From debilitating procrastination to finding a process that works and passing a long-awaited professional exam.
A three-minute voicenote had appeared on my phone from a client I hadn't heard from in weeks. Good news or crisis, I couldn't tell. And then it became clear: “840 out of 1,000”. We’d developed a strategy to help him get to this moment. He'd passed his professional exam.
Months earlier, this same man couldn't open the course textbook. It wasn’t down to laziness, or a sense of hopelessness, but study paralysis. Fear of failure had led him to wait for perfect conditions, which led to no action at all, which only let the fear grow bigger. It’s a familiar loop for anyone who's ever procrastinated on something that actually matters to them.
So we ran one habit experiment at a time. The advantage of an experiment over a goal is that there's no success or failure, only data. This approach meant he could drop the shame that usually comes with “failing” to study. We followed the behaviour-change principles I had trained in under BJ Fogg. His study time would be just seven minutes a day, six days out of seven. We agreed one key principle: don't break the chain.
“I was impressed with myself on Monday when I didn't want to start, and I went and did it anyway”, he told me partway through. “It doesn't matter if I pass or fail – getting into the habit of doing the study each day is what matters.”
The experiment worked and he passed. But the bigger shift was the one he described himself: he no longer procrastinates, waiting for the perfect scenario, but takes action. He's since carried that same process into other parts of his life, applying the same small-experiment approach well beyond the exam that started it.
He was never broken. He was simply stuck in a loop he hadn't yet understood – and once he could see it, he could change it.
“The transferable nature of Rebecca's training by BJ Fogg means it can be applied to other stuff, which will yield other benefits.”
