Before I became an entrepreneur, I went to business school.
This post originally appeared onJames Clears blog.
I was sitting in a marketing class and we were discussing ways to design a wonderful customer experience.
The goal was not merely to provide decent service, but to delight the customer.
Psychologically, we prefer experiences that improve over time.
That means its better for the annoying parts of a purchase to happen early in the experience.
Furthermore, we dont enjoy it when painful experiences are drawn out or repeated.
In the words of my professor, all-inclusive vacations segment the pleasure and combine the pain.
If youre a professional service provider (lawyer, insurance agent, freelancer, etc.)
it is better to give the bad news to your clients first and finish with the good news.
Here are some ideas for how to do it.
Thats the opposite of what you want.
As a result, youll feel happier because your brain likes it when experiences improve as time goes on.
This same principle can be applied in dozens of ways throughout your day.
When youre trying to start a new habit, combine the pain of starting into a small segment.
For example, inthis articleI discussed how one woman eliminated the pain points that prevented her from exercising consistently.
By reducing the pain she felt at the beginning, it was more likely that she would follow through.
When you go to the gym, start with the exercise you dislike the most.
They can provide big wins, but they can also provide big losses at any time.
The pain isnt necessarily in the beginning.
Because of this, these experiences are less likely to make you happy over the long-run.
Of course, that can be easy to forget when youre struggling to succeed with other goals.
Choosing to front-load pain and discomfort isnt just a choice that applies to daily tasks and errands.
It can also be used to nudge you toward the goals you have that you tend to procrastinate on.
The path to a delightful life looks a lot like the path to a delightful customer experience.
It starts off with a few painful experiences and improves over time.
Thousands of people have attended his online seminars onHabits,Willpower, andProcrastination.
Image byJesadaphorn(Shutterstock).
