Ep. 194: Wendy Wood - Good Habits, Bad Habits

Full PreFrontal: Exposing the Mysteries of Executive Function

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Why is it that our resolve to lose weight, give up eating desserts, and start a new exercise regimen is bound to fail? Because we all have bought into to the conventional wisdom that follow-through with a new decision is simply a matter of conscious choice and decision and ultimately this belief ends up leading us astray. Even though it’s a common human experience to want to overcome ill-desired habits and change our ways, simply chanting the mantra of the “Just Do it” or reading self-help books will not make it easy to get rid of our bad habits or make us better people.

On this episode, Provost Professor of Psychology and Business at the University of Southern California and author of the book, Good Habits, Bad Habits, Wendy Wood, discusses how the psychological sciences of habit-making, habit-breaking, and habit-reshaping relies on the interplay of decisions and unconscious factors. She highlights that to make the changes we seek, we must first unlock our habitual mind. Since Executive Function skills pertain to forming goals and persisting through time to achieve them, the success of Executive Function training lies in discovering how to tolerate the drudgery of sticking to things over and over again.

About Wendy Wood
Wendy Wood is Provost Professor of Psychology and Business at the University of Southern California and author of the book, Good Habits, Bad Habits. For the past 30 years, she has studied the nature of habits and why they are so difficult to break. Her award-winning research has appeared in over 100 scientific articles and is regularly featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, and NPR. She has consulted on habit formation and change with P&G's consumer products division, the CDC's diabetes prevention programs, the World Bank's initiative to increase hand-washing in developing nations, and the US Paper & Packaging Board's recycling program.
Websites:

• https://dornsife.usc.edu/wendywood
• http://goodhabitsbadhabits.org/

About Host, Sucheta Kamath
Sucheta Kamath, is an award-winning speech-language pathologist, a TEDx speaker, a celebrated community leader, and the founder and CEO of ExQ®. As an EdTech entrepreneur, Sucheta has designed ExQ's personalized digital learning curriculum/tool that empowers middle and high school students to develop self-awareness and strategic thinking skills through the mastery of Executive Function and social-emotional competence.

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