Some years ago, I worked with a doctor of psychology who focused on behavior change. We’ll call them Dr. B for this article.

Their work leveraged their understanding and expertise of physiological behavior change to help design software for patients in health care.

To design positive nudges, interventions, and ways of gathering & leveraging information for folks who were dealing with (sometimes severe) health issues.

Serious business.

We were at a company summer BBQ, and Dr. B was explaining some behavior change models and their experiences helping folks be aware of and change their behavior.

I made a comment of how I could leverage one of these models for my own health concerns. They encouraged me to explore, and remarked that these are all models. And that any change is hard. That they have a doctorate, have a decade of helping others and still can’t get themselves off the couch at night, red wine in-hand, to go do something more “productive”.

We shared a laugh.

One of the reasons change is hard is because of the uncertainty under it all. I recently came across a model for dealing with uncertainty.

There are three aspects for dealing with uncertainty. Let’s call this DPO. The more of each of these things you have the easier it is to deal with.

• Duration - about how long should this take to get through?

• Pathway - Do we know the way through?

• Outcome - what are we trying to do in the first place?

But you have to chunk the big things down into smaller ones. Instead of worrying about if you can finish the 5k, in a time you like, chunk it down to the next best move.

I’ll run to that next intersection.

That one little thing gives you the duration (time to next intersection), pathway (run), and outcome (get to that intersection) in a smaller, bite size chunk.

Then you do it again. And again. And eventually you finish the 5k.

These days, I’m having this un-ignorable pull to draw. Not the sketchnote type drawing I sometimes do. But illustration. I want to be able to draw from life (people, portraits, fictional characters) in a way I am not able to do so now.

My DPO is:

• Duration - finish the Foundational drawing videos I am borrowing from a friend.

• Pathway - put pencil to paper most days.

• Outcome - See progress and think of what’s next.

I should check with Dr. B to see if they approve.