Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg

Parker Klein ✌️
TwosApp
Published in
3 min readJan 24, 2022

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There is a painful gap between what people want and what they actually do

It isn’t your fault

In order to design successful habits and change your behaviors, you should do three things:

  1. Stop judging yourself
  2. Take your aspirations and break them down into tiny behaviors
  3. Embrace mistakes as discoveries and use them to move forward

You change by feeling good — not by feeling bad

Once you remove any hint of judgment, your behavior becomes a science experiment

There are only three things we can do that will create lasting change:

  1. Have an epiphany
  2. Change our environment
  3. Change our habits in tiny ways

The essence of tiny habits: take a behavior you want, make it tiny, find where it fits naturally in your life, and nurture its growth

If you want to create long-term change, it’s best to start small

The pressure of never having enough time leads us to a scarcity mindset where we believe that there will never be enough time, so we say no to changes because we feel like we don’t have the hours to cultivate a new positive habit

With the Tiny Habits method, you focus on a small action than you can do in less than 30 seconds— You quickly wire in the new habit and then they will grow naturally

Feeling successful is the single most important skill in behavior change

Start each morning by saying “It’s going to be a great day”

The anatomy of tiny habits

1. Anchor moment

An existing routine or event that happens which reminds you to do the new tiny behavior

2. New tiny behavior

A simple version of the new habit you want done right after the anchor moment

3. Instant celebration

Something you do to create positive emotions such as saying “I did a good job”

After I… I will… to wire the habit into my brain, I will immediately…

B = MAP. Behavior happens when motivation, ability, and prompt converge at the same moment

Removing the prompt is your best first move to stop a behavior from happening

Three steps for troubleshooting a behavior:

  1. Check to see if there’s a prompt to do the behavior
  2. See if the person has the ability to do the behavior
  3. See if the person is motivated to do the behavior

Steps in behavior design:

1. Clarify the aspiration

2. Explore behavior options

3. Match with specific behaviors

A golden behavior has three criteria:

  1. The behavior is effective in realizing your aspiration
  2. You want to do the behavior
  3. You can do the behavior

4. Start tiny

5. Find a good prompt

6. Celebrate success

7. Troubleshoot, iterate, and expand

How can I make this behavior easier to do?

The three approaches to making a behavior easier to do:

  1. Increase your skills
  2. Get tools and resources
  3. Make the behavior tiny

No behavior happens without a prompt

Businesses that help customers create habits will have a huge advantage over those that don’t

Help people do what they already want to do

Help people feel successful

Context skill is the skill of redesigning your environment to make your habits easier to do

How can I make these new habits easier to do?

Focus on what surrounds your habit instead of scaling back the habit to make it easier

What is making this new habit hard to do?

Question tradition. Who says you have to keep your vitamins in the kitchen or floss in the bathroom? Maybe your vitamins need to be next to your computer, Or maybe flossing works best when you keep floss next to your TV remote. You’re a Habit Ninja, not a conformist. Find what works for you.

All humans have a strong-rooted drive to act in a way that is consistent with their identity

Behavior change is not a solitary pursuit. Each behavior that we design, each change that we make, is another drop in the pond that ripples out. We shape our families, communities, and societies through our actions

Change leads to change

Start people on the path to change from the place they want to begin. As they build confidence and skills, they will open up to other types of changes

Strengthen others in all interactions

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Parker Klein ✌️
TwosApp

Former @Google @Qualcomm @PizzaNova. Building Twos: write, remember & share *things* (www.TwosApp.com?code=baller)