From Inspiration to Daily Behavior: A 12-Week Cold-State Plan (Prompt + Template)

TL;DR

• Turn motivation spikes into a durable behavior system that survives ordinary days.
• Uses COM-B, B=MAP, WOOP, pre-mortems, if–then plans, guardrails, and weekly reviews.
• Copy the full prompt, fill the inputs, run, and paste the 48-hour checklist on your calendar today.
• Includes a clean HTML References block for WordPress and ready-to-use Yoast SEO fields.

Introduction

Moments of inspiration feel powerful, but they fade fast. This post gives you a practical, copy-and-paste prompt that converts a spark into daily action. It diagnoses friction, builds tiny compounding routines, protects against classic failure modes, and sets a 12-week review loop. Use it to build habits that work in your real life, not just your high-motivation days.

What the prompt does

• Runs advanced diagnostics: COM-B, B=MAP, WOOP, and a six-item pre-mortem.
• Builds identity evidence and resolves schema conflicts.
• Designs if–then plans tied to stable cues plus environment hooks and pre-commitments.
• Installs protocols: a 48-hour cold start, daily cadence, weekly review.
• Adds experiments and guardrails: N-of-1 A/B, bright lines, decision rulebook, streak policy.
• Sets metric bands, milestones, and a fast recovery script for lapses.

How to use it

1. Fill the bracketed inputs with short, specific answers.
2. Paste the entire prompt into your AI.
3. Run once. If any section feels off, tweak inputs and rerun.
4. Put the 48-hour checklist on your calendar and schedule the weekly review.

Full Prompt (copy and paste)

You are a behavior scientist and systems coach. Your job is to convert a flash of inspiration into durable daily behaviors that survive ordinary, cold-state conditions.

CONTEXT
The client experiences the intention–action gap: a quote or insight creates a euphoric sense of imminent change, yet habits quickly revert. Use these lenses: possible selves and premature reward, self-schema and cognitive dissonance, unconscious resistance, temporal distancing, hot–cold empathy gap, affective forecasting errors, and practical integration.

INPUTS
- Target outcome: [goal]
- Triggering insight or quote: [text]
- Current routines and constraints: [time, energy, roles, environment]
- Known friction points: [list]
- Time horizon: [e.g., 12 weeks]
- Available supports and tools: [people, apps, spaces]
- Personal energy peaks and troughs: [times]
- Non-negotiables and limits: [hard constraints]

TASKS

1) ADVANCED DIAGNOSTICS
- COM-B snapshot. Score 1–5 for Capability, Opportunity, Motivation. Identify the limiting factor and why.
- Fogg B=MAP check. At the scheduled moment, is Motivation, Ability, and Prompt aligned. If success probability is below 80 percent, shrink the behavior.
- WOOP framing. One compact paragraph for Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan.
- Pre-mortem. List six ways the plan could fail in the next 30 days. Give a counter for each.
- “Why this fails” snapshot. Five bullets that map identity conflicts, environmental triggers, and hot vs cold state mismatches.

2) IDENTITY WORK
- Write a one-sentence identity statement that is behavior anchored.
- List three schema contradictions to resolve and one move for each.

3) BRIDGE DESIGN
Create implementation intentions that move insight from hot to cold states:
- If–Then plans tied to stable daily cues.
- Environment and calendar hooks.
- Pre-commitments and default options.
- Cue inventory. List eight anchors across time, place, and sensory cues.
- State-shift micro-rituals. Three 60–120 second primers to enter cold-state execution.

4) CHOICE ARCHITECTURE AND ENERGY ALIGNMENT
- Remove one friction and add one prompt in the environment daily for Week 1.
- Schedule hard tasks on personal peaks. Place easy tasks on troughs.
- Temptation bundling and rotating rewards. Define pairings and a weekly reward rotation.
- Commitment devices. Define a light stake and a heavy stake with trigger rules.
- Stop-doing list. Identify one competing behavior to delete or replace.

5) PROTOCOLS
- Minimal viable routine for the next 48 hours.
- Sustainable daily cadence with 5–7 atomic steps.
- Weekly cadence with 5 steps.

6) EXPERIMENTS AND GUARDRAILS
- N-of-1 A/B experiment for two weeks. Hypothesis, metric, sample size, effect threshold, decision rule.
- Red-team your plan. Describe how Future-You would break it. Add defenses.
- Edge-case playbooks. Travel day, illness day, overbooked day, low-sleep day. Give three steps each.
- Bright-line rules. Three if–then boundaries that remove decisions.
- Decision rulebook. Defaults, exceptions, vetoes for skip versus reschedule.
- Social scaffolding. Accountability partner, check-in script, cadence, fail-safe escalation.
- Streak policy. Freeze rule, one-day grace, restart protocol.
- Scope-creep guard. Weekly cap on new behaviors and a kill switch if load exceeds a set threshold.
- Metric bands. Green, yellow, red thresholds that auto-trigger specific adjustments.
- Evidence tracker. Define what counts as proof of identity shift. Collect one artifact per day.

7) LEARNING LOOP AND TIMELINE
- Friction-log template and leading indicators.
- 10-minute weekly review with questions and metrics.
- Milestone plan for Weeks 1, 2, 4, 8, and 12 with success criteria and check-ins.

8) RECOVERY SCRIPT
- Same-day reset checklist after a lapse. Keep it under five minutes.

9) ACCOUNTABILITY ARCHITECTURE
- Two options. A social contract path and a solo fail-safe path.

OUTPUT FORMAT
Provide the following sections in order:
- COM-B table with limiting factor and fix.
- Fogg B=MAP verdict and behavior shrink proposal if needed.
- WOOP paragraph.
- Pre-mortem with counter-moves.
- “Why this fails” snapshot, 5 bullets.
- Identity statement and schema conflicts, 4 bullets.
- Bridge Design table with columns: Trigger, If–Then, Cue, Tool, Expected friction, Counter-move.
- 48-Hour Cold-Start checklist, 8–12 steps.
- Daily protocol, 5–7 steps. Weekly protocol, 5 steps.
- Choice architecture changes and cue inventory.
- N-of-1 A/B experiment plan.
- Edge-case playbooks.
- Decision rulebook and bright-line rules.
- Social scaffolding plan and streak policy.
- Metric bands and evidence tracker format.
- Milestone plan.
- Recovery script.
- Weekly After-Action Review template with keep, drop, tweak.

STYLE CONSTRAINTS
Be concrete and testable. Short sentences. Prefer verbs. No abstractions without actions. Assume a busy professional with limited willpower and unchanged surroundings. Keep total output under 900 words.
Now generate the plan using the provided inputs.

Applied example

Inputs

• Target outcome: write 45 focused minutes every weekday.
• Quote: “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
• Constraints: two kids, 8:30 to 6 workday, small home office.
• Frictions: morning phone scroll, late meetings, afternoon slump.
• Horizon: 12 weeks.
• Supports: spouse, calendar, Focus app.
• Peaks and troughs: peak 8 to 10, trough 2 to 4.
• Non-negotiables: school runs 7:30 and 3:30.

Sample output excerpt (condensed)

• COM-B: Capability 4, Opportunity 3, Motivation 4. Limiter is Opportunity. Fix: block 8:30 to 9:30, door sign, noise rules.
• B=MAP: success under 70 percent. Shrink to 25 minutes for Week 1.
• WOOP: Wish write daily. Outcome publish weekly. Obstacle phone and late nights. Plan phone in kitchen, lights out by 10:15, start doc at 8:30.
• 48-hour checklist: create “Writing” calendar hold, set app block list, print if–then card, prep outline tonight, put phone in kitchen before bed, start with 25 minutes at 8:30 tomorrow, log artifact in folder.
• Bright lines: no social apps before 10, no meetings before 9 on Tue Thu, reschedule missed session within 24 hours.
• Metric bands: Green 4 to 5 days, Yellow 2 to 3, Red 0 to 1.
• Recovery script: two deep breaths, open yesterday’s doc, write one ugly paragraph, log done.

References & Links

• Fogg Behavior Model (B=MAP)
• COM-B and Behaviour Change Wheel
• WOOP: Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan
• Implementation Intentions (If–Then Planning)
• Performing a Project Premortem (HBR)
• Hot–Cold Empathy Gap

Conclusion

Motivation gets you started. Systems keep you going. Use this prompt to turn a spark into a plan you can run on ordinary days. Keep changes tiny in Week 1, collect identity proof daily, and let the 12-week loop do the compounding.