Shaking up habits to get more creative

Serious Play
Written By Ben Weinlick
altered sign that says "Caution surprise jazz hands"

Article here

Great little article with some suggestions on how to change and shift stiff habits we get stuck in.Here are a couple highlights.

Make it fun – When you are changing a habit, you substitute a new habit for the old one. To jump start this process, make the new habit fun. It will probably need to be a lot more fun for it to even begin to be enticing.

Make it a surprise – People like surprises (as long as the surprise is pleasant or fun). Research on the brain shows that surprises capture human interest and attention. There is also research to show that things that are unpredictable elicit activity in the parts of the brain that anticipate rewards. If you surprise people you will therefore get their attention, and prime them to think that what comes next might be pleasurable (Berns, McClure, Montague, 2001).

Ben Weinlick

Ben Weinlick is the founder of Think Jar Collective.

Currently Ben is also the Executive Director of Skills Society. Skills Society is one of largest and most innovative social service organizations in Canada. Stewarding an amazing collective of 500 employee, and a 25 million a year budget, Skills Society has a long and unique history related to social innovation and systems change around the rights and inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities. Ben and colleagues of Skills are known internationally for quality human centered services and creating tangible social innovations. Before becoming Executive Director in 2019, Ben stewarded Social Innovation Research & Development through an innovation lab he helped launch in 2015 called the Action Lab. The Action Lab focuses on systems change and innovation around some of the most wicked and entangled problems that humans are facing today. He is also the co-founder of MyCompass Planning which is on a mission to humanize social service case management systems where people served are centered in shaping their support services.

As the founder of Think Jar Collective and his expertise in disciplined innovation culture and methods, he regularly is asked by Universities, Businesses, Governments, and Non-Profits to help grow capacity to problem solve better and in more holistic ways. He offers keynotes on human centered service design thinking, social innovation labs and the tools and culture of disciplined innovation. Along the way striving to nudge positive systems change over the last 20+ years, he has had stellar mentors and colleagues that he shares credit with for accomplishments and awards.

He is deeply driven by the desire to help people, organizations and community to get better at navigating complex challenges together.

https://www.thinkjarcollective.com
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