A Proven Method on Creating Life-Changing Habits: Insights from Behavior Design
You’re pumped. You finish one session of light exercises. You do this every morning for a few days. A couple weeks after, you feel sluggish. You don’t feel like doing it anymore. You feel like a failure, and you stop.
A variant of this has probably happened to you. It could be a diet, learning a language, or some habit that you were inspired to do. What do you think happened?
As BJ Fogg notes, there’s a gap between doing what you want to do and what you actually do. Behaviors are tricky, but they follow a pattern. It doesn’t help that a lot of the popular assumptions about habits are just that. Assumptions.
BJ Fogg is a behavior scientist. He is THE expert on Behavior Design. He used to consult for big companies, and some of these companies are the apps you use. And you know how effective they are at keeping you engaged. Basically, BJ Fogg figured out behaviors; what causes it and how you can design it. This is what he calls the “Fogg Behavior Model”.
Behavior = Motivation x Ability x Prompt
Behavior is the outcome. Motivation is your desire. Ability is your capacity. Prompt is your cue. In creating habits, motivation is the least reliable. Ability is much more controllable. Your goal is to make a habit easy. Lastly, without a prompt, a behavior doesn’t happen. BJ Fogg unpacks all this.
To address motivation: clarify Aspirations and use a Focus Map. To solve for ability: use the Ability Chain as reference. To make a behavior easy, use a Starter Step or Scale it back. Lastly, the best prompt is something that you already do, called Anchors, or routines. It should match the location, frequency, and theme of the habit you’re building.
Simplicity changes behavior. It’s a misconception that you need a big moment to start a habit. Another misconception is that repetition wires in a habit. They’re correlated but it’s not the cause. Positive Emotions create habits. You do something again because it feels good. This is also why Fogg notes that in the beginning it is important that you celebrate immediately after doing a tiny habit.
Why read Tiny Habits?
You get an understanding of your behaviors. You learn how to properly design habits. You learn that you are someone that can do things.
How can you use this information?
Start whatever habit you want to start. Keep it simple. Simple enough that you could do it even on your toughest day. Don’t be hard on yourself when you do skip a day. Keep going and iterate.
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