Designing Habits and Cultures That Stick: decrease no-show rate, increase performance, make New Year resolutions last.

Plans don’t fail because you’re lazy; they fail because life pulls your attention away at the exact moment choices are made.

Today we explore a practical, research-backed shift: deliver the right reminder at the right time so the goal you cared about is still vivid at action time. From slashing no-shows at early-morning events to nudging better hiring decisions and strengthening everyday habits, we map out how simple, timely cues can drive behavior change without adding complexity.


You’ll learn how to build your own just-in-time nudges: short, identity-linked prompts before the moment of action. We also tackle why resolutions fade and how a daily why makes consistency easier than you think.

Whether you lead teams, organize events, or want your personal habits to finally stick, these tools help you turn intention into execution with minimal friction and maximum effect.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with someone who needs a nudge that lasts, and leave a quick review so more people find these practical, science-backed strategies.

Transcript

Why Timing Drives Behavior

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hey guys, and welcome back to another episode of Change Wired Podcast. My name is Angela Shorina. I'm your host. I'm your partner in change, personal and collective transformation, executive coach, health and high performance coach 360, and just someone who's really, really passionate about human potential, doing our best as often as possible, and growing as humans and growing our positive impact in the world all around us. And today, guys, it's gonna be a short podcast. Well, at least that's the idea, but also very effective, very important one. It's gonna help you to do a few things a lot more effectively. A, stick to more of your resolutions and goals. B make your habits stick faster and last longer. Also, you can use the same tool to help others to form habits that last and deliver more results as a result. Also, if you lead a team or you are a part of a culture HR collective in your company, maybe you do it in consulting type of way. So it will help you to create the kind of interventions that actually last and actually keep producing behavior change that is needed to deliver results. It also will help you if you're someone who organizes different events and you want more people to show up, whatever it is you do. That will also help you to drop the no-show rate specifically in any of your events. So without further ado, let's jump in today's podcast. And I already blogged about this, you know, to give you a little bit more uh let you a little bit more into the process of creating this podcast. Before each podcast, I usually write about what I want to talk about, which helps me to structure my thoughts and helps me to not forget and just sit down here and jam and give you useful, effective tools in a structured manner so it is easier for you to use them. Right. So I wrote a blog about that, and some of the pieces that I'm gonna tell you are from the trading. Yesterday was a really cool day. In the morning, I ran a workshop for HR and culture people and people who do also do HR type of consulting, also people who do coaching. And the workshop that I ran was um I called it designed for humans. And it was all about this uh question: how do you design workplace interventions or team interventions that actually last and produced measurable results? Instead of becoming another session people enjoy and rave about and clap for, and then forget about it within a week and just get back to doing their work in their normal way. We had about 30 plus people without much of promotion at all, and it was really high-quality people, people who care a lot about their time, and they care a lot about attending the right kind of stuff to learn and then apply and improve. So 30 plus people was really actually good, and it was beginning of the year and morning, 8:30 in the morning, so a lot of things you might see middle of the week as well, Wednesdays, so you might say a lot of things that are not going for this event for people to show up without really any formal sign-up form. And they did. And someone told me right before the event and after the event that they showed up because of they saw my last-minute reminder of why they should care. That I sent in our WhatsApp group. It was an evening before the event. I put out there a short text, I think it was two, three sentences, about what I'm gonna deliver and why it matters for their work. I answered a question, what's in it for me? And the host of the event, the co-host of the event, he runs the community for and I was doing the this event for that community. So the host of the event shared another interesting story too. His experience with his another venture where he runs events with his partner. And for his events, for their events, they often now send last-minute bait, a reminder of why it's worth showing up for this event. And in his experience, he shared it cut the no shows from 60% to about 30, 30% improvement, just by sending the right message at the right time. Same event, same people, different timing of a different kind of reminder. The right thing at the right time. So Marshall Goldsmiths, one of the most influential coaches in the world, hired a coach to call him every day for five minutes in the morning. No teaching, no advice, no coaching really, just a few what Marshall calls engaging questions. Questions like, did I do my best to set clear goals? Did I do my best to work to work toward them? And a few other questions. And he did it again, not once a week, a month, definitely not once a quarter or not at the end of the year, but every day. And he's still doing it. He made his priorities top of mind right when they could still influence his behavior in the morning. In a Harvard Business Review article that I read also, I think a couple weeks before the masterclass, the the article with the title To Change Company Culture, Start With One High Impact Behavior. They also share how one organization they worked with as consultants, HR consultants, improved gender balance in hiring. And they did it not by running more training or workshops, any kind of uh branding campaigns. They designed one small thing. Right before opening applications, managers would be prompted to watch a seven-minute video on bias in hiring. Right message, right time. And they increased at that point, and that was in the company with 100,000 employees in I think in over 100 countries, and they improved the potential of manager hiring a woman by 12%, again in that short period of time, but 12%. Imagine 12,000 more women hired. And so that in time, right kind of prompt changed hiring decisions. Another example on the same subject, Robert Cialdini, the author of Influence, if you haven't picked up that book, it's been a bestseller for, I don't know, a few decades. He wrote another entire book on this phenomenon, persuasion, about how our decisions are heavily influenced by what's most recent in our minds. The closer something is to the moment of action, the stronger its pull, its effect on us. And when I reflect to my tendency to skip certain events and show up for certain events, it all like a huge part of it, not all of it, but a huge part of it depends on what's top of mind for me to actually go to that event instead of catching up on work or spending some time with my friends or with my family or doing any other activities that might seem more important at the moment. So what I noticed, I would show up for more events if something right before or somewhat very close to the event reminded me of why I cared to sign up in the first place, and that would change my behavior and I would go. Sometimes it was about meeting or going with people that I really cared about, sometimes it was about learning the thing that is actually very important to me, but sometimes something else, but something that would remind me about why I should care based on who I believe I am, and then it was very close to the fact that I needed to go. And as I think about that, that's probably also one of the biggest reasons why new years resolutions fail so spectacularly for so many people. You set them, you feel motivated and ready to go, and actually serious about them, and then life happens and you forget. But if you reminded yourself, I would bet if that's why also my coaching is so much more effective than just someone setting their goals and resolutions, which the people tend to not do for decades, literally. So if you just reminded yourself every day why your goals, why your goals matter to you, you'd see far more of them actually stick with you. You know, guys, we I talk a lot about behavior change, but I also know that sometimes a simple thing is the right answer. That if you remind yourself every day of something and you remind yourself why it matters to you, why it matters to the person you are becoming every day. If we remind ourselves about that every day, actually, we will do a lot more without any complicated motivation systems or content or more knowledge or more accountability or some complex incentive systems. Very often the human brain just needs the right reminder at the right time. They even have this kind of reminders, they even have the name for it in behavioral science, well, abbreviation, G ties, just in time, adaptive interventions. And adaptive means as personalized to the context and to the person as possible, and they are very effective at helping to fix things like different mental health issues, sedentary lifestyle, and different other health-related behaviors, that at least the case studies were done on that, but it is very, very effective to give the right kind of nudge at the right kind of time. So, over to you, dear listener. Where in your life you rely or hope for more discipline, for more motivation, for I don't know, some sort of change in miracle almost, and where could consistency improve with just a simple, meaningful, better timed notch? And perhaps additional homework for you. What's one reminder you could put in place today to make the right thing become top of mind every single day? And then when you think about your team's performance or helping someone in your friend circle or in your family, or in your company in general, in general, helping them to do the right behavior more often, ask yourself how can I remind them of what matters to them and why they should do this thing more often? Like in case of workplace performance, what uh consultants and researchers noticed quite some time ago is that when you remind people of why they do the thing that they do, why it matters to them, their individual purpose, performance can go as high as in some cases 50%, maybe even more. Even Nietzsche a long time ago said he who has a big enough why will bear any how. And what I in pr in my practice learned is that yeah, it's amazing to know about your personal purpose, but in practice, what works really well to improve that performance every single day, what works in practice is those reminders, and maybe some pop-up in people's uh phones or on people's computers about like why do you do what you do? Why do you care to show up and do a good job? Try it out. And if you need more help, reach out. I'm Angela Brain Body Coach on Instagram. Info at your bestculture.com is my email. Info at your bestculture, one word.com. And before you jump off, guys, don't forget to share this episode with at least one other person who might really need for something to work to stick long term, or they might need to improve the culture in their company, in their organization, or their team performance because they really care about doing something in this world, creating some impact or delivering some product or service, right? Share this podcast episode with them because they might think it doesn't matter, but guess what? More than plenty of research, and the best coaches and the best business magazines out there, and the best authors out there, they talk about that, so it probably matters. And that's it for today, guys. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for listening, thank you for being such an amazing audience, and till next time, guys, keep listening, keep learning, and keep growing.