Coaching practices for Choice Architecture Remove Temptation

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Choice Architecture Remove Temptation, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• The temptation is right there every single day
• The thing that derails me is always one tap or one arm’s reach away, and I lose to it the same way every single day
• I burn through all my willpower resisting the temptation that’s sitting right in front of me
• There’s one thing I cave to every single time it’s within reach
• The thing I’m trying to cut is just too easy

Practices that may help

1. Engineer the temptation out of reach
   Don’t out-wait the temptation — arrange your environment so the choice rarely arises.
   Delayed Gratification, Made Practical
2. Remove the option entirely
   Delete the temptation from your environment so resisting it is never required.
   Precommitment Devices (Ulysses Contracts)
3. Remove or modify the cue rather than resist the response
   Eliminating or changing the environmental stimulus is more effective than relying on willpower to resist it.
   Stimulus Control, Made Practical
4. Make an irrevocable decision about a recurring temptation
   Remove the choice entirely in the moment of highest temptation by deciding now, permanently.
   Commitment Contracts, Made Practical
5. Add friction to unwanted behaviors
   Inserting even a small obstacle between you and an unwanted behavior meaningfully reduces how often it happens.
   Environment Design for Behavior Change
6. Write an if–then plan for your most predictable temptation
   "If I feel the urge to [temptation], then I will [alternative action] instead."
   If–Then Planning, Made Practical
7. Choice Architecture, Made Practical
   Choice architecture — the arrangement of options in a decision environment — powerfully biases outcomes through default effects, ordering, salience, and framing. Thaler and Sunstein showed this is true whether or not anyone designed it deliberately, which means you can redesign your environment to bias yourself toward better choices.
8. Reduce the demand on willpower through environment design
   The most reliably self-disciplined people resist temptation less — they encounter it less.
   The Willpower Instinct: What Self-Control Actually Is
9. Design a bundle where the want is only available during the should
   Make the temptation exclusively accessible during the healthy behavior — restriction is the active ingredient.
   Temptation Bundling, Made Practical
10. Change the default option in your environment to the healthy choice
    Restructure defaults so the healthy behavior happens unless you actively opt out.
    Environment Design for Behavior Change

Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.