Replacement Behavior
***WARNING – IF YOUR BEHAVIOR HAS BEEN DANGEROUS TO YOURSELF OR TO OTHERS, YOU WILL NEED TO SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP BEFORE MOVING ON TO THIS STAGE! Sometimes, when replacing such a behavior, it can be more harmful than beneficial to implement! Please seek the advice of a counselor, psychologist or a behavior analyst.***
Now that you have a better understanding as to why you are engaging in the behavior that you are engaging in, we need to come up with a replacement behavior for this.
Why?
Because the behavior that you have been engaging in has been serving you a purpose and you need to have a replacement so that the replacement behavior serves as the substitute to help you with your purpose.
We are not trying to take away the need for your behavior…just a different way of satisfying it.
Make sense?
For example, if you have been smoking, chewing sugarless gum has been a recommended replacement behavior.
If you are extremely environmentally conscious, you may learn to ride a bike to work instead of driving a vehicle.
Think of your behavior and what replacement behaviors you could engage in INSTEAD.
Write them down!
When you have a list, rank them in order from what, you think, would be the most difficult to implement to the easiest.
Here is an example:
Donna would like to change her behavior of focusing too much on her phone and not enough on her family. Whenever she comes home from work, she spends the first half hour checking her phone and texting and responding to social media. She is finding herself yelling and snapping at her children more when they want her attention and she is trying to focus on her phone. The one day, she made her daughter cry because her daughter simply asked her a question and Donna started yelling at her for it. It was, then, that Donna realized that her phone is causing unnecessary friction between her and her family and it was time to do something about it.
Donna followed the steps of this program. She realized that her phone served as an attention-seeking behavior. She wanted extra attention from friends and family that she felt as though she did not receive otherwise. She wanted people from her social media groups to applaud her or agree with her on topics or feel sorry for her when she had a rough day. She realized that she did not feel satisfied from her immediate family in this way. It was hard for her to come to this realization, but when she did, she felt more motivated to change her habit.
Donna made a list of other ways that she could receive attention that may be just as satisfying to her. Here is an example of a list of ideas:
- Teach her family to ask about her day, as well, when she asks about theirs
- Talk to her husband about making the first 10 minutes of her arrival home to be all about her day and then his
- Meet up with a friend a couple days per week at a favorite coffee bar to chat
- Wait until the children are in bed before responding to messages on her phone so that her focus during the evening is with her children.
Can you come up with a similar list for your behavior?
When you are done, go through it and see what is realistically implementable.
In other words, for Donna, she realized that, given her lifestyle, she would not be able to realistically meet up with a friend a couple days per week. It would be more like, maybe, twice per month.
She also did not feel as though she would realistically be able to talk to her husband for the first 10 minutes of her arrival home but decided that they could probably work something out where they chat the last 10 minutes before going to bed.
Donna discovered that it would be a good social skill for her to teach her children to ask about her day, as well, when she asks about theirs.
She knew that she could not spout off to her children about all of the details of her day, but to receive their attention in this way, instead of her always giving them HER attention would help satisfy her need for attention.
She finally figured that, in addition to this, that her best bet would probably be to try responding to the messages on her phone after the children are in bed.
This way, she could still engage in that same behavior, but it would be for a limited amount of time because it would be at night and responses would be limited AND it would also give her something to look forward to doing after her evening chores were done and after she had spent some time with her family.
In other words, her having access to her phone after the children went to bed would also serve as a REWARD for having taken care of herself and her family first!
Take a look at your list…what is REALISTIC given your lifestyle for you to implement?
If you choose a replacement behavior that you do not feel that you can realistically do, then you may be setting yourself up for failure. And we want to try to avoid that!
Really take a look at your ideas and break them down so that you can find something that is going to be manageable for you to do!
????????????
Ok, got it?
Good job!
Now, what is your reward or motivation for doing it? (Check out Step Five for more about this)
Donna was lucky. She figured out a replacement behavior that would also serve as a reward for her engaging in her new behavior of putting the phone away and spending more time with her children.
You could do something similar – if you typically smoke 2 cigarettes every hour and you want to decrease this to one cigarette per hour, you could allow yourself a cigarette after chewing gum for an hour.
You could use your current behavior as a reward for engaging in the new behavior as long as you continue to take steps to fade the current behavior.
After you are comfortable with chewing gum for an hour, as so not to smoke a cigarette for an hour, increase it by 15 minute increments so that the next step is chewing gum for an hour and 15 minutes and then have a cigarette.
Make sense?
The key is to slowly make the change.
If you suddenly jump to going 2 hours without a cigarette, you may be setting yourself up for failure!
Here’s what happened to Donna:
Donna realized that waiting until the children went to bed was just too long for her to go without her phone.
So, she decided to spend the first 15 minutes talking to her children when she came home from work.
After that, she would respond to 2 text messages/social media posts and then she would put her phone away and start to make dinner.
After she made dinner, she would allow herself to respond to her phone again, but only briefly.
She found that if she set a timer for herself on her phone – no more than 5 minutes – then that helped her to control her awareness of the phone.
Donna put her phone in the cabinet until she finished eating dinner with her family. She found that this was the highlight of her changing her ways because she felt more focused on her family and was able to start to receive attention that she had been seeking in other ways and did not realize it until she was able to joke, laugh and chat with her husband and children at the dinner table. She also started to notice a change in her children and husband and started to feel a closer connection! Horray for Donna!
After dinner, Donna allowed herself to respond to a couple more messages on her phone for no longer than 15 minutes and then started on the dishes.
After the dishes, again, she allowed herself a few more messages with the phone.
Donna continued this throughout her evening.
This routine went on for some time until Donna realized that she was mastering it well.
Mastering the new behavior well means trying to fade the old one even more!
Now, she tried to go the first 15 minutes of her arrival home talking with her children AND making dinner before touching her phone.
After a few days, she had it down pat!
Then, she tried to go the first 15 minutes of her arrival home talking with her children AND making dinner AND eating dinner with her children without allowing herself access to her phone. OOO, doggy!!! That one was tough! Donna decided that that was enough for now and continued to work on this part of her behavior change for a couple of months before feeling comfortable enough to move on to more.
And that is okay! 
Your idea of mastery may be different from someone else’s.
Someone may master each step within a matter of days, but you may find, for your specific case, that a few months is what you need!
That is okay!
Do what makes you comfortable this way! There is no set limit. No extra pressure this way.
This is YOUR behavior and YOUR change and YOUR progress.
The important part is that you are making the effort to change!
If you are finding that you are really struggling, you may want to seek some support from a professional, such as a counselor, a psychologist or a behavior analyst. They may be able to provide you with the little extra encouragement that you may need!