What is Behaviour Consultation and Who Can Benefit?
What is behaviour consultation? Learn how individualized behavioural support can help families, schools, organizations, and individuals build skills and address behaviours that challenge.
When people hear the term behaviour consultation, they may picture a therapist working directly with a child during a structured session. But behaviour consultation can look very different.
A behaviour consultant may work with parents, teachers, school support teams, healthcare professionals, organizations or community agencies to understand a specific concern and develop practical strategies that can be implemented in everyday environments. The focus isn’t only on behaviour, but on understanding what is happening, why it may be happening, what the person needs, and what changes to the environment or support approach could make meaningful outcomes more likely.
In Ontario, Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) is described as a scientific discipline focused on meaningful changes such as increasing independence, developing new skills, and reducing challenges that interfere with learning and functioning. Behaviour consultation applies this way of thinking to real-world problems.
What does behaviour consultation mean in practice?
At its simplest, behaviour consultation is a collaborative problem-solving process. A consultant brings expertise in behaviour, learning, assessment, and intervention. The person, family, or team brings expertise about the individual and their environment. Together, they identify a meaningful concern, gather information, develop recommendations, and determine how those recommendations can realistically be implemented. For example, a parent might say, “my chid becomes extremely upset whenever we have to leave the house.” A behaviour consultation wouldn’t necessarily begin with “how do we stop the behaviour?”, instead the consultant might explore some of the following:
what happens before the difficulty begins?
what does the child do exactly?
what happens immediately afterward?
when is it most and least likely to occur?
is the child communicating something with this behaviour?
are there predictable environmental factors?
what skills might be missing?
what is gained or avoided through the behaviour?
what could be changed proactively?
what alternative or replacement skills could be taught?
This approach helps move the conversation from “how do we stop this?” toward “how do we understand this and create a better way forward?”
Behaviour consultation isn’t only for “challenging behaviour”
One of the biggest misconceptions about behaviour consultation is that you need to have a serious behaviour problem before seeking support. You don’t.
Behaviour consultation can be useful when the goal is to build skills, increase independence, improve participation, or make an existing support plan more effective. For example, consultation might address:
communication
daily living skills
independence
social skills
emotional regulation
routines and transitions
community participation
school participation
workplace skills
caregiver strategies
behaviour support planning
skill generalization
reinforcement strategies
environmental modifications
staff training
transition planning
Who can benefit from behaviour consultation?
Parents and caregivers
Parents are often the people who know an individual best. They also have to navigate the situations that happen every day: mornings, meals, homework, bedtime, appointments, community outings, sibling interactions, and transitions.
Consultation can help parents understand what may be contributing to a behaviour and identify strategies that fit naturally into family routines.
For example, “my child won’t follow the morning routine.” Instead of simply adding more consequences, consultation might examine whether:
the routine has too many steps.
expectations are unclear.
visual or verbal prompts are needed.
the routine contains tasks the child hasn’t learned.
reinforcement is occurring in unexpected ways.
the child is attempting to escape a difficult task.
the transition itself is a problem.
the environment is too distracting or demanding at that time of day.
The result is a plan based on the individual situation rather than a generic parenting strategy.
Children and youth who need support developing new skills
Behaviour consultation can be useful when a child has a skill they are working toward but isn’t yet demonstrating consistently. This could include:
asking for help
completing self-care routines
following a schedule or routine
communicating needs and wants
participating in group activities
waiting or taking turns
increasing independence
learning community safety skills
The goal is to break larger skills into achievable steps and identify the environmental supports that make learning more successful.
Individuals who display behaviours that challenge
Behaviour consultation can support individuals who behaviour creates barriers to learning, participation, relationships, or quality of life.
This might include behaviours such as aggression, property destruction, disruptive behaviours, or other behaviours that significantly interfere with daily life. This emphasis should not be only reduction alone. A behaviour analytic approach asks why the behaviour is occurring and what meaningful alternative skills can be developed.
For example, if someone frequently leaves a situation when demands become difficult, an intervention might include teaching an appropriate way to ask for a break, while also examining whether the environment or task can be changed.
Schools and educators
Teachers and school teams support students with widely varying learning and behavioural needs. Sometimes a student needs a highly individualized approach. other times, the entire classroom environment may benefit from adjustments.
Behaviour consultation can help school teams think through questions such as:
what is making this routine difficult?
how can instructions be made clearer?
how can appropriate behaviour be reinforced?
what skills does the student need to participate successfully?
how can staff respond consistently?
how can a skill learned in one context be generalized?
how can supports be gradually faded?
School-based consultation can involve collaboration with educators, families, and other professionals.
Community and developmental service organizations
Adults with developmental disabilities may also benefit from behavioural consultation when they are experiencing barriers to independence, community participation, employment, relationships, or daily living.
Consultation can support organizations with:
behaviour support plans
staff training
environmental assessment
skill-building programs
data collection systems
reinforcement strategies
transition planning
community participation
increasing independence
responding consistently to behaviours that challenge
The goal is to build the capacity of the people who support the individual, by helping the team develop the knowledge, tools, and systems needed to provide effective support themselves.
Behaviour consultation can support transitions
Transitions are another area where consultation can be valuable. Major life transitions can involve changes in people, routines, environments, expectations, and available supports. For example, from school to an adult day program, or vocational or employment programming, hospital to community living, family home to supported living or childhood services to adult services.
A transition plan can identify the skills and environmental supports an individual will need in a new setting. Rather than waiting until the transition happens and responding to problems afterward, consultation can help teams prepare in advance.
What happens during a behaviour consultation?
Consultation will vary depending on the concern, setting and scope of the consultation. However, it commonly involves several components.
Step 1: identify the concern
The first step is understanding what the client, family, or organization actually wants to accomplish. A concern such as “they have challenging behaviour” is a starting point. A consultant may help translate that concern into something more specific and measurable. For example, “we want Sam to independently request a break when a task becomes difficult.”
Step 2: gather information
The consultant may use interviews, record or file review, observation, data collection and other appropriate assessment methods. The purpose of which is to understand patterns and potential contributing factors.
Step 3: develop hypotheses and recommendations
Behaviour analysis considers the relationship between behaviour and the environment. Ontario professional standards emphasize systematic assessment of factors influencing behaviour, including antecedents, consequences, setting events, and other relevant variables. Recommendations should be connected to the information gathered rather than being generic advice.
Step 4: build a practical plan
A good recommendation has to work in the real world. A strategy that looks excellent on paper but requires three hours of preparation very morning isn’t sustainable for most families. Consultation should consider; can the people responsible for implementing this realistically do it?”
Step 5: support implementation and evaluate
Depending on the service agreement, consultation may include coaching, training, progress monitoring, data review, and adjustments to recommendations, to determine whether the strategy is actually helping.
Behaviour consultation builds capacity.
One of the most valuable aspects of consultation is that it can help the people around an individual become more confident and capable supporters. A parent may learn how to identify opportunities for skill development. A teacher may learn how to modify antecedents and reinforce participation. A support worker may learn how to implement a behaviour support plan consistently. A leadership team may learn how to create systems that make desired workplace behaviours easier to maintain. The consultant’s expertise becomes a resource that can be transferred to the people who are actually present in the individual’s everyday life; making support more sustainable.
Do you need a diagnosis to benefit?
No. Behaviour consultation can be relevant to many people and organizations because behaviour is part of learning, communication, independence, participation, and everyday functioning.
However, the appropriate service depends on the individual’s needs, goals, circumstances, and the professional’s scope of practice.
For individuals with autism or other developmental disabilities, consultation may be one component of a broader interdisciplinary support plan.
Other situations may call for collaboration with physicians, psychiatrists, speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, educators, social workers, or other professionals. Good consultation recognizes when another professiona'l’s expertise is needed.
Looking for behavioural expertise for your family, team, or organization?
Behaviour consultation can be a practical starting point when you’re facing a specific behavioural concern, developing new skills, navigating a transition, or looking for more effective ways to support an individual.
Consultation may be appropriate for:
Families looking for practical strategies at home.
Schools and healthcare teams looking for individualized behavioural recommendations and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Community and developmental service organizations looking to strengthen staff capacity, behaviour support planning, skill development, or transition planning.
Individuals and caregivers working toward better demonstrating important values through behaviour.
The goal is to understand behaviour, build skills, improve environments, and create supports that can work in the real world.
How Can Parents Reinforce New Skills at Home?
Learn practical ways to reinforce new skills at home, support independence, promote generalization, and make everyday routines meaningful learning opportunities.
When your child is learning a new skill, it can be tempting to think that the hard work only happens during therapy, school or structured teaching sessions.
But what happens between those sessions matters too.
Children learn through repetition, practice, feedback, and meaningful experiences. Home provides many opportunities to practice skills in the environments where those skills actually need to be used.
The good news? You don’t need to turn your home into a classroom or spend hours running formal teaching sessions. Instead, parents can use everyday moments; getting dressed, eating breakfast, playing, cleaning up, going to the grocery store etc., as opportunities to help new skills become useful, familiar, and independent.
One of the most important tools for doing this is reinforcement.
What does reinforcement actually mean?
In behaviour analysis, reinforcement has a very specific meaning. A behaviour is reinforced when something happens following a behaviour that makes that behaviour more likely to happen again in the future. In simpler terms:
You child does something —> something meaningful happens —> your child is more likely to do it again.
For example, imagine your child is learning to ask for help instead of immediately becoming frustrated. They try saying “help me”, you respond quickly “Absolutely I’ll help!” The important part isn’t simply providing praise, but that you provide help, what matters most in the moment to your child.
That experience can make asking for help more worthwhile than struggling without communicating.
Start with one skill
Choose one skill at a time. For example, asking for help, waiting for a turn, following a routine, greeting someone. The more clearly you define the skill, the easier it is to notice and reinforce. “Be independent” is difficult to reinforce because it is too broad, however “put your plate in the sink after eating” is something you can actually observe.
Find opportunities in everyday life
You don’t necessarily need to create additional practice time. Instead, look at your family’s existing routines.
Getting dressed
If your child is learning independence with dressing, you might start by encouraging them to complete one step independently. Maybe they put their shirt on themselves. That’s an opportunity to reinforce the behaviour immediately: “You put your shirt on by yourself!”. You might then continue with the routine.
Play
Play can provide opportunities for practicing communication, turn-taking, flexibility, requesting, and social interactions. If your child initiates an interaction, respond. If they appropriately request a turn, give them a turn. If they’re practicing asking for help, create opportunities where asking for help is useful.
The goal isn’t perfection. The goal is practice.
Reinforce the behaviour you want to see
Parents are often understandably focused on correcting behaviours that are difficult. But learning also requires noticing the behaviours we want more of. If your child usually needs several reminders to begin getting ready, notice when they start independently. If they’re learning to communicate when something is difficult, notice when they attempt to communicate. If they’re learning to wait, notice successful waiting.
A useful question is: “what did my do that I want to see more often?” then ask: “how can I make that behaviour worthwhile?”. Sometimes the answer is simple attention. Sometimes it’s access to an activity. Sometimes it’s help. Sometimes it’s a break. And sometimes the most powerful reinforcer is simply allowing your child to continue doing something they are already enjoying.
Make praise specific
General praise such as “good job!” can be positive, but specific feedback can make it clearer which behaviour you’re recognizing. Try “you put your shoes away without me asking”, or “you waited nicely while your sister finished her turn”. This helps connect the feedback to the specific behaviour.
Reinforce effort and progress
New skills are rarely learned perfectly from the beginning. If your child is learning to complete a complicated task, they may initially need prompts or assistance. That doesn’t mean they aren’t learning.
Look for approximations and progress. For example, perhaps your child previously needed you to complete an entire routine for them. Now they can complete two steps independently. That is meaningful progress. As skills develop, the amount of assistance can gradually decrease. This is sometimes called prompt fading - systematically reducing the support a person needs so that the skills becomes more independent.
Practice skills with different people and in different places
One of the biggest reasons home practice matters is generalization - a skill learned in one situation begins to occur in other similar situations.
A child might learn to ask their therapist for a break, but not yet ask a parent. They might independently clean up at school, but not in the living room. That doesn’t necessarily mean the child has “forgotten” the skill. The circumstances happen to be different.
Parenting strategies and children’s skills don’t always automatically generalize from one setting to another. Deliberately practicing across settings can therefore be important. Once a skill is starting to become reliable, consider practicing it with different caregivers, rooms, materials, at different times of days, with different routines and community settings. For example, if your child is learning to request help, the goal might eventually be for them to request help from a parent at home, a teacher at school and trusted adults in the community.
Make reinforcement immediate when teaching a new skill
When a child is first learning something, timing matters. If your child completes the behaviour and the meaningful consequence happens much later, it may be harder for them to understand the connection. When possible, provide reinforcement immediately after the behaviour you’re trying to strengthen. As the skill becomes stronger, reinforcement can usually become more natural and less formal.
How to avoid creating dependence on rewards
A common concern parents have is, “if I reinforce this, will my child always need a reward?”. Not necessarily. A well-designed behaviour plan should consider how reinforcement will change as the skill becomes established. Initially, a child may need frequent reinforcement. As the behaviour becomes more reliable, reinforcement can become more natural. For example, a child learning to put their belongings away might initially receive enthusiastic attention from a parent. Eventually, the natural benefit becomes part of the routine. Their belongings are easier to find, the environment is organized, and they know what to do without being reminded. The goal is not create dependence on goals, but to help new behaviour become useful enough that it continues to occur.
What if a skill isn’t working at home?
This is where parents sometimes blame themselves. “They’re doing it in therapy, why won’t they do it here?”. Before assuming your child is refusing or “being difficult”, consider whether the situation is different.
Ask:
is the instruction different?
is the environment different?
is the task harder?
is the reinforcer still meaningful?
does my child understand what is expected?
am I providing too much or too little assistance?
are there distractions?
is my child tired, hungry, overwhelmed, or otherwise unavailable for learning?
does the skill need to be practiced in smaller steps?
Sometimes the solution isn’t more repetition, but a teaching plan that need to be adjusted. This is an important reason for collaboration between parents and the professionals supporting your child.
You don’t need to turn your home into a therapy centre
Perhaps the most important message is this. You are your child’s parent first. Supporting skill developing at home shouldn’t mean spending every evening collecting data, running teaching trials, or worrying that you’re doing something wrong. Some of the best opportunities happen naturally. Your child asks for help while making breakfast. They practice waiting during a board game. They put their backpack away when they get home. They try something independently that you previously had to do for them. These moments count.
Parent involvement can be an important part of helping skills generalize beyond formal teaching environments, and behavioural skills training has demonstrated that parents can learn to implement strategies during naturally occurring routines. The goal is to become more intentional about noticing the opportunities that are already there.
A simple formula to remember when you’re supporting a new skill at home:
Notice —> Prompt if needed —> Let your child try —> Reinforce —> Gradually fade support —> Practice somewhere new
When parent coaching can help
Sometimes the challenges isn’t knowing what skill you want your child to learn. It’s figuring out how to make that skill work in real life. You might be wondering; why does my child use this skill at school but not at home? How much help should I give? Am I reinforcing the right behaviour? What should I do when my child stops using a skill? How can I encourage independence without creating frustration? How do I move a skill from structured teaching into everyday routines?
These are the kinds of questions that can benefit from individualized behaviour consultation and parent coaching. Parent coaching can help you identify practical opportunities within your family’s existing routines, understand the function of behaviour, develop effective reinforcement strategies, and support the generalization and maintenance of newly learned skills. The goal isn’t to turn parents into therapists. It’s to give parents practical, evidence-informed strategies that git into real family life. If you’re looking for behaviour support for your child or guidance implementing new skills at home, because the most meaningful measure of a skill isn’t whether a child can demonstrate it in a teaching session. It’s whether that skill helps them participate more independently in everyday life.
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When Your Body Speaks First: How Physiology, Thoughts, and Avoidance Pull You Away from Your Values
We often frame avoidance as discipline issue; something to fix with better habits, stronger motivation or more willpower. But avoidance isn’t a failure of character. It’s a natural outcome of how your body and mind are wired to protect you.
The problem? That protection system doesn’t always care about your values. It cares about your comfort.
And those two don’t always align.
The body moves first.
Picture yourself about to:
set a boundary
start something meaningful but uncertain
speak honestly in a difficult moment
Before you’ve fully formed a thought, your body is reacting:
tight chest
increased heart rate
restlessness or a pull to disengage
This is your nervous system flagging risk and emotional exposure:
rejection
failure
judgement
loss of control
Your brain’s job is simple - reduce discomfort and stay safe. Not to help you live in alignment with your values.
Thoughts step in to justify the exit.
Once your body is activated, your thoughts quickly follow:
“this isn’t the right time.”
“I don’t want to make things worse.”
“I’ll deal with this later.”
“It’s not that important anyway.”
These thoughts feel rational and responsible. But they are often shaped by one goal - get out of discomfort as quickly as possible.
Your mind becomes incredibly persuasive when it’s working on behalf of avoidance.
The escape loop (and why it works so well).
Here’s the pattern most people don’t notice occurring in real time:
Trigger - something meaningful but uncomfortable.
Physiological activation - anxiety, tension, urge to escape
Thoughts - stories that justify delay or withdrawal
Avoidance behaviour - procrastination, silence, distraction
Relief - immediate drop in discomfort
That last step is reinforcing. The relief reaches your brain that avoidance was the right move. So next time? The urge to avoid shows up faster, stronger, and more convincingly.
When values get lost.
Here’s the part that matters most. Avoidance doesn’t just remove discomfort, it quietly pulls you out of alignment with your values.
Over time, this can look like:
valuing honesty, but avoiding hard conversations
valuing growth, but staying in what’s familiar
valuing connection, but withdrawing when things feel vulnerable
valuing leadership, but staying silent to avoid conflict
valuing health, but avoiding the discomfort of behaviour change
This doesn’t occur because you don’t care, but because your nervous system is louder than your intentions in that moment.
The cost of living by comfort instead of values.
Avoidance works in the short term, by giving you relief, space, and temporary control. But over time, the costs compound:
a growing gap between who you want to be and how you’re showing up
increased self-doubt (“why didn’t I just do it?!”)
more sensitivity to discomfort (as it’s rarely faced)
a shrinking life with fewer risks and meaningful actions
You don’t drift away from your values all at once. It happens in small, repeated moments of choosing comfort over alignment.
From relief-seeking to values-led action.
The goal isn’t to eliminate avoidance entirely, but to notice it sooner and choose differently when it matters.
Recognize the moment of choice. That feeling in your body, that urge to delay, scroll, cancel or stay quiet. This is not just discomfort, but a decision point. Do you move away from this feeling…or toward what matters?
Make space for the feeling. Trying to get rid discomfort often ends up fueling avoidance. Instead try, noticing the sensation, naming it (anxiety, tension), and letting it be present without immediately acting on it. The goal is not to try to feel better, but to create room to choose better.
Hold your thoughts lightly. Your thoughts will attempt to offer an exit strategy. You don’t need to argue with them, simply notice them. “I’m having the thought that this will go badly.” This small shift (cognitive defusion), creates distance between you and the story your thoughts are telling you.
Bring values into the moment. Values aren’t abstract ideas; they’re directions for action. Ask yourself, “if I weren’t trying to get rid of this feeling, what would matter right now?”, “What would the version of me who lives my values do here?”. Then take a step, however small, in that direction.
Redefine success as acting in alignment with your values even when discomfort is present.
A more honest way to live.
Living your values doesn’t mean you stop feeling anxious, uncertain, or resistant. It means those experiences stop being the decision-makers. Because if you wait to feel ready to act, you’ll end up delaying the conversation, holding back your voice, or staying where it’s safe. However, if you’re willing to feel discomfort, you speak up, you act, you move toward the life you actually want.
Final thought.
Avoidance isn’t the enemy, its a signal that you’re near something meaningful, your body is trying to protect you, and you’re standing at a fork between comfort and values. One path reduces discomfort quickly. The other builds a life that feels like yours. And while you won’t always choose perfectly, each time you do choose your values through discomfort you strengthen a different pattern of behaviour. Once where your life is shaped less by what you feel… and more by what truly matters to you.
Happiness Isn’t Where You’re Going, It’s Where You Are
We’re often taught to treat happiness like a reward. Something you earn after you hit a goal, fix a problem, or become a better version of yourself. It lives just slightly ahead of you - “I’ll feel better when…”. But there’s a slight problem with that model.
Two versions of happiness.
Contingent happiness or “I’ll be happy when…” This version depends on outcomes, behaviours, and external circumstances. It is future-focused, conditional and often motivating. But rarely feels satisfying for long.
Present moment happiness or mindfulness-based. This version is about being aware of what’s happening right now, making space for both pleasant and unpleasant experiences, and not postponing your life until conditions are ‘perfect’. It’s accessible immediately, but often overlooked because it feels too simple.
Why we get stuck chasing happiness.
Your brain is built to solve problems, not sit in contentment. As a result, you constantly scan for what’s missing, what needs fixing, or what could be wrong. This creates a loop:
notice discomfort
set a goal to fix it
believe happiness comes after the fix
delay feeling okay until you meet the goal
What happens when you achieve the goal? The mind quickly moves onto the next one, “okay, but now what about this?”. Happiness ends up getting pushed into the future.
The hidden cost of conditional happiness.
There’s nothing wrong with goals, growth, or wanting things to improve, however if your ability to feel okay is dependent on them there may be an issue. Over time, you might experience chronic dissatisfaction, difficulty being present, constant sense of urgency or pressure, or miss meaningful moments because you’re mentally elsewhere.
What mindfulness actually offers.
Mindfulness isn’t about forcing yourself to be happy. It’s about not needing the moment to be different in order to show up in it. This could include enjoying what good while it’s here, allowing discomfort without immediately trying to escape it, or noticing thoughts like “this isn’t enough” without buying into them. Mindfulness shifts the question from “how do I get to happiness?” to “what’s already here, if I pay attention?”
This isn’t about settling.
You might be thinking “if I stop chasing happiness, won’t I lose motivation?” You can still set goals, work toward change, and improve your life, but you’re not longer saying “my life starts when I get there.”
Integration.
This is about changing your relationship to your goals and ambition. Instead of choosing happiness after action, you can notice small moments, experience connection to the world and feel grounded in the present, while you work toward valued goals with feelings of discomfort and uncertainty.
A simple shift to practive.
Next time you catch yourself thinking “I’ll feel better when…” pause and ask yourself “what can I appreciate here right now?”, “What am I missing right now, because I’m focused on what’s next?”
Perhaps you take a moment of calm, have a conversation with a loved one, look at the progress made so far, or even just slowing down your breath. Happiness doesn’t always have to arrive loudly, sometimes it’s just the acceptance of what already is.
Final thought.
Chasing happiness in the future is fine, but if it’s the only place you allow yourself to feel it, you’ll spend most of you time waiting. The conditions for happiness don’t always show up when your goals are met, they show up when you’re present enough to notice.
Tracking Medication Side Effects, Behaviour Change, and Values: A Holistic Approach
Disclaimer: This post is for general information only and is not medical advice. Please consult a qualified healthcare provider for any decisions about medication, side effects, or treatment plans.
When individuals work toward weight-related goals, they often focus on nutrition, movement and routines. And for many, medication also plays a major role; especially those that affect appetite, energy or metabolism.
Understanding how weight loss medications and healthy behaviours interact is important, not only for weight loss, but for medication fading as appropriate.
A behaviour analytic approach to medication management may be to track:
medication side effects
behaviour changes,
personal values and committed actions.
Together, these help create a fuller picture of progress, readiness to change, and behaviour patterns that can help guide medication decisions.
Tracking can help distinguish medication effects from behavioural patterns.
Some medications cause changes in hunger, energy, sleep or fluid retention. Without tracking, one might misattribute these changes to poor motivation or lack of willpower. But when you track both side effects and behaviours, you can see whether
changes are medication related,
behaviour changes are working, even if hidden by side effects, or if
medication fading is realistic right now.
An example.
An individual taking antipsychotics may experience a 4lb. weight increase during dose adjustments, however their behaviour tracking shows
consistent healthy meals
daily physical movement, and
reduced snacking.
Without tracking, they might think they’re not trying hard enough. With tracking, it becomes clear the weight change is pharmacological and not behavioural. This information can keep you from abandoning healthy behaviour patterns, despite side effects that might indicate your healthy habits aren’t working (i.e. weight gain).
Consider that weight loss alone is rarely a motivating value. But when behaviour change goals are connected to personal values, individuals can build the resilience and persistence to carry them through medication adjustments, and continue with healthy habits. Some common values linked to healthy behaviour goals might include:
remaining active with your children
improving general long-term health
maintaining independence
feeling confident in day-to-day life, or
increased emotional stability.
Medication fading often requires self-driven, sustainable behaviours or habits, along with strong values that provide the “why” behind your efforts.
An example.
Perhaps a family member preparing to fade off a weight-loss medication, identifies one of their values as “being energized and present with their kids”. This value helps to drive committed actions such as planning balanced meals, taking evening walks after dinner and prioritizing sleep. These behaviours become a stable foundation of sustainable healthy habits while medication is reduced.
Committed Actions Show Readiness for Medication Fading
Committed actions are the specific, observable behaviours that support your values. These actions help determine whether you have the consistency and structure needed to maintain progress as medication doses decrease.
Tracking committed actions helps answer questions related to your value, such as:
Are you eating regular meals?
Are you engaging in physical movement you enjoy?
Are you incorporating mindful coping skills instead of relying on medication only to suppress appetite?
Are behaviour patterns stable or fluctuating?
An example.
Before tapering a medication to suppress appetite, one practices:
scheduling meal prep
engaging in mindful eating skills, and
a morning routine that incorporates movement and boosts energy
By tracking these actions for several weeks, not only does one build confidence in one’s ability to maintain healthy habits, but this information provides health care providers insightful and valuable data to support decision making.
Tracking Values + Behaviour + Medication Effects Creates a More Accurate Narrative
Instead of a story like: “That medication made me gain weight, I stopped taking it.”
Try tracking:
medication start and stop dates
dates of dose changes
intensity and frequency of side effects
Behaviours such as meal times, physical activity, sleep, and/or use of coping skills
Values and Committed Actions (why is this important and how do I demonstrate it)
and Outcome Data, such as weight, energy or stress levels, hunger cues (to help determine if what you’re doing is working)
Together, these help paint a fuller picture of what’s going on.
Final Thoughts.
Medication is just one part of some weight-loss or health change journeys. And by integrating values, committed actions, and tracking of medication side effects and consistency of behaviours; individuals and health care providers can make informed, compassionate, and sustainable decisions.
Values keep people anchored.
Committed actions demonstrate readiness.
Tracking connects everything to create a coherent story.
Are These Your Values, or Ones You Inherited?
Cultural values are the shared rules, priorities, and reinforcers of the groups we belong to - family, your profession, social media ecosystems, communities and friend circles.
Cultural values are powerful because they are reinforced consistently. Think about what gets rewarded:
promotions and productivity
engagements, weddings, and babies
hustle culture
“having it together”
Societal values operate through more subtle reinforcement:
praise
likes and comments
belonging; avoidance of judgement
While none of these are inherently wrong, ask yourself this question. “Are they aligned with what genuinely matters to you?”
Personal values are those chosen, not assigned.
Personal values are directional, providing qualities to actions that help define the life you want to express. They sound like:
curiosity
playful
integrity
compassion
autonomy
adventure
presence
community
Personal values are not outcomes. Being married isn’t a value, being thin isn’t a value and making six figures is not a value.
Values are how you want to show up, not what you want to collect. Think:
love
health
growth
security
might be values.
Conflict between personal and cultural values can often show up as:
success without satisfaction (you hit the milestones, but feel flat, because the milestone is culturally reinforced, not internally chosen).
chronic guilt (you want less hustle, a nontraditional path, to opt out, to prioritize mental health, but internalized “shoulds” create guilt).
decision paralysis (external reinforcement competes with internal alignment, resulting in avoidance).
Society reinforces visibility, productivity, and conformity. Your personal values may reinforce rest, autonomy and unconventional living. When reinforcement systems compete, behaviours gets pulled in both directions.
Instead of asking, “What should I want?” Try asking yourself:
“When do I feel most like myself?”
“What qualities do I admire in others, beyond aesthetics or achievement?”
“If no one could see my life, what would I still choose?”
“What would I want my future self to thank me for?”
Notice a shift. Values aren’t about image, but direction.
Living aligned with your personal values may mean:
earning less - but feeling freer
saying no - and disappointing someone
redefining success
leaving environments
disappointing your past self
You don’t have to reject cultural values, just choose consciously. You can want partnership and autonomy, or want career growth and a nervous system that is regulated. You can want financial stability and creative expression. But when tension arises, the questions becomes - “which direction do I want my life to move toward?” Not what will get an applause, or avoids criticism, but what feels aligned with who you are.
The next time you feel overwhelmed, ask “am I exhausted from living my values or from performing someone else’s?” The answer will tell you a lot.
Reinforcement at Work: Why Good Intentions Don’t Always Change Behaviour
Most workplace behaviour change efforts tend to fail for one simple reason. We talk about expectations, but rarely do we change the contingencies at play.
You can provide the training, attempt to inspire, and even threaten, but behaviour only changes when the environment makes a different behaviour easier, more valuable or more reinforcing than the old one.
That’s where contingent reinforcement comes in.
What Actually is Reinforcement (and what it isn’t)
In behavioural terms, reinforcement is anything that increases the likelihood of a behaviour happening again.
Reinforcement is not defined by your intention, but by its effect. A bonus that doesn’t change performance? Not a reinforcer. Public praise leads to avoidance? Not a reinforcer.
Flexibility, autonomy, social recognition, reduced effort, and feelings of competency are often powerful reinforcers. In the workplace, these can look like:
Social reinforcers (recognition, positive feedback, inclusion)
Tangible reinforcers (pay, perks, exclusive resources)
Task-Based reinforcers (decreased effort, clearer systems, autonomy)
Intrinsic reinforcers (mastery, alignment with values, meaning)
Preferred vs. Reinforcing: A Critical Distinction
This is where many leaders get stuck. They think preferred equals reinforcing.
A preferred consequence is something people say they like, such as paper towels over air drying. A reinforcing consequence is something that actually increases behaviour.
For example, an employee says they prefer verbal praise, but behaviour only increases when deadlines are relaxed or workload is reduced. So while praise may be preferred, reduced task demands is the reinforcer.
In the workplace, leaders often overuse:
verbal recognition
one-size-fits-all incentives
end of year rewards
while underestimating:
immediate feedback
removal of friction
predictability and clarity
feeling effective, and not overwhelmed.
Competing Contingencies: Why Old Behaviour Keeps Winning
If someone knows what to do but doesn’t do it, assume competing contingencies are at play. A competing contingency is when an undesired behaviour is more immediately reinforcing, and the desired behaviour is effortful or results in delayed or inconsistent reinforcement.
Let’s look at some examples:
you desire an employee to give feedback promptly, but they may avoid discomfort by delaying doing so
you desire employees to follow a new process, but the older system is faster so employees may continue to engage with the older system
you desire an increase in employees documenting their work, however they see no immediate payoff to do so
you want increased participation from employees during meetings, however by remaining silent, employees avoid social risks
People resist change because the environment rewards the old behaviour better.
Changing Behaviour Means Changing Contingencies
If you want behaviour to shift, reinforcement must be:
immediate
reliable
meaning to the person
easier than the competing behaviour
This requires intentional planning.
How to Change Workplace Contingencies
Step 1.
Define the behaviour precisely and objectively. Avoid vague goals like “be proactive” or “communicate better”. Instead try:
“Send project updates by Friday 3pm”
“Provide feedback within 48 hours”
“Use the new intake form for all future requests”
If you can’t observe it, you can’t reinforce it.
Step 2.
Identify the current reinforcers. Ask:
What happens right after the current behaviour?
What discomfort is being avoided?
What effort is being reduced?
The answers to these questions will help explain why the current behaviour persists.
Step 3.
Identify the competing contingencies. Find out:
What does the undesired behaviour result in? What is the payoff for the individual?
What cost does the desired behaviour current have? How much effort does the new behaviour take?
Step 4.
Select reinforcers that employees respond to, not what leadership prefers. Consider:
Reduced workload later
Faster approvals
Autonomy
Tying behaviours to meaningful outcomes
Providing skill-building opportunities
Whenever possible, reinforcer early efforts and not just perfect outcomes.
Step 5.
Reduce the cost of the desired behaviour. Sometimes, reinforcement alone might not compete enough. Try:
Simplifying steps
Automating reminders
Removing unnecessary approvals
Clarifying expectations
Normalizing imperfect attempts
Remember, lower effort equals a higher probability of desired behaviour.
Step 6.
Deliver reinforcement immediately and consistently, reinforcement loses its power quickly. When possible:
Weekly beats quarterly
Specific beats generic
Predictable beats random
Step 7.
Fade artificial reinforcement and strengthen natural ones. Over time, shift toward reinforcing:
Mastery
Efficiency
Team trust
Value-aligned outcomes,
to increase sustainability of the desired behaviour.
Final Thought.
Behaviour is often a systems contingency problem, where reinforcement aligns with undesired behaviours. However, when reinforcement does align with the behaviour you want, and competing contingencies are weakened, behaviour change stops leading to power struggles and starts being the path of least resistance. That’s how behaviour actually changes.
Leadership Skills of the Future
Great leadership requires knowing what actions are required for the present context.
With Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT) leaders can start to…
interrupt automatic stress responses or unhelpful coping strategies
pay attention to current context or environment is asking for
choose actions that are aligned with their leadership values and goals
Present moment awareness and cognitive defusion are two components of ACT that can help anyone experiencing experiential avoidance or have difficulty responding effectively during moments of crisis, build crisis resilience.
Crisis resilience is one’s ability to respond effectively during moments of crisis, even when experiencing discomfort. Like psychological flexibility, where one responds in line with their values even when it may be easier, and/or more reinforcing to not.
The goal is not to eliminate internal states of frustrations, self-doubt, or fear of failure, but to help ensure that these internal states don’t drive behaviour.
So, instead of reacting to unimportant information or historic self-imposed rules such as “I must always have the answer”, leaders gain the ability to respond more effectively to the situation in front of them.
Present moment awareness helps to keep us in the here and now, instead of living in our heads, thinking about the past or future. Remaining present helps to attune to the specific environments and contexts to better respond to expectations, instead of responding to thoughts of the past or future, and current physiological internal states that lead to avoidance.
Second, consider that uncomfortable thoughts and feelings are normal human experiences, and automatic thoughts often come up, such as “I can’t fix this”, “this is impossible”, which usually aren’t helpful. When a leader is fused to their thought “this problem is unsolvable”, they are more likely to stop trying and withdraw.
However a leader who practices defusion recognizes a thoughts as simply a thought, “I’m having the thought that this is unsolvable”. This helps to create space to act more in alignment with values and the current context, rather than acting from an emotional place. A leader who practices cognitive defusion will continue to engage in problem-solving because persistence aligns with their leadership values.
Lemon Exercises
Practice present moment awareness and cognitive defusion to build leadership flexibility.
Present Moment Awareness Exercise:
Imagine cutting open a bright yellow lemon. Then imagine biting into a piece of it. Notice the physical sensations, thoughts, and emotions that you are experiencing. For example, salivation, muscle clenching, thinking “so sour!”. Notice how thoughts (like thinking about a lemon) can create real physical reaction, but they are not commands you need to do anything with.
Cognitive Defusion Exercise:
Try repeating the word ‘lemon’ for 30 seconds. Notice how the meaning of the word fades, and it becomes just a series of sounds. Notice how the words and thoughts (repeating ‘lemon’) lose their emotional impact when we are able to step away from them.
The Bottom Line
By cultivating psychological flexibility, leaders become better equipped to guide their teams through uncertainty, maintain performance under stress and model values-driven behaviours. ACT doesn’t eliminate the stress, it teaches leaders how to lead effectively through it.
Leading Through Uncertainty: Using ACT to Build Resilient Teams
In today’s fast-paced workplaces, leaders are facing increasing levels of psychological distress and burnout. These internal states don’t just affect wellbeing, but directly impact employee performance, decision making and overall team outcomes.
Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT) is an evidence-based process used within organizations to enhance resilience, leadership capacity and workplace performance.
How ACT Works
ACT reduces psychological distress and burnout, through some specific skills:
Mindfulness Practice
By learning to stay grounded in the present moment, regardless of internal states, or thoughts. This helps to reduce impulsive decision-making, while supporting more strategic thinking.
By learning to identify and act according to core values, leaders engage in increased consistency and build confidence to act even in high-pressure situations.
Together, these skills have been shown to reduce symptoms of stress, increase work performance, and reduce workplace errors.
Building a Growth Mindset Through Behavioural Skills Training
A growth mindset is a set of behaviours, including setting clear goals, meeting mastery criteria and using behavioural skills training to teach. Organizations that foster a growth mindset build resilience, persistence and continuous improvement within their teams.
A growth mindset or belief that one’s abilities and traits can always be developed is essential for personal and professional success.
Growth mindset interventions help individuals see challenges as opportunities to learn rather than threats to their competence.
To be effective, these interventions should identify objective behaviour goals with clear performance criteria (what success looks like and how it will be measured).
To ensure competency when teaching new skills, include:
an explanation or rationale for the skill, and description of the required behaviours
a model of the behaviour or skill demonstrated to mastery or expert level (i.e. frequency, accuracy, and fluency)
opportunities to practice the skill in a safe, supportive environment
corrective and positive feedback until mastery is observed across multiple opportunities
Gradually increase difficulty to build confidence and competence
Bottom Line
A growth mindset is a set of behaviours, including setting clear goals, meeting mastery criteria and using behavioural skills training to teach. Organizations that foster a growth mindset build resilience, persistence and continuous improvement within their teams.
From Habits to Behaviour Change: Using Nudges to Create Positive Tipping Points
Behaviour science shows us that small changes can lead to big shifts. Combing habit strategies with behavioural tipping can help
make desired behaviours easy and rewarding
connect actions to identity and values
use modelling and reinforcement to spread change
The results are sustainable habits, and stronger community that align with wellbeing and shared goals.
Your behaviour doesn’t happen in isolation. It’s shaped and designed by our environments, learning histories of reinforcement, and social norms.
You can however design your environment to create new norms and shape behaviour change.
Positive Tipping. Occurs when a small number of individuals engage in a new behaviour, which is observed by others. The larger group starts to model the behaviour and social contagion takes hold, increasing conformity through continued modelling and social reinforcement, until the new behaviour becomes the norm.
How to Trigger Positive Tipping Points:
Implement behavioural nudges, and simple prompts that help make the desired behaviour more accessible.
Frame participation or adoption of the desired behaviour as an invitation to collaborate, and not an obligation.
Make the desired behaviour the default option and easier than alternatives.
Model the desired behaviour as social proof that others are doing it too. People will ask, “Is anyone else doing this?” before they start themselves.
Pair the desired behaviour with positive consequences. For example, collecting rainwater saves potable water and lowers costs.
Motivation Matters
Behaviour change is difficult because it competes with already established habits and immediate rewards.
Long term benefits often feel distant, while our short term habits are reinforced in the moment.
To help overcome this:
Tie desired behaviours with your current values and who you want to be.
Highlight immediate benefits as well as the future long term gains.
Provide more immediate reinforcement or incentives for the new behaviours.
The Science Behind Habits
Habits form through cue -> behaviour -> reward
Cue: environmental trigger
Behaviour: automatic response
Reward: reinforcement that strengthens the habit
Over time, these habits or behaviours become automatic and difficult to change, however:
start small, breaking big goals into more manageable steps
pair desired behaviours with existing habits
modify environmental cues to disrupt old habits and help support new ones
Examples in Action:
Fitness wearables provide immediate feedback and reinforcement for healthy behaviours.
Pairing nutritious foods with preferred flavours helps to make healthy choices more rewarding.
Text/email reminders help encourage physical activity, helping to boost well being and productivity.
Bottom Line
Behaviour science shows us that small changes can lead to big shifts. Combing habit strategies with behavioural tipping can help
make desired behaviours easy and rewarding
connect actions to identity and values
use modelling and reinforcement to spread change
The results are sustainable habits, and stronger community that align with wellbeing and shared goals.
From Stress to Success: How ACT and Performance Feedback Drive Workplace Change
While stress is inevitable, it’s impact doesn’t have to be. Combine performance feedback with ACT to create a compelling formula for
reducing burnout and psychological stress,
increasing engagement and productivity, and
driving sustainable behaviour change
Organizations that invest in these strategies don’t just improve employee performance, they help build resilient, value-driven teams ready to thrive.
How can organizations supports their employees in managing stress in fast-paced work environments, while improving performance?
Research supports Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT) and structured performance feedback as a powerful combination.
High stress increases errors, reduces efficiency, and contributes to burnout. All of which lead to reduced productivity.
As stress levels increase, employee technical performance suffers and increased supervision can often feel like heightened pressure to perform, leading employees to engage in avoidance behaviours and disengage from work culture.
Enter ACT.
ACT is not about getting rid of internal discomfort, which leads to avoidance, but about building psychological flexibility. The ability to take actions towards values even when stress, and unhelpful thoughts or feelings show up.
ACT encourages employees to move forward with meaningful goals instead of getting stuck in avoidance patterns.
Verbal and written performance feedback, along with reinforcement, and removal of barriers to performance, has been shown to reduce stress levels in employees, however…including ACT produced even greater and more consistent performance improvements, higher employee engagement and stronger technical skills. Additionally, employees found ACT strategies enjoyable and practical (Pingo et al., 2020).
Why it works.
ACT aims to address the root causes of stress; typically avoidance. By clarifying workplace and personal values, breaking tasks into smaller, more manageable steps, and reinforcing actions aligned with values, employees increase their ability to adapt and thrive, even under pressure.
Bottom line.
While stress is inevitable, it’s impact doesn’t have to be. Combine performance feedback with ACT to create a compelling formula for
reducing burnout and psychological stress,
increasing engagement and productivity, and
driving sustainable behaviour change
Organizations that invest in these strategies don’t just improve employee performance, they help build resilient, value-driven teams ready to thrive.
How ACT Builds Resilience, Emotional Regulation, and Value-Aligned Living
By accepting the discomfort, defusing from unhelpful thoughts, practicing mindfulness and taking committed action toward what matters most, we move towards better mental health, stronger resilience and a life aligned with your values.
We all experience uncomfortable thoughts and feelings, which we often try to control or suppress, through a coping strategy called Experiential Avoidance (EA).
EA is linked to a variety of psychological and behavioural difficulties, despite offering short term relief, leading to potentially harmful long term consequences.
Typically individuals will engage in EA to escape or control negative internal states or experiences (thoughts, emotions, memories), leading to the development of common coping patterns such as substance use, social withdrawal, and risky behaviours. Frequent engagement in EA is associated with PTSD, increased hospital visits, depression, increased school dropouts and an overall decrease in quality of life.
Combined with environmental stressors such as grief, pain, racism or violence, EA can exacerbate psychological or behavioural difficulties.
Psychological Flexibility
Psychological flexibility is the capacity to engage with difficult internal experiences while still acting in alignment with your values.
Lack of psychological flexibility means we become fused with our thoughts, such as “This is my fault”, “I’m not good enough,” and we regularly engage in EA coping strategies that help us avoid or escape these unpleasant thoughts and associated feelings.
These patterns of - trigger -> unpleasant thought -> escape/avoidance behaviour - is shaped by our own individual histories of reinforcement, operant conditioning and modelling, which teach us how to interpret and respond to emotions.
While these patterns of responding may feel protective, they often lead to more distress and disconnection from what matters most.
The ACT Approach
Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT) provides an alternative path. Instead of fighting discomfort, we learn to accept thoughts and feelings as they come. The goal is to notice them without judgement, and make the choice to take action aligned with our values.
Key processes include:
Acceptance. A willingness to experience psychological discomfort, when choosing a value-aligned action.
Defusion. Creating distance from thoughts; observing them rather than identifying with them.
This simple shift helps to reduce judgement and see thoughts as just thoughts, not facts.
Mindfulness (Present Moment Awareness). Instead of arguing with thoughts and telling ourselves stories about the past or future, mindfulness brings attention back to the here and now. By practicing noticing exercises and engaging in the present, we help reduce EA and reinforce more adaptive coping.
Values. Clarify what truly matters to you and develop meaningful, objective, measurable and realistic goals.
Committed Action. Taking objective steps towards your values, even when it’s uncomfortable.
Why it Matters
ACT not only helps reduce EA, it helps to increase emotional regulation, resulting in decreased defensiveness, and improved communication in relationships (Nallepalli & Murugesan, 2025).
Using ACT also helps you to recognize the emotional distress of making the hard choices to live according to your values.
The practice of acceptance, defusion and mindfulness helps to decrease negative thoughts, improve resilience and foster a life that is aligned with what matters most.
Bottom Line
EA keeps us stuck and ACT helps us move forward. By accepting the discomfort, defusing from unhelpful thoughts, practicing mindfulness and taking committed action toward what matters most, we move towards better mental health, stronger resilience and a life aligned with your values.
Driving Performance While Supporting Employee Wellbeing
Sustainable workplace engagement is about creating an environment based on shared values, appropriate resources and building resilient employees. The result is a workforce that is more engaged and ready to meet the challenges ahead.
Individuals are motivated to act in ways and pursue goals that align with their values and what matters most. When management, organizational and personal values align, research predicts:
higher job satisfaction
lower employee turnover
greater trust and collaborations among teams
Values alone, however are not enough. Employees require the right job resources, both workplace and personal and access to these resources show:
reduced stress and discomfort
increased engagement and performance
more effective responding to challenges
The Case for Resilience
Developing employee resilience should be a core goal for organizations because while workplace challenges inevitably do increase job stress, resilient individuals:
demonstrate less distress,
greater persistence, and
ability to adapt to meet goals.
Resilience is about more than just coping, it’s about the ability to thrive under pressure.
The Missing Link: Engagement
Engaged employees who see value in their work are motivated to invest time and effort into organizational goals. Engaged employees are also tend to experience greater personal life satisfaction.
Yet most employees are not engaged at work, resulting in billions lost in productivity (Lu et al., 2023).
Happy and engaged employees are productive employees, so how do we increase engagement?
Strategies for Sustainable Engagement
Identify and provide appropriate job resources to help reduce stress and boost motivation.
Connect work tasks to employee values and identity, helping them see why their work matters.
Reinforce engagement behaviours consistently and regularly, through recognition, positive feedback and growth opportunities.
Have leadership model value-driven behaviours, for employees to look to for guidance.
Bottom Line
Sustainable workplace engagement is about creating an environment based on shared values, appropriate resources and building resilient employees. The result is a workforce that is more engaged and ready to meet the challenges ahead.