We talk a lot about changing behaviors, but do we understand why it's so hard to start a new behavior?? Let's look at why it's never easy and how we can use the power of marketing and communication to motivate action!

1. WHY STARTING A NEW
BEHAVIOR IS SO DAMN HARD!!
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2. Habitat
degradation
& loss
Pollution
Destruction
of natural
resources
Over-
harvesting
of
resources
An
abundance
of waste
Excessive
use of
resources
Our planet today is facing a variety of threats, such as:
And the list goes
on and on…

3. Eat less meat
Reduce food waste
Choose more
carbon friendly
transportation
Not use plastic
straws
Use reusable
water bottles
In order to combat these threats, we need people to do things like:
This list also goes
on and on…

4. Behavior Change
Doing any of those things in the list requires
people to do something new and/or do
something differently than they’ve done it
before.
This means, it’s all about behavior change.

5. And the #1 thing I’ve
learned in my years
working on this topic and
as a human myself is
that…

6. Behavior Change
is
NOT
easy

7. Even when it seems like it
should be.

8. BEHAVIOR CHANGE
GOAL:
BRING RE-USABLE
SHOPPING BAGS EVERY
TIME YOU GO GROCERY
SHOPPING
Let’s look at one behavior change example to explore why it’s difficult to
do a new behavior.
I’m going to use a behavior that I’ve been working on doing myself and that
could be considered an “easy” behavior change to make:

9. They don’t know that
plastic bags are bad for
the environment
They don’t have
access to reusable bags
They don’t care enough
People are lazy
People have a hard time
remembering to bring
their reusable bags
We often make a lot of assumptions about why people are
currently not doing this behavior and why they continue to use
plastic bags. Some of these may be right, but often it’s not as
simple as a knowledge, access, attitude or laziness issue.

10. forget reusable
bags during
40%
of grocery trips
60%
reported using
plastic bags
during last
grocery trip
61%
prefer reusable
bags
Edelman Berland Reusable Bag Survey, 2014
In fact, research shows
that most people want to
and prefer to use
reusable bags
But there are other challenges, like forgetting to bring them and
underestimating how many bags they need to bring.

11. “Easy” behavior to adopt
Relatively low-cost/free
Enviro benefits are known
Preference for reusable exists
In many ways this behavior is still relatively easy to do. It’s not asking for an
entirely new behavior than what people do normally, like carrying groceries in
a bag.
If awareness and
preferences are
there, and people
have access to the
bags – then what’s
the hold up?!?!

12. Difficult to remember
Unclear personal benefit
Conflicting reports creates
skepticism
Can get messy = inconvenient
# needed hard to know
The truth is – this is a behavior that ends up being more complex than it seems,
especially since we haven’t given the audience the right reasons to do a different
behavior.

13. As conservationists, these may seem
like small and insufficient reasons to
not do a behavior.
They may even sound like excuses.
But they represent real obstacles to
achieving behavior change that we
must recognize and overcome.

14. Knowing that it’s so damn hard to make a
change, there are some things we can do as
communicators to make the change easier
and more compelling…

15. WHAT IT TAKES TO MAKE A CHANGE
People must know what you want
them to do
Unless you tell people specifically what to
do, then they’re likely not going to do
anything.
People need to know the benefits
We’re a selfish species and we need to
know “what’s in it for me?” before we
take a risk.
#1
#2

16. WHAT IT TAKES TO MAKE A CHANGE
We are motivated by what others
around us are doing and how we feel
doing the behavior. But information does
not equal behavior change.
Confidence and Ease is critical
Developing a new habit is hard. If we
encounter resistance or failure to our
initial effort, then we may not try again.
#3
#4

17. With this knowledge under your belt, I expect to see
less of this moving forward

18. and more of this.

19. I run training workshops
ranging from 3 hours to 3 days
on topics like this and more.
Learn more at .com and
reach out to book your workshop today!
brooke@brooketully.com