In this video, Wharton professor Katherine Milkman explains how to motivate people to move beyond their past failures and achieve their goals.
The idea is that to get us over the hump of inaction, we may want to bundle “should” activities with things we have a strong desire to do. Temptation bundling is a tool we can use to help ourselves—we know our own guilty pleasures—or that a manager could help us use by acting as a monitor or referee. It can allow us to solve two problems at once, by reducing the amount of time we spend indulging in temptations while simultaneously increasing the time spent doing the things we should. In that way, it’s another strategy that can be used to help us achieve our goals.
Why do we need to play mind games to do what we “should” do? Are we so spoiled and undisciplined that we have to give ourselves treats to be responsible adults? If that is so, no wonder the younger generation (s) feel they need a trophy for showing up at work.