive when getting the reward. We love Gossip Girl.

Who doesn't love Gossip Girl? And then for someone else, I felt positive. They appreciated it and continued to validate. And then, how did you feel afterward? I felt good. And would you say or do something differently next time? If so, what? I said no, but if there was room for growth, you can put that there.

And you can apply this to any situation.

And the reason why it is such an in depth approach, and that there's all these different points of reflection and mindfulness, whether it's the chain analysis of the behavior itself, and then working to reinforce or decrease these behaviors, and then doing this awareness reflection after [00:32:00] the fact, is that if we're not aware of our behaviors, we can't change them.

We have that really important awareness and acceptance at the beginning, then we do the behavior change, and then we reflect and see what works and adjust if it's not effective. So. That was our mini masterclass on increasing and decreasing your behaviors. I think this is just something that's helpful to be aware of and have in your toolkit because we all have to increase and decrease our behaviors.

It's essential to functioning and if you are struggling with an aspect of your mental health, it Behaviors probably fit in there somewhere, and changing the behaviors can help with the emotions and thoughts. So, I hope that was helpful. I'm going to be doing this this week with my sleep schedule. Maybe I'll do a little TikTok vlog process and tell you how it goes.

But, these are things that work. There are so many studies of behavior reinforcement. We have probably all heard of Pavlov's dogs, where he trained them to salivate at the sound of the bell. It is these exact behavior principles that made that happen. There is an amazing skit in The Office where Jim does that to Dwight with mints. [00:33:00] Go watch it. Highly recommend.

And then the other scientist you've almost certainly heard of is B. F. Skinner, because he was another huge behaviorist. So, same philosophies used on animals and on humans. They work. They're very effective. And if you are struggling to change your thoughts and emotions, and behavior fits into that puzzle.

So I hope you enjoyed our little psychology lesson. I'm thinking I'm going to do a Q& A for the next solo episode, so send me a DM on Instagram, send me an email. I will put up a box as we get closer to that recording, but yeah, I hope you guys enjoyed and I will talk to you later this week.

Sadie: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of she persisted. If you enjoyed, make sure to share with a friend or family member, it really helps out the podcast. And if you haven't already leave a review on apple podcasts or Spotify, you can also make sure to follow along at actually persisted podcast on both Instagram and Tik TOK, and check out all the bonus resources, [00:34:00] content and information on my website.

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