I recently read The Happiness Advantage by psychologist Shawn Achor for the third time. He is a leading proponent of positive psychology. I have often cited Achor’s work, most recently in my articles about “the chicken or the egg”. In those columns, I focused on whether success leads to happiness or whether happiness provides the foundation for success.
Achor cited numerous studies supporting the view that happiness fuels success. He defined happiness as “the experience of positive emotions—pleasure combined with deeper feelings of meaning and purpose. . . . Happiness is not the belief that we don’t need to change; it is the realization that we can.”
After analyzing many research studies, Achor identified “seven specific, actionable, and proven patterns” for nurturing a positive mindset and positive emotions, which underpin success and achievement. He labeled these seven as core “principles” of happiness. In this article, I will highlight one of these principles, “The 20-Second Rule,” which is also associated with the concepts of “willpower” and “habits.” Achor titled the subheading of the principle “How to Turn Bad Habits into Good Ones by Minimizing Barriers to Change.”
Achor cited the work of William James, whom he called the “Father of Modern Psychology.” James observed something that might seem obvious: that humans display many habits each day, behaviors that are largely automatic, such as brushing one’s teeth first thing in the morning, combing one’s hair, getting dressed, or setting an alarm before going to sleep. James speculated that if habits are expressed throughout the day, a major component of sustaining positive changes in our lives would be to turn those changes into habits so they become largely automatic, with little choice or effort involved.
The Ineffectiveness of Willpower
Achor agreed with James’ assessment and added that good habits are created and sustained through ongoing practice, in which “our brain actually changes in response to frequent practice.” Achor then discussed why it is so difficult to maintain healthy and/or positive habits. There are many everyday examples of this difficulty. Think of exercise equipment bought shortly before the New Year that begins to gather dust within a month, a diet abandoned after a relatively brief time, or a promise to balance one’s life and spend more time with family that soon gives way to the “demands” of one’s job.
Some might judge individuals who display these behaviors as weak, lacking resolve or willpower. However, Achor offered a different and intriguing viewpoint: “The reason willpower is so ineffective at sustaining change is that the more we use it, the more worn-out it gets.” To support this position, Achor cited studies by psychologist Roy Baumeister and his colleagues. The researchers explained that “many widely different forms of self-control draw on a common resource, or self-control strength, which is quite limited and hence can be depleted readily.”
Achor wrote, “Put another way, our willpower weakens the more we use it. . . . So it’s no wonder, really, that we so easily give in to our old habits, to the easiest and most comfortable path, as we progress through the day. This invisible pull toward the path of least resistance can dictate more of our lives than we realize, creating an impossible barrier to change and positive growth.”
The Impact of 20 Seconds
What can one do to minimize or remove this barrier to change? Or, as Achor asked, how best to place “desired behaviors on the path of least resistance?” His answer was to follow “The 20-Second Rule.” For example, he found that his efforts to practice guitar were reinforced by actions that took about 20 seconds. Rather than keeping his guitar in the closet and spending 20 seconds to retrieve it, he bought a guitar stand and placed it in the middle of his living room. Now the guitar was “in immediate reach.”
Achor added that making a change often takes more than 20 seconds, though sometimes less, and, most importantly, that the strategy can be applied universally. He suggested, “Lower the activation energy for habits you want to adopt, and raise it for habits you want to avoid. The more we lower or even eliminate the activation energy for our desired actions, the more we enhance our ability to jump-start positive change.”
In his always-humorous style, Achor illustrated his own use of The 20-Second Rule, as well as its use by those he was consulting. He described the many distractions that compromise work efficiency. He told of “Ted,” who “checks his stocks three times an hour, his email five times an hour, and news website once an hour.” He cited studies indicating that Ted’s behavior was not unusual and that the average worker gets distracted throughout the day. Achor recounted that as he reflected on this behavior, he had an epiphany: “It’s not the sheer number and volume of distractions that gets us into trouble; it’s the ease of access to them.”
To address this problem, he encouraged Ted not to keep his email program open while working. Ted also disabled automatic login and password saving for the account and moved the application icon to an empty folder. These changes made it much harder to constantly check email. Achor observed that when he first consulted with Ted and other executives at the company, they were skeptical of and annoyed by this approach, and he thought, “I was only making their busy lives more difficult. . . . But a few days later, once they realized how much more work they were getting done (and in less time), they had come around.
Applying this principle to his own life, Achor discovered that he exercised more often in the morning after he removed the distraction of changing into his gym clothes by sleeping in them! He placed his sneakers right by his bed. I don’t know if this would work for everyone, but in interviews with athletes, Achor found he was not alone. I know that having a treadmill in my home’s basement contributed to my regular morning exercise routine, especially during the cold, sometimes snowy New England weather.
Achor felt he was watching too much television. He noted that when he came home tired from work, it was too easy to sit on the couch and press the “on” button on the TV remote. He decided to “play the same trick on his brain” he had used when he bought the guitar stand and placed the guitar on it near him. In this case, he removed the batteries from the remote, turned on his stopwatch, and “walked the batteries exactly 20 seconds away and left them in a drawer in my bedroom.”
With his usual sense of humor, he reported that he initially thought, “I hate to do these experiments.” But soon he was reaching for a book rather than the remote, or for a laptop he had placed nearby to continue writing a manuscript.
Achor also applied The 20-Second Rule to a challenge most of us face, namely eating healthier meals. He cited a study showing that when people in a cafeteria had to wait in a second line to buy chips and candy, far fewer did so. “The more effort it takes us to obtain unhealthy food, the less we’ll eat of it and vice versa.” That often means making healthy decisions starting in the supermarket. Marilyn and I found that the often-repeated Lay’s Potato Chips slogan “Betcha can’t eat just one” was more than just a slogan. Thus, we no longer keep potato chips in the house. I wish I could say the same for chocolate chip cookies, but at least I have found I can eat just one (most of the time).
Situational Agency
Psychologist Angela Duckworth, author of the bestseller Grit, advanced a view similar to Achor’s in an article in The New York Times titled “Willpower Doesn’t Work. This Does.” Published three days before the New Year in 2025, she wrote that we often indulge during this time of year, determined via resolutions to lead a healthier life once the calendar changes, but this resolve often disappears within a month. As the resolutions fail, a typical response is to say, “Try harder” or “Strengthen your willpower.” Duckworth disagreed with these solutions: “As a psychologist who studies how people achieve their goals, I see the data leading to the opposite conclusion: Willpower is overrated.”
Duckworth added that research indicates successful individuals “rarely rely on inner fortitude to resist temptations. Instead, many exercise ‘situational agency,’ arranging their lives to minimize the need for willpower in the first place. . . . Interviews with some of the most disciplined people on the planet have taught me that you put yourself in situations that make the pursuit easier.” As I reflected on Duckworth’s description of situational agency, it paralleled Achor’s advice to “Lower the activation energy for habits you want to adopt, and raise it for habits you want to avoid.”
Examples include Alistair Brownlee, a two-time gold medalist in the triathlon, who ensures his equipment is in order before exercising, including keeping his shoes warm and dry and by the door. Duckworth’s daughters have discovered that going to the gym is more fun when they go together. Many people are more likely to exercise when a buddy is involved. Duckworth and her colleagues conducted a study in which they asked thousands of teenagers where they placed their phones while studying. Students who kept their phones in another room while studying earned higher grades than those who did not.
As I have emphasized in many writings and presentations, a key component of leading a healthier life is adopting an outlook of “personal control,” focusing your time and energy on things you can influence rather than on things you have little, if any, control over. Duckworth captured this outlook when she expressed:
You cannot change the conditions of modern life, but you are the sovereign of what enters your personal space. Physical distance creates psychological distance: Draw close what you want more of; push away what you want less.
A Concluding Confession
The ideas and strategies advanced by Achor and Duckworth have much merit, and I believe they can contribute to our emotional and physical well-being. However, let us not forget the importance of self-compassion when we are not always “perfect” in meeting our goals for a healthier lifestyle. If truth be told, I experienced this “lapse” while writing this article. I promised myself that I would focus all my attention on completing it rather than turning on the Red Sox game.
I thought this would be easier given how poorly the Red Sox have played this season. But guess what I did? I interrupted my writing several times to go online and check the score. What made matters worse was that I even sought more information by clicking on what transpired on each play, which revealed that the Sox had several opportunities to win but left runners in scoring position—something they have done all too often this year.
To cope with my disappointment, I ate a chocolate chip cookie even though I had to walk down to the kitchen to get one, which broke The 20-Second Rule. However, practicing self-compassion, I told myself that most of the time I adhere to a healthy lifestyle. Good luck with the goals you have set for yourself.