Can I Experiment On Myself?

I am going to be both Pavlov and Pavlov’s dog. I’ve been interested in the development of good habits for a while. I’ve read some of the best “self-help” type books I can get my hands on, and I’m ready to try to work on my writing habit by combining two somewhat related techniques. I’m sure I’m not the first to try this, I’m just hoping it works out for me.

Ivan Pavlov was a Soviet physiologist, but most people know him for his dog. He showed that dogs could be conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell if it was constantly present when they were given food. Soon, Pavlov didn’t even need the food present and the sound alone made his dog drool. I’m not trying to get myself to salivate at dinner, but I thought it would be healthy to condition myself to write consistently.

If I present myself with some stimulus at some point in my writing phase, that stimulus may help me get into the flow of writing. I didn’t want to use a bell like Pavlov, so I tried to look to the other senses. I’m already looking at a screen when I write, and I’m always listening to music. Food was off limits because I didn’t want to eat while writing, but I figured smell could work.

Jordan Belfort, the Wolf of Wall Street, took the psychological concept of “anchoring”, and figured he could use it to manipulate his emotional state in a given situation. Classic anchoring is a bias we all have when presented with certain information; think of the first impression you have about someone or something.

Now, Belfort mainly uses his idea to put him in the mood to speak at a conference or to make a sale, but it can really used for whenever you want to manipulate your own emotional state. I’ve used it before to put myself in a social mood, and it was effective from what I could tell.

His idea, which he calls “Olfactory Anchoring”, was to get a first impression with a scent that appealed to him and then reapply that scent whenever he was in a confident or happy mood. The idea is, after time, the scent would associate with the emotional state and he could trigger that state by smelling that scent. I have no idea if he was the first to come up with the idea, but he is the name that is most attached.

I’m planning to use them both to my advantage. I ordered some frilly Gardenia hand lotion from Amazon because it’s my favorite flower, and I’m only going to use it after I’ve completed my writing for the day. Hopefully on the days that I don’t have motivation to write, I’ll be able to take a whiff of the lotion and enter a productive emotional state.

Ideally, I would like to be able to write because I enjoy doing so. Some days the energy just isn’t there though, whether it’s because I’m depressed or just not hearing the call of the muses. I’ve been told it’s not a good idea to force yourself to write, but that’s not what I’m trying to do. I’m attempting to trick myself into writing because I know it’s what is best for my soul.

You can try out this process for yourself if you have trouble developing certain habits. A lot of the habit gurus also say that you should start small. B.J. Fogg wrote a whole book about it. I’ve been in the habit of writing a sentence a day or a paragraph a day because at least I’m writing. Going to get the mail is a lot easier than running a mile, but if you do it every day, you’ll have the energy for that mile eventually.