Have You Heard the One About the Elephant? 🐘

Ever tried steering an elephant with a tiny rider on its back?
That is what behaviour change really looks like. To make change stick, you need to guide both the Rider, our logical side, and the Elephant, our emotional side.

The Analogy

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt explains that we all have two sides: an emotional side, the Elephant, and a rational side, the Rider.

The Rider plans, analyses and makes logical decisions.
The Elephant is instinct, feeling and impulse.

The Rider might see the path ahead clearly, but only the Elephant has the strength to move forward.

Why Change Feels Hard

Even when the Rider knows the right direction, the much larger Elephant can take control if it is not motivated. This is why facts alone rarely shift behaviour.

Chip and Dan Heath describe it in Switch:

“Perched atop the Elephant, the Rider holds the reins and seems to be the leader. But the Rider’s control is precarious… Anytime the six-ton Elephant and the Rider disagree, the Rider loses.”

Other thinkers echo this truth. Daniel Kahneman in Thinking, Fast and Slow and Steve Peters in The Chimp Paradox both show how emotion often wins over logic.

Three Ways to Guide the Elephant

1. Motivate the Elephant

People need to feel inspired to move. The This Girl Can campaign is a strong example. It tackled fear of judgement and turned it into motivation, supported by local programmes that made activity possible.

2. Clear the Path

Make the journey easy for the Rider. Remove barriers, simplify steps and shape environments so the desired behaviour feels natural. Behavioural insights reveal the hidden obstacles that no clever messaging can overcome.

3. Shorten the Distance

Break change into smaller, manageable steps. Techniques like defaults, chunking and checklists use natural shortcuts to keep the Elephant moving.
Ask yourself: can the desired behaviour be the default choice? Can the problem behaviour be made harder?

When the journey feels shorter, change feels possible.

Final Thought

To create lasting change, do not just convince the Rider with logic. Inspire the Elephant with emotion. When both move together, progress becomes unstoppable.