Behaviours: Awareness
Understand what behavioural change means, what's possible, and where you stand. About 15 minutes.
Automatic behavioural patterns – addictions, compulsions, emotional reactions, avoidance – often run in the background of daily life, shaping decisions without conscious input. Most people have at least a few patterns that work against their stated goals, yet only about 24% of those who would benefit from addressing them actually do so.
The costs of unchecked patterns tend to compound. Reactive behaviours can erode relationships, undermine career progress, and worsen mental health over time. WHO data suggests that 1 in 8 people globally live with an anxiety or depressive disorder, and emotional dysregulation is a contributing factor in both conditions.
On the other side, people who develop the capacity to choose their responses – rather than defaulting to compulsive ones – generally report greater life satisfaction, stronger relationships, and more resilience during difficult periods. The evidence from relapse prevention research indicates that behavioural awareness is a necessary foundation for lasting change, even if awareness alone is not sufficient.
People pursue behavioural change for different reasons. This site scores every behaviours intervention across four core values. Later, you'll set your own weighting across these values, and the site will rank interventions by how well they deliver on the things you actually care about.
Freedom & Control
Liberation from compulsive patterns and automatic responses that limit your choices. Breaking free from addictions, managing impulses, and developing the ability to pause between trigger and response. People who lean towards this value focus on restoring genuine choice in their actions, even when it requires significant upfront effort or temporary discomfort.
Emotional Regulation
Developing healthier responses to emotional triggers like stress, anxiety, anger, or boredom. Moving from reactive emotional patterns to more measured, intentional responses. Those who lean towards this value focus on building emotional skills and alternative coping strategies, accepting that feeling emotions fully may be temporarily more difficult than numbing them.
Social & Relational Patterns
Changing automatic interpersonal behaviours like people-pleasing, conflict avoidance, codependency, social withdrawal, or defensive reactions. People who lean towards this value work on assertiveness, boundary-setting, and staying present during difficult social situations.
Resilience & Adaptability
Building sustainable behavioural change that survives life disruptions and does not require constant vigilance. Developing multiple coping strategies, planning for setbacks, and creating robust systems. Those who lean towards this value are willing to progress more slowly to ensure changes last through major life transitions or crises.
The Top 0.1% band represents roughly 1 in 1,000 people. To give you a sense of what that looks like for each behaviours value:
Anthony Hopkins stopped drinking on 29 December 1975 after what he has described as years of destructive alcoholism. He has maintained sobriety for over 50 years while working continuously in one of the most high-pressure industries in the world. He credits daily discipline and a complete change in daily habits for his sustained recovery, and by all accounts has not relapsed despite decades of public life and professional stress.
Marsha Linehan developed Dialectical Behaviour Therapy after her own experience of severe emotional dysregulation and psychiatric hospitalisation as a young woman. She publicly disclosed in 2011 that she had been a patient at the Institute of Living, where she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and subjected to electroshock treatment. She went on to build a daily practice of the emotional regulation skills she later formalised into DBT, and has maintained that practice for over 40 years.
John Gottman has spent over 40 years researching couple interactions and can predict relationship outcomes with roughly 90% accuracy based on behavioural patterns. Beyond his research, he practises what he studies – maintaining a long-term partnership while navigating the pressures of public intellectual life. His work on repairing conflict patterns and maintaining authentic connection under pressure reflects mastery-level relational skill.
Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison, including 18 on Robben Island, and emerged without evident bitterness towards his captors. He maintained daily exercise routines, studied by correspondence, and cultivated relationships with guards throughout his imprisonment. After his release in 1990 he led South Africa's transition away from apartheid through negotiation, demonstrating a capacity to adapt his behaviour to radically different circumstances while sustaining purpose across decades.
Freedom & Control
Emotional Regulation
Social & Relational Patterns
Resilience & Adaptability
Your estimated position
Percentiles are estimates based on published population data on behavioural self-regulation among adults. Items without a clear ordinal scale are left unscored.
You now understand why behaviours matter, what different people get out of behavioural change, what's achievable, and where you currently stand. The final step is to set your personal value weightings and see which interventions are the best fit for you.
On the interventions page, adjust the sliders to reflect how much you care about freedom and control, emotional regulation, social and relational patterns, and resilience. The table will re-rank interventions to match your priorities.
Awareness assessment complete
You've built your foundation in Behaviours. Your self-assessment and value weightings are saved.
View Your Interventions