The Forgotten Behavior Equation

Can a single equation depict the whole working of our behavior? Is that simple to simplify them? No. But this equation contains everything you need to know about building good habits, shaping your behavior, and making progress in your life.

Before Lewin’s Equation became famous, most experts believed that a person’s habits and actions were a result of the type of person they were, not the surrounding conditions they were in at the time. For example: Think about the time you can’t finish your project or the time you can’t stick to your diet or the time you have trouble maintaining your exercise routine — what do you think is the reason? the dearth of will? Indolence? — these imply that our habits and actions are determined by some set of characteristics that we are born with; that our habits are fixed based on who we are.

Despite that, Lewin said something contrasting — he said, it is not just your characteristics, but also your environment that drives your behavior. Your habits are highly dependent upon context. Your environment will drive your behavior even more than your personality. In that case, you’re struggling to finish the project because you’re surrounded by bad options or an unhealthy environment. Perhaps you have trouble maintaining an exercise routine because you’re surrounded by people who don’t care about exercising and do not practice healthy lifestyle habits. Clearly, your environment has a marked influence on you, making it a challenge to overcome it and develop positive behavior.

One way to think about this from the equation is that an individual can behave in very different ways if their environment changes and, similarly, an individual can behave in very different ways in the exact same situation as they change as a person over time.

Ok. You might be asking, how exactly this information and the equation will help me to build good habits and break bad ones?

One of the intriguing aspects of Lewin’s equation is that in order to apply it, you have to accept it. Everyone reading this has the ability to change their mindset and break bad habits. Understanding and accepting this concept is the first step toward making positive behavioral changes. The second factor in Lewin’s Equation, environment, can often seem like something that happens to us rather than something we have control over. That said, there are actually quite a few strategies that you can use to change your mindset and adjust your environment to build better habits — which we will discuss in separate article.

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