Think of the best feedback you’ve ever received. Why was it so meaningful to you?

I’m willing to bet that the reason you remember it is because the feedback inspired you to change your behavior, which resulted in your life getting better.

When hiring, bear in mind that past performance is the best indicator of future performance.

This concept is important enough that I gave it a name: Behavior Matching. And this is the most important step in Behavior Design. No matter what kind of change you want to make, matching yourself with the right behaviors is the key to changing your life for good. In Behavior Design we have a name for the best matches: Golden Behaviors.

A Golden Behavior has three criteria.

• The behavior is effective in realizing your aspiration (impact) 

• You want to do the behavior (motivation) 

• You can do the behavior (ability)

There is a direct connection between what you feel when you do a behavior and the likelihood that you will repeat the behavior in the future.

This might all sound quite intuitive, but there is a very powerful yet simple message nestled in these findings: the frequency and the quality of our contact with other people are two major predictors of happiness.