"Project Self-Training" at Canis's clicker instructor course

One of the projects students work on throughout the year involves using what they know about reinforcement principles and science-based dog training to influence their own behaviour in a desired direction.

Working with this often gives people a completely new perspective on behaviour and learning. One thing is to see that our dog learns. Something else (which is actually the same thing!) is to feel in your own body how your own behaviour is influenced in different directions by environmental factors – which we ourselves can arrange in a strategic way. Here is Lena Irene Syversen's excellent submission.

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What is life without Pepsi Max?

_Text: Lena Irene Syversen_

I love Pepsi Max. And I hate that I love Pepsi Max! Plastic bottle, 0.5 litres, 1.5 litres or can. So I've become good, very good, at that habit. Completely in flow, yes I'd actually call it automatic.

Fortunately we can change unwanted habits. If we have enough willpower and good enough self-control!

No, wait a minute. Morten (Canis) says that behaviour has nothing to do with willpower. Oh thank goodness, now I didn't have to have a guilty conscience either….. I'm just a product of my environmental influences.

I haven't had any great challenges in life that I couldn't solve. However, when it comes to Pepsi Max – or rather the lack of it – it can come close to catastrophic thoughts. When I fly for a long journey I'm not afraid the plane will crash – I'm afraid I'll run out of Pepsi Max because they don't sell it on planes!

If I run out late in the evening, what if I wake up in the middle of the night and I'm thirsty? Well, then I've stockpiled some extra bottles in the garage. Important to be prepared – in case of war.

I store empty bottles in a large bag in the garage and return them for deposit when I've got 2 full bags. It doesn't take long. Most of the bottles are empty, but some have a bit left in them. They've saved me in a pinch a couple of times. In sheer desperation I'd go out to the garage, look down in the bag (it's transparent – I've thought of everything). Then I can immediately see which one contains a small mouthful. The longing stops, the need is met and the desperation decreases. The taste isn't great, but the Pepsi goes down, even warm and stale.

I also hate returning bottles. 2 full bags of empty bottles — not many times I've managed to return them all at once. Every time something happens so the machine stops or is out of service. A couple of times I've just thrown all the empty bottles away too, but that's not good, not politically correct and I feel a bit shameful…(all these unnecessary words that swirl around). I don't think it's happened once that I've returned all the bottles without having to fetch an assistant. In hindsight I should of course have collected data on it. It probably isn't true, it just feels that way.

The attempts to change my habit have been many. I've read a lot, acquired knowledge; about the contents of soft drinks, the harmful effects of soft drinks, watched most of the TED talks on Youtube about how to change habits.

The book "Getting Things Done!" I've read several times. I've even worked with people who wanted to change habits. Everything from exercise, diet and quitting smoking. To the point of embarrassment… (though now "embarrassment" is just a word that swirls around in my head that has lost all meaning after another Canis webinar).

I start on Mondays, always. Then I'm off with enthusiastic optimism which decreases inversely as the hours go by. Then the headache comes creeping and knocking. The body screams for more – or is it the brain? The longest time I managed was roughly until 9pm – then it was simply a case of driving down to the petrol station and buying not one bottle, but MANY.

I thought I drank about one 0.5 litre bottle a day. Maybe a bit more at weekends.

So observable behaviour and recording of actual circumstances in the form of counting became necessary.

Over a 4-week period I logged every sip I took. The result was nothing short of astounding – and alarming!

The result was a neat sum of 55 bottles of 0.5 l, + 9 cans + 10 glasses (3