Behavior change can be bewilderingly difficult to achieve, and just trying can quickly become the work of the weary. However, I submit, much of the struggle arises from how we conceive what is changing. The received view is that behavior is what follows from the intentions of a rational, self-determining agent; to initiate change, we simply need more will, more discipline. In contrast, the practice I outline here, ecobehavioral design (EBD), implies a different take. From the EBD perspective, the individual in interaction with their environment is construed as a complex adaptive system, an organizational unity of diverse though interdependent parts that self-organize to meet adaptive needs, where behavior is a relational term that describes the attunement between embodied subject and changing milieu. Like the tuning pegs on a violin, our behaviors turn in the space between harmony and chaos, the space of dissonance, mostly returning us to the consonance of familiar tunings, but sometimes, when adaptivity demands, settling upon novel ones. The future behavior of any complex system, not least us, is virtually impossible to predict, though with some understanding of their dynamics, tight enough feedback, and an iterative design process, I believe individualized change can become relatively reliable. In what follows I give a taste of the primary elements in this practice and conclude by enumerating some surprising benefits.

Niching

A starting point for any EBD is to ask, How can we shepherd the self-organizing dynamics of this system—this individual person in this particular niche—for the emergence of behaviors that lead to desirable outcomes? The short answer is micro-niching, or niching for short. You will be familiar with a Beta version of this process, when, for example, you set your morning alarm to get you out of bed. If one was to then typify niching 1.0, on the other hand, the iPhone app Sleep Cycle is a good model. Sleep Cycle tracks your sleep using the phone’s microphone to wake you during a phase of light sleep, when one is not groggy and rapt in profound contempt, but refreshed and ready for rising. This differs from your normal alarm—and differentiates Beta from 1.0—by leveraging conditions at both poles of the system, shepherding the self-organization of the system rather than coercing it, such as the normal alarm is wont to do. Such a dynamic, leveraging both poles of the intra-action, guides best practice when niching.

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This article first appeared in issue 1 of The Side View Journal. Purchase your own copy here. 

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At its core, niching is about the design and enaction of constellations of constraints that apply selective pressures at opportune times. A constraint, for our purposes here, is anything that makes a behavior more likely. Many types of constraint exist, though herein we will rely only upon two primary ones: exogenous and endogenous constraints. Exogenous constraints include alarm clocks, but also gravity, the myriad of movable and immovable objects in our environments, the rules and norms of friendships, cultures, and workplaces, and even other people. Conversely, being in a light sleep phase is an example of an endogenous constraint, which also include things like genes, capacities, knowledge, bodily habits, affectual states, available energy, and so on.

At any point in time our behavior is shaped by a myriad of nested exogenous and endogenous constraints. Niching, then, is the transforming of constraints: the alignment and realignment of exogenous constraints that aid the emergence of desired behaviors and foment changes in endogenous constraints that similarly aid those same behaviors. Analogous to how a DJ, by carefully adjusting the faders on a mixer, can transition from one record to another while keeping the volume stable, niching is about transitioning from exogenous dominance to endogenous dominance, while keeping a desired behavior stable. This transition, roughly speaking, is what we normally think about in terms of establishing habits.

Within relatively stable constellations of constraints, repeating behaviors give rise to habitual structures at multiple timescales, from simple habits to what I call sense-making frames. We experience simple habits as the kinds of behavioral patterns that arise through repetition and draw us into their enactment. Sense-making frames, on the other hand, operate analogously to the rhythm section of a jazz group, supplying a normative background that motivates certain modes of improvisation and against which those improvisations make sense. In the everyday, such improvisations take the form of behaviors, regimes of attention, affects, appraisals, and even thoughts and imaginings. However, just as the rhythm section will hold a groove so long as the soloist plays within its bounds, and will change things up when she moves in a more interesting direction, the sense-making frames within which we jam everyday are both reproduced and transformed by our improvisatory acts.

My point is that all attention, behavior, affect, thought, and imagination participates in the reproduction or transformation of constraints from which it emerges, reinforcing or modifying existing frames and habits, or begetting new ones. In other words, to act is to act upon the conditions for acting. Changing any behavior therefore requires transforming some constellation of constraints over some period to stabilize different habits and sense-making frames. In sum, niching is a matter of designing and enacting some constellation of constraints to make a desired behavior more likely over multiple repetitions and thus more likely to stabilize as a habit. Effectively, what we are doing is leveraging the existing self-organizing dynamics of the system in a way that stewards in new behaviors. Niching, then, is not a matter of making change, for change makes itself, but of cultivating difference.

Distilling

Niching entails numerous phases, including design, implementation, and review, though only design will be expanded here, beginning with its first component: distilling. Distilling arises from recognising that any desired outcome can be recast in terms of some actions carried out over some period. An outcome is anything from writing a blog post to dismantling the patriarchy; however, as a working example we will stick with something relatively simple, wanting greater mobility in your body.

And so, we distil by asking questions like, What behaviors over what period of time will lead to greater mobility? The answer is of course: Stretching over many years. Notice that already your task has changed. How can you become more mobile is now how can you cultivate the habit of stretching? As I noted already, a principle of niching is that we focus on enacting the conditions necessary for the emergence of a behavior and not the behavior itself. Thus, a second pass is required, and so we come to ask, Under what conditions are you most likely to carry out the desired behaviors? In this case, the answer would be something like, When I have enough time, energy, and somewhere to practice. And so, you surmise, you will join a yoga class and go daily before work.

For most of us, however, this level of novel output in terms of the demands on routine and physical expenditure is not likely seen as adaptive, but as threatening. You will adapt but not in the direction of your desired outcome. This is called a contra-adaptation. The self-organizing processes regulating such adaptations often manifest as arguments about why all these other things over here—things not related to the desired outcome—are suddenly so much more important. And so another pass is required, this time of the behavior itself. A rule of thumb at this point, one indicating how measly our intuitions for effective change are, is if it doesn’t feel like it’s not worth doing, it’s probably not worth doing. To get the self-organizing dynamics on the side of cultivating difference, which all things being equal have a strong bias towards homoeostasis, you must commit to less than you initially feel capable of—even embarrassingly, humblingly, less than you feel capable of. In short, you must commit to cultivating a seed behavior.

The question then becomes, What is the humblingly small seed behavior you are going to cultivate? The answer, in this case, is something very basic, something like, One set of simple stretches each morning before going to work. Notice the transformation undergone through distilling and consider how it vibes with the self-organizing dynamics undergirding your behavior: You have gone from get more mobile and total ambiguity, to years of stretching and a daunting task, to morning yoga and unwelcome stress, to a tiny seed that feels almost too easy to be worthwhile. The key understanding here is that any breach of habituated homoeostatic boundaries produces a kind of dissonance that is traded off against the consonance of the novel configuration. When consonance outweighs dissonance, as when enacting a seed behavior, this signals an adaptive direction, and thus the self-organizing dynamics adjust to include the novel behavior, making it more likely to stabilize as a habit. At this point we can begin drafting, or designing the conditions for the emergence of the seed behavior.

Drafting Stage 1: Adding and Subtracting

Besides the sun, gravity, metabolic processes, skin, bones, and the like, other people with whom we associate and the social milieus they enact are the primary exogenous constraints shaping our behavior. For instance, Christakis and Fowler (2007) analysed generational data on the residents of Framingham, Massachusetts making the case that the best predictor of the behavior of any individual is the behavior of the other individuals closest to them in the network. For example, if your five closest friends overeat, you likely overeat too. When drafting, then, other people are typically our most powerful constraints. However, just drafting with other people has real limitations. You simply may not have access to the necessary people needed to achieve your desired outcome, or getting yourself in front of the right people may itself be the outcome of some prior change. We will focus here on drafting in the absence of others, as it applies most generally.

Drafting, like distilling, has many layers, but starts with the subtraction and addition of constraints. We typically subtract negative constraints, or those that obstruct our seed behavior and make other behaviors more likely, such as taking a piece of furniture out of the room in which you hope to do your practice; and add positive constraints, or those that make the seed behavior more likely. The spectrum of positive constraints one might choose in a micro-niche is vast, and of varying consequence. For instance, if your actual life depended upon stabilizing your seed behavior, could you? No doubt you could. But micro-niching with such constraints is, obviously, not very practical. In our example, practical positive constraints might include setting a reminder on your phone, ensuring the heat is on in the morning, and learning your sequence of stretches by heart.

Drafting Stage 2: Cornerstones, Cascades, and Chains

You may have noticed our seed behavior is sprouting other behaviors and so you might be wondering, Doesn’t this lead to an infinite regress? It can, but the way to halt such regress is with what are called cornerstones, cascades, and chains. A cornerstone is an existing behavior enacted regularly that can provide an opportunity to put in place the constraints for the emergence of the seed behavior at some later time. Such constraints are referred to as cascades, and the act of pairing them with cornerstones is what is meant by chaining. Examples of cornerstones include things like a weekly plan or review, a daily checklist or journal, setting a nightly alarm, even brushing your teeth. The logic here concerns leveraging simple behaviors at times of low energy for the emergence of more complex behaviors at times of higher energy. Chaining is common practice in many approaches to behavior change and is recommended for seed behaviors as much as it is for establishing cascades. With these elements in play, we can now draft your micro-niche.

The seed behavior in our example is one set of simple stretches daily. You get up at the same time everyday, and so you decide to chain your seed behavior to the shower you have before work. Thus, you draft the micro-niche that makes it more likely, with a constellation of three constraints: (1) set a reminder in your phone to go off when you are having breakfast, prior to your shower; (2) learn the sequence by heart; and (3) given the cold mornings, have the heating on for half an hour before your shower. The first you can do straight away by simply setting up your phone. For the second you schedule a slot when you know you will be free to come up with a short routine. For the third you setup a cascade each evening, as the timer on your heater can only be set 24 hours ahead, thus you chain setting the heating to the existing cornerstone of setting your Sleep Cycle alarm. It’s as simple as that. When seed behaviors don’t emerge it is mostly a matter of adjusting exogenous constraints until they do. Remember, there is a spectrum of constraints, from adding a reminder to betting your life, and with some tweaking you can always find the ones that work for you. Rewards too, themselves a kind of constraint, can also be introduced, but if the design is good and your outcome something you genuinely desire, enacting the seed behavior should be sufficiently rewarding.

Heightening Our Sensitivities

Spiritual adepts sometimes withdraw to secluded retreats wherein they undergo prolonged periods of silence. Amid such silence and stillness, even tiny flutters in experience can be traced more faithfully as they reverberate and amplify throughout ones being, and the bond between events at various intervals can be more keenly discerned. Buddhists talk about such relations in terms of laws of cause and effect, or karma. The practice of ecobehavioral design, even without retreat, can have a similar effect, heightening our sensitivities to how exogenous constraints, such as other people or certain environments, shape our experience, but also to how endogenous constraints in the form of moods, thoughts, affects, appraisals, and so on reverberate and feed into this or that outcome. With practice, we can become adept at drafting the right exogenous constraints and amplifying the right endogenous constraints, stabilizing for ourselves frames of action and attention that support the emergence of responsive dispositions rather than reactive ones.

In other words, we can cultivate for ourselves a regenerative behavioral ecology. Practice makes apparent a view of self as unpredictable, self-organizing, and inexorably entangled with historical and present conditions, including physical states, environments and technologies, and other people. At the same time, practices help us develop better intuitions for what is changing, intuitions that scale even to the level of groups, and can provide a better sense of the challenges of intentional change, and thus, ultimately, for leaving us more forgiving, more caring, and more understanding. Practising EBD, in other words, has the capacity to up-regulate our empathic capacities, for ourselves and those around us.

Concluding Remarks: Collective Sense-Making

In much the same way that habits and frames stabilize at the individual level, with recurrence there is a transformation from exogenous normative constraints to endogenous normative constraints in social systems too. Within social interactions we attune to and subsequently enhabit the norms of our environments—particularly those of our social milieus—whereafter they recede into the background and serve as the normative frames guiding both our individual and collective sense-making. There is some genuine sense then, through such dynamics, that we are lived through not only by our individual histories, imagined futures, and situated presents; but also by our friends, partners, and colleagues; and the groups, institutions, and even ideas with which we stabilize our worlds. We are, in short, multiply animated.

Here, some important questions arise, including, What people, groups, institutions, and ideas animate us presently, and are they merely parasitic or are they those undergirding a more harmonious future for life on this planet? Can we tip the balance in favour of the latter, so we reverberate on their behalves and amplify their causes? And, if they don’t yet exist, how can we prepare ourselves to be the conditions for their emergence? Battling for sovereignty over our attention and action is a skill exercised on fields whose boundaries extend into all aspects of our lives, and where reactivity rather than responsiveness is all too often the emergent dynamic. Those who seek to entrain our resources for their own monetary or political gain are highly skilled and armed to the teeth, and thus it is inevitable we will sometimes lose to their attention-grabbing techniques. Practising EBD opens our awareness to how exogenous and endogenous constraints combine to shape our behavior and can serve as an inoculation, bolstering our immunity against the click-bait nudgers and parasites, rendering us less viable, and less vulnerable, hosts.

The unprecedented structural changes needed to mitigate the worst of present forecasts are in reciprocal relationship with unprecedented individual changes needed of the subjects willing to animate them, but the kinds of things we are are not the kinds of things that make unprecedented changes readily, at least not until exogenous constraints demand it, and then it is already too late. And so, in becoming animated by the ideas and institutions that undergird a more sustainable and regenerative future, we will do well to remember that even a forest of towering redwoods must grow from a few small seeds. There are canyons to be crossed, but by practising ecobehavioral design we can recognize that canyons can be distilled into crevices, and thus, with self-organizing dynamics in tow, we can shoulder our responsibilities effectively. If there is one change I could recommend you make, one difference I might suggest you cultivate, it is the change of making change, the difference of cultivating difference. Downstream of that, every other one flows, it is simply a matter of design, implementation, review, design . . .