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A Powerful Strategy to Help You Boost Your Willpower
Use “temptation bundling” to make your desired habits more appealing.
Katy Milkman is a behavioral scientist and professor at the Wharton School.
A few years ago, she struggled to hit the gym as often as she’d like.
So, in an attempt to change her exercise behavior, she came up with a clever strategy.
She committed to listening to her favorite audiobook novels only at the gym.
And this simple strategy worked exceptionally well.
Within a few weeks, Milkman regularly showed up at the gym five days a week.
The Conception of “Temptation Bundling”
Milkman gave her strategy the name “temptation bundling” and defined it as:
Pairing a pleasurable indulgence with a behavior that provides delayed rewards.
Then she conducted a research study(1) to put temptation bundling to the test.
With the help of her colleagues, she recruited 226 participants for a 10-week study and divided them into three groups:
- Group 1 was the control group, and they received gift cards for…
