Author: Maneesh Sethi

Big Things Are Coming…. Pre-Order Your Pavlok 2

Click here to hear a very special announcement from yours truly!

Maneesh Sethi here.

CEO of Pavlok.

After many months of hard work, and a wildly successful Pavlok 2 Indiegogo fundraising campaign, we’re excited to finally announce that the entire community can now pre-order the Pavlok 2 and get the Pavlok 2 in time for the holiday season.

Since the release of the original Pavlok, we were blown away at the results users were seeing, sometimes in as little as a few days. Users stopped smoking, quit sugar, and even used Pavlok to wake up on time and be more productive.

But we have always known the Pavlok was just the beginning of our journey. With the Pavlok 2 we have improved virtually every aspect of the original Pavlok. Better hardware, software, and a completely redesigned Pavlok app.

I wanted to share a few key differences between the Pavlok and the Pavlok 2.

Better Battery Life: The new hardware for the Pavlok 2 means less charging and more breaking and changing habits. Wear your Pavlok 2 comfortably throughout the day knowing it will be ready to shock, beep, or buzz when you need it.

New Integrations: We continue to add integrations from a wide variety of 3rd party sources to allow you to customize your Pavlok 2 to the fullest. Using services such as IFTTT you can even have your Amazon Alexa initiate a zap. Furthermore, there are dozens of other integrations with Google Chrome, Zapier, and more.

More Reliable: We heard you loud and clear, the Pavlok 2 works flawlessly time and time again. No more bluetooth pairing errors or the zap not working. We’ve used the best quality material to ensure your Pavlok 2 works every time.

Motion Tracking: Thanks to our DNA Indiegogo backers, the Pavlok 2 is smarter than ever before. We are constantly adding new hand gestures that the Pavlok 2 can accurately recognize and administer your action of choice.

A More User Friendly App: With the new Pavlok 2 hardware we also wanted to improve our popular Pavlok app. We’ve redesigned it to make it more user friendly and easily track your your habits and goals. Add modules based on your goals, and track your sleep, progress, and more.

Earn Volts: Finally, one of our favorite newest additions. Along with Pavlok 2 we are releasing our very own digital currency: Volts. You can earn Volts in the app by performing positive behaviors and reaching your goals. Wanna learn more? Look out for the next email this week.

We’re not exaggerating when we say the Pavlok 2 is not just an upgrade of the original Pavlok. It’s a whole new way to approach human behavior.

We expect these to sell like crazy this Christmas and we have a very limited supply. Only 500 Pavlok 2s are available that will ship on our launch date: November 15.
If you want to reserve your Pavlok 2, preorder NOW to get 20% off. This expires in a week.

Imagine starting the new year not just resolving to go to the gym—but actually following through.

Imagine telling all your friends and family at the New Years party you no longer smoke. And still being smoke-free at the next one.

Imagine getting more work done without the need to constantly check Facebook. The rare feeling of focus becomes a natural state of being.

Pavlok 2 was designed to upgrade your habits and your life.

And we can’t wait for you to give it a try.

The 20% discount only lasts for a week. Click here to order now.

Change Your Reward

Click here to watch my short video on rewards. 

Yesterday we discussed “actions” and how they are an important part of the habit loop.

Hopefully you were able to find some replacement actions for the bad habit you’re trying to break.

For today’s final video, I’m going to discuss how rewards impact your habit change success.

Rewards are a feeling or external factor that encourages you do a certain habit.

If you’re trying to stop a habit, you need to get rid of the pleasure of the habit you’re doing.

It’s that simple.

Pavlok was specifically designed to add a slight amount of uncomfortableness to help you reduce your “reward” of performing a bad habit.

For example, I used Pavlok to stop eating potato chips.

For the first few days, each time I ate a potato chip I would use Pavlok to zap myself.

After just a few times of doing this, I quickly started thinking to myself “Is the potato chip worth a zap”

The answer was almost always no.

Today’s task is to identify the rewards from your bad habit. Once you figure that out, write out 3 ways in which you can make the habit less pleasurable.

You’re now well on your way to destroying your bad habits.

Did you enjoy this week’s mini series on the habit loop? Comment below and let me know!

P.S Next week I’m going to be releasing even more videos on how to break bad habits.

Actions: The Two Ways To Change A Habit.

Click here to watch my videos on “actions” 

Yesterday we talked about triggers and how they are the foundation of habit change.

I hope you enjoyed my story of a Pavlok user and her “flower vase” trigger.

Today we are going to talk about how to actually change your habits, through actions.

There are two ways to change a habit.

1. Aversion
2. Replacement

Both of which Pavlok can hep you with. But today we’re going to focus on “replacement”

A few years ago, before Pavlok, I had a personal trainer who helped me lose weight.

It turns out, my habit of eating a pint of ice cream every day (not the good kind) isn’t very good for your health.

My trainer asked me “why are you eating a pint of ice cream?”

“Because I like it.”

My trainer then said, “Why don’ you try replacing the pint of ice-cream with frozen mixed berries?”

And so I did.

The berries were cold and sweet. It seemed like I was cheating — but I was actually getting 4 servings of fruits and vegetables 🙂

Almost overnight, I got rid of my eating a pint of ice cream habit.

Every time I wanted to eat some ice cream I ate some frozen berries instead.

I quickly started getting the recommended amount of fruits per day. 😉

It seems simple. But with just that one replacement I was able to lose a TON of weight.

For today, I want you to brainstorm some positive replacements for any habit you’re trying to break.

For example, if you’re trying to stop smoking, each time you have the urge to light up, chew a piece of gum instead.

If you’re looking to stop biting your nails, start putting your hand on your right leg every time you have the urge to bit your nails.

Replacing your bad habits with positive ones will make all the difference in the success of your habit formation.

Comment below and let me know what you’re going to to try to replace.

P.S Tomorrow I’ll be talking about rewards. You won’t want to miss it.

Understanding Triggers

Watch my short video on Triggers

Yesterday I broke down the three components of the habit loop, triggers, actions, and rewards, which are essential to understand if you want to make habits that stick.

Today we’ll be talking a little more about triggers, the first part of the habit process.

The trigger is what starts the process loop.

For bad habits, if you can remove the “trigger” in your life, you can quickly quit bad habits.

I want to share a story of a Pavlok user who asked for help with severe depression

She told me that, since she was a teenager, she suffered from rumination and depression.

I told her that Pavlok isn’t a medical device — but I believe some forms of depression are simply habit loops in the brain, and possibly we can help with that.

My recommendation: For the next five days, every time she caught herself in a negative thought loop, I asked her to zap herself, smile, and text me where she was.

On day 1, she caught herself at work. On day 2, she caught herself on the way to work.

On day 3, she was reaching for the front door. On day 4, she was reaching for the front door. On day 5, she was reaching for the front door.

What the heck was going on with her front door? 

There was a flower vase sitting by her front door. When she was 16, she and her twin sister had a birthday party. A bunch of people came — but she got no gifts — everyone had given gifts to her sister alone.

Her sister said “here, take this flower vase.” The vase was triggering thoughts of ‘no one loves me’ and ‘no one cares.’

So I told her to throw away the flower vase. And the ruminations stopped.

 

This story is about the power of triggers. Habit loops start from a trigger. If you can identify the trigger and remove the trigger, in a lot of cases you can stop the habit in its tracks.

Our Pavlok wearable helps you identify problematic triggers. The zap builds awareness earlier in the process.

If you’re trying to change any habit, start with looking for your triggers!

Do you have any obvious triggers causing you to perform bad habits? Comment and let me know.

P.S Tomorrow I’ll be talking about actions and where they fit into the habit loop.

What Is The “Habit Loop” ?

Watch my short video on Habit Loops here. 

Yesterday I talked about mindset and how it can shift your habit. If you’re trying to make the most out of your habit change journey, you have to start with the foundation.

Today I want to talk a little more about the “Habit Loop” and how it applies to creating habits that stick.

The way I think about habits is a habit is when it becomes HARDER to not do something than it is to do something.

Think about brushing your teeth, it’s much harder to not brush your teeth than it is to get up and brush them as soon as you wake up.

The habit loop is broken up into three very important parts. I’ll be talking about them more in depth in the up coming days but wanted to break them down for you in an easy to understand way.

Trigger – What causes the habit loop to start (walking by the bar if you want to quit drinking for example.) It can be an internal or external feeling like time of day, location, etc.

Action – The habit or the action you want to change or reinforce. “I want to stop smoking”

Reward – The thing that makes you feel good about continuing the action it can be either intrinsic or extrinsic, internal or external. “I went for a run today and I feel great.”

Most people when trying to change their habits don’t have a system or solid approach to reaching their goals, which often sets them up for failure.

Now that you understand the basics of the habit loop, we can get into the fun stuff.

Tomorrow I’ll be talking more about how to change your triggers.

See you tomorrow.

-Maneesh Sethi

Founder of Pavlok

It Starts With Mindset

Check out my short video today on Mindset. 

Happy #MotivationMonday Pavlokians!

Today we’re kicking off the first email of a series of posts about changing habits. This week we’ll be diving deep into understanding the Habit Loop and bad habits — but to start, we’ll be focusing on mindset. 

One of the things that recently changed my life was learning about the scarcity mentality vs abundance mentality.  

Now if you’re like me,  you may have at first thought that sounds a little “woo-woo.” But in my experience that couldn’t be further from the truth.

But before we discuss mindset, I want to talk about a couple things.

#1) As you might have noticed, I’ve also been doing a lot more video lately. I attribute much of this to my 30 day Facebook Live experiment, but the feedback has been fantastic so far. If you have any tips or suggestions on what videos I should make — please let me know.

Now back to scarcity vs abundance….

The scarcity mentality is that of zero-sum – the belief that for one person to succeed, another must fail. It’s the belief that there’s not enough to go around for everyone.

The abundance mentality is different: it is the belief that when you succeed, it actually helps the pie grow larger.

If you’re feeling stuck or not seeing the results you want in life, chances are good you have a scarcity mindset.

But fortunately the abundance mindset is something that can be developed.

As Henry Ford once said “whether you think you can, or think you can’t — you’re right.”

If you believe you’re stuck with bad habits forever… you’re right.

If you believe you can improve yourself through small changes over time… you’re right.

So today, spend sometime reflecting on your current mindset. Do you have a scarcity mindset? Or a mindset of abundance?

When working to improve your life (regardless of where you’re starting) you want to first work on developing an attitude and outlook that will increase your chances of success.

This won’t be easy, but putting in the work to improve your mindset can make all the difference.

Check out my mindset video

Please commnet and let me know your thoughts 🙂 It’s actually me reading and replying, and I really want to meet you.

-Maneesh Sethi

Founder of Pavlok

P.S. We are going to be releasing a brand new app this week, and releasing it as a beta. If you want first dibs, keep your eyes pealed.

P.P.S. Preorder Pavlok 2 is on IndieGogo: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/pavlok-2-change-your-habits-with-electric-shock-sleep-health/