Al Switzler: Change Anything! Use Skillpower Over Willpower at TEDxFremont (Transcript)

Al Switzler

Full transcript of VitalSmarts cofounder, Al Switzler’s TEDx Talk: Change Anything! Use Skillpower Over Willpower at TEDxFremont conference.

Listen to the MP3 Audio here: Change anything! Use skillpower over willpower by Al Switzler at TEDxFremont

TRANSCRIPT:

My colleagues and I have been studying behavior change for over 30 years. We’ve been looking for those crucial behaviors that help individuals improve the quality of their relationships and the results in their life at work and at home.

Now sometime when you do research, it’s not just the answers that are hardest. It’s the questions, the problem, that’s hard to see. But no this one.

When it comes to personal habits, it’s really easy to see the problem. There are hundreds of millions of people who are sicker and sadder than they want to be or need to be because they can’t control their own behavior. What’s standing between them and their health and happiness, between them and their dreams and aspirations, is their own behavior. And they don’t want it that way. Nobody wants it that way.

But they have this huge change problem. They’re part of a huge change problem. They know they should change, they want to change, but they don’t change. My mother was part of that. Because this research is not just scientific. This research is personal, I think for all of us.