Are you unwittingly being a “bahana” machine?

Back in 2004, the advertisement agency Leo Burnett rolled out a catchy ad campaign for McDonalds in India. The campaign was aptly titled “What’s your Bahana (or excuse)” to go and eat at McDonalds? The actors in the ads would cite weird or irrelevant reasons to go and grab a bite at McDonalds.

The premise of this ad campaign was simply to drive home the point that the food at McDonalds was extremely affordable for regular people, with prices starting from just Rs 20 (it was the year 2004!). And the target audience were the young adults of urban India. The ad campaign also scored more points by blending in Hindi which highly resonated with its potential Indian urban consumers.

However, today we are not evaluating the success of this ad campaign. We are not even focusing on prevalence of ‘Hinglish’ in ad campaigns in India.

No. We are rather interested in focusing on how the brilliant creators of this campaign tapped into the base nature of us humans. When we need to get anything done, we disproportionately chose a ‘path of least resistance’. In the case of eating food when hungry, the path of least resistance is to get a tempting (but unhealthy) snack, and this is exactly what McDonalds hacked into.

According to Wikipedia, the path of least resistance is defined as “the physical or metaphorical pathway that provides the least resistance to forward motion by a given object or entity, among a set of alternative paths.”

And we see this phenomenon of choosing a path of least resistance all the time. Here are some examples:

• Eating that chocolate chip cookie or chips in the evening rather than eating a fruit or something healthy with green tea.

• Not waking up at 6 am to go and get some exercise or a run but rather to snuggle back in bed.

• Not working on a project or studying, but rather binge-watching a web-series on Netflix.

• Not being able to keep our cool (even when we want to) when kids get on our nerves.

And then what do we do when we feel guilty of failing ourselves for not achieving these small goals? We create “Bahanas” (or, excuses)! And these bahanas will all be Award Winning ones! So for all the above examples, the bahanas can be:

• Oh! my blood sugar was so low that if I hadn’t eaten the cookie I would have fainted. I’ll keep a fruit handy for later (which seldom happens!)

• Brr.. it’s so cold outside, and the blanket is so warm! I’ll definitely start my exercise regime from tomorrow.

• I deserve some entertainment in my life. I’ve been working so hard and that too without any break.

• What else was I supposed to do after spending a whole day at work? These kids have no discipline!

As you will see, most of the times we’ll forgive ourselves very quickly by letting our mind believe that these bahanas are true. With our mind thus tricked, the situation will be the same the next time, and later.

Soon we will start believing that dieting and exercise are not our cup of tea. In fact, if we see someone exercising regularly, we feel they’re just overdoing it! Similarly, we rationalize that a little bit of TV will do no harm. Likewise, if we don’t catch up on all these interesting web-series, then we won’t be able to discuss those with our friends, & consequently be left out. As for the kids, let our spouse take over with the parenting!

* * * * * *

Some time ago, I was in a similar ‘bahana’ cycle. I was not really paying any attention to my physical health. My biggest bahana at the time to not exercise was “let me start some exercise at home and achieve some degree of physical fitness. Once I’m better, I’ll go and get a gym membership” (Hint: I was embarrassed to go to the gym for lack of muscle strength).

And as you would have guessed, getting that initial exercise at home only remained as a thought. In the morning when I got up, there was always just enough time to get ready and leave for work, and in the evening after work, a work-out seemed like a punishment. This went on for a while.

* * * * * *

The real change, however, happened when I could not walk for even 10 minutes on a treadmill (for a stress test), and I desperately gasped for air after that.

That’s when I decided that I had to break free from the bahana loop.

I told my mind that I will wake up early morning and go for my group exercise regime and the morning runs on the pre-determined days of the week. NO MATTER WHAT. If I slept late, I would still wake up and go. If it was raining outside, I would still go.

With the pre-commitment in place, there was no chance for my mind to talk myself out of not doing the work out. The path of least resistance was a NO GO.

Gradually, getting up in the morning became easier, and my overall energy and mood through the day remained upbeat. With enough days of practice, it soon developed into a habit. Eventually, the days when I did not exercise (and slept in late) were the ones where my energy remained low during the day.

After a few months, I noticed that I was not only improving my fitness, but I was also sleeping on time, eating better and not wasting time on TV shows. Even my focus at work improved. My one habit of not falling prey to my mind tricks helped turn around my life for the better.

Concluding Thoughts. 

The ‘What’s your Bahana?’ campaign definitely helped McDonalds gain more sales and foothold in the Indian market. Conversely, identifying my personal bahanas helped me improve not just one but multiple shortcomings in my life. If you too use this amazing power of “pre-commitment” to suitably tame your bahanas, I’m sure success will be just around the corner.