Bj Fogg Tiny Habits Quotes

In order to design successful habits and change your behaviors, you should do three things. Stop judging yourself. Take your aspirations and break them down into tiny behaviors. Embrace mistakes as discoveries and use them to move forward.

Celebrating small wins gives them something to repattern our life around.

Once you remove any hint of judgment, changing your habits becomes an uplifting journey of self-discovery.

We live in an aspiration-driven culture that is rooted in instant gratification. We find it difficult to enact or even accept incremental progress.

Step 1: Write this phrase on a small piece of paper: I change best by feeling good, not by feeling bad.

there are only three things we can do that will create lasting change: Have an epiphany, change our environment, or change our habits in tiny ways.

You can disrupt a behavior you don’t want by removing the prompt. This isn’t always easy, but removing the prompt is your best first move to stop a behavior from happening.

After you put your feet on the floor in the morning, immediately say this phrase, “It’s going to be a great day.” As you say these seven words, try to feel optimistic and positive.

information alone does not reliably change behavior. This is a common mistake people make, even well-meaning professionals. The assumption is this: If we give people the right information, it will change their attitudes, which in turn will change their behaviors. I call this the “Information-Action Fallacy.

This pressure leads to a scarcity mindset—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 new positive habits.

So many frustrating family dynamics and workplace dramas erupt because of the misplaced belief that manipulation motivation is the key to changing behavior. But now you know that simplicity is what reliably changes behavior.

People get sick, take vacations, and have emergencies. We’re not aiming for perfection here, only consistency. Keeping the habit alive means keeping it rooted in your routine no matter how tiny it is.

A behavior is something you can do right now or at another specific point in time.

People use the word “goal” when they are talking about aspirations or outcomes. If someone says “goal,” you can’t be sure what they are talking about since the word is ambiguous.

How long does it take for habits to grow to their full expression? There is no universal answer. Any advice you hear about a habit taking twenty-one or sixty days to fully form is not entirely accurate. There is no magic number of days.

The easier a behavior is to do, the more likely the behavior will become habit.

Write this phrase on a small piece of paper: I change best by feeling good, not by feeling bad.

You select one of your aspirations, then come up with a bunch of specific behaviors that can help you achieve your aspiration.

A Golden Behavior has three criteria. The behavior is effective in realizing your aspiration (impact) You want to do the behavior (motivation) You can do the behavior (ability)

Make the behavior so tiny that you don’t need much motivation.

As I accumulated dozens of new habits—mostly tiny ones—they combined to create a transformation. Sustaining all this did not feel hard. Pursuing change in this way felt natural and oddly fun.

When you are designing a new habit, you are really designing for consistency. And for that result, you’ll find that simplicity is the key. Or as I like to teach my students: Simplicity changes behavior.

To generate lots of behavior options, you can use the following categories during your own Magic Wanding sessions. What behaviors would you do one time? What new habits would you create? What habit would you stop?

Aspirations are abstract desires, like wanting your kids to succeed in school. Outcomes are more measurable, like getting straight As second semester. Both of these are great places to start the process of Behavior Design. But aspirations and outcomes are not behaviors. Here’s an easy way to differentiate behaviors from aspirations and outcomes: A behavior is something you can do right now or at another specific point in time.

In contrast, you can’t achieve an aspiration or outcome at any given moment. You cannot suddenly get better sleep. You cannot lose twelve pounds at dinner tonight. You can only achieve aspirations and outcomes over time if you execute the right specific behaviors.

The Starter Step is a kind of mental jujitsu—it has a surprising impact for such a small move because the momentum it creates often propels you to the next steps with less friction. The key is not to raise the bar. Doing the Starter Step is success. Every time you do it, you are keeping that habit alive

Habit stacking is a special form of an implementation intention. Rather than pairing your new habit with a particular time and location, you pair it with a current habit. This method, which was created by BJ Fogg as part of his Tiny Habits program, can be used to design an obvious cue for nearly any habit.*

When talking about Tiny Habits, I use the term Anchor to describe something in your life that is already stable and solid. The concept is pretty simple. If there is a habit you want, find the right Anchor within your current routine to serve as your prompt, your reminder. I selected the term “anchor” because you are attaching your new habit to something solid and reliable.

Let’s say that you have committed to running every day for two weeks, and at the end of those two weeks, you “reward” yourself with a massage. I would say, “Good for you!” because we all could benefit from more massages. But I would also say that your massage wasn’t a reward. It was an incentive. The definition of a reward in behavior science is an experience directly tied to a behavior that makes that behavior more likely to happen again. The timing of the reward matters. Scientists learned decades ago that rewards need to happen either during the behavior or milli-seconds afterward. Dopamine is released and processed by the brain very quickly. That means you’ve got to cue up those good feelings fast to form a habit. Incentives like a sales bonus or a monthly massage can motivate you, but they don’t rewire your brain. Incentives are way too far in the future to give you that all-important shot of dopamine that encodes the new habit. Doing three squats in the morning and rewarding yourself with a movie that evening won’t work. The squats and the good feelings you get from the movie are too far apart for dopamine to build a bridge between the two. The neurochemical reaction that you are trying to hack is not only time dependent, it’s also highly individualized. What causes one person to feel good may not work for everyone. Your boss may love the smell of coffee. When she enters a coffee shop and inhales, she feels good. And her immediate feeling builds her habit of visiting the coffee shop. But your coworker might not like the way coffee smells. His brain won’t react in the same way. A real reward — something that will actually create a habit — is a much narrower target to hit than most people think. I

The quality of our life on planet earth depends on the choices we make every day. Choices about how we spend our time, how we live our lives, and most important, how we treat ourselves and others. I am sad to see how people seem to be more bitter, divided, and overwhelmed than ever these days. We are as a global community, increasingly disconnected from ourselves and other people. The first step toward fixing what ills us, is to embrace feeling better. Habits are a means to this end. They teach us the skills of change and they propel us towards our dreams, and they add more shine to the world.  By embracing feelings of success and adding more goodness to you day-to-day life, you are making the world brighter not only for yourself, but also for others. You are vanquishing shame and guilt and you are freeing yourself and others who have endured a lifetime of self trash talk. The most profound transformations I've shared with you in this book are not about discreet habits being formed, they are about essential shifts in experience, from suffering to less suffering, from fear to hope, from being overwhelmed to feeling empowered.

Once you remove any hint of judgment, changing your habits becomes an uplifting journey of self-discovery.

But aspirations and outcomes are not behaviors.

In contrast, you can’t achieve an aspiration or outcome at any given moment.

That’s my Tiny Habit Recipe: After I pee, I will do two push-ups.

When we hack into the ancient behavioral pathways in our brains, we gain access to the amazing human potential for learning and change.

We live in an aspiration-driven culture that is rooted in instant gratification.

From now on, I want you to look at your behavior the way a scientist looks at what’s growing in a petri dish—with curiosity and objective distance.

behavior is something you can do right now or at another specific point in time. You can turn off your phone. You can eat a carrot. You can open a textbook and read five pages. These are actions that you can do at any given moment. In contrast, you can’t achieve an aspiration or outcome at any given moment. You cannot suddenly get better sleep. You cannot lose twelve pounds at dinner tonight. You can only achieve aspirations and outcomes over time if you execute the right specific behaviors.

Write your aspiration inside the cloudlike shape shown in the graphic. Then start filling in the boxes with specific behaviors.

Hope and fear are vectors that push against each other, and the sum of those two vectors is your overall motivation level.

People use the word “goal” when they are talking about aspirations or outcomes. If someone says “goal,” you can’t be sure what they are talking about since the word is ambiguous. For that reason, “goal” is not part of the vocabulary in Behavior Design. Use either “aspiration” or “outcome” for precision.

I wondered: How can I make this habit easier?

you start eating like a person who goes to the farmers’ market, your brain begins guiding you in the direction of a coherent identity, and adding pumpkin seeds to your salad doesn’t sound like such a crazy thing anymore; it sounds natural.

Shifting identity helps you consider other new habits you might not have thought of doing that will move you closer to your aspiration.

Teach others or be a role model to galvanize your new identity. A social role is powerful.

Here’s what my one-time behavior looks like when you break it down. Behavior (B): Donating via text to the Red Cross. Motivation (M): I wanted to help the victims of a devastating disaster. Ability (A): It was easy to reply to a text message. Prompt (P): I was prompted by a text message from the Red Cross.

Do you have enough time to do the behavior? Do you have enough money to do the behavior? Are you physically capable of doing the behavior? Does the behavior require a lot of creative or mental energy? Does the behavior fit into your current routine or does it require you to make adjustments? Your Ability Chain is only as strong as its weakest Ability Factor link.

If you can remove the vector of fear, then hope will predominate, and your overall motivation level will be higher, which may move you above the Action Line—and you do the behavior.

Steps in Behavior Design Step 1: Clarify the Aspiration Step 2: Explore Behavior Options Step 3: Match with Specific Behaviors

Start with three super easy habits—that’s what most Habiteers begin with—and add three new habits each month.

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

Finish the sentence “I’m the kind of person who” with the identity—or identities—you’d like to embrace. Go to events that gather people, products, and services related to your emerging identity. When I decided I wanted to get into fermented foods, I went to the local Fermentation Festival. I met enthusiasts who were more experienced than I was. I learned about new products. I attended a workshop where an expert showed us how to make sauerkraut. I bought gear to ferment foods. I came home with a much stronger identity about being the kind of person who eats—and even makes—fermented foods. Learn the lingo. Know who the experts are. Watch movies related to the area of change you’re interested in. As I learned to surf, I looked up the lingo that described waves and started using it. I paid attention to big surfing events and watched videos of the most proficient people in the sport. I learned to understand the tide shifts and

If only his head shows, then the tide is high. Wearing T-shirts is a common way to declare your identity. Nike sends out T-shirts that say RUNNER. I wear T-shirts that have surfboards or show surf scenes. Because I surf more than one hundred times a year, I don’t feel like a poser; wearing that identity feels natural.

What is the tiniest habit I could create that would have the most meaning? Write down a few answers even if you don’t intend to create any of those habits right now. The more answers you come up with, the more you are practicing this skill.

Don’t pressure yourself to do more than the tiniest version of your habit. If you’re sick, tired, or just not in the mood, scale back to tiny.

However, if there was a time that Sukumar didn’t want to do a lot of push-ups, he didn’t force himself. He did two and felt good about keeping the habit alive. Part of this skill is knowing when to back off and do only the baseline.

The Motivation Monkey tricks us into setting unreasonable goals. He can sometimes help us reach amazing heights, but he will often abandon us when we need him most.

The answer is so important, I’ll say it three times in different ways: Pick the easiest one. Pick the one you are most sure you can do. Pick the one that feels like no big deal.

day.

When you set up too many Context Prompts, they can actually have the opposite effect—you become desensitized and fail to heed the prompt.

After I hear my alarm in the morning, I will get up without hitting snooze. After I put on my shoes in the morning, I will go outside to soak in the natural light. After I finish eating lunch, I will get outside into the natural light of the sun. After I decide to take a nap, I will set an alarm so I don’t sleep for more than thirty minutes. After I see it’s past three p.m., I will drink water instead of coffee. After I arrive home from work, I will charge my phone in the kitchen, not in the bedroom. After I put dinner in the oven, I will take a magnesium supplement. After I turn on the dishwasher in the evening, I will dim the lights around the house. After I turn on the first light in the evening, I will put on glasses that block blue light. After I turn on the TV at night, I will take a melatonin supplement. After I finish watching Jeopardy! on TV, I will start my bedtime ritual. After I see it’s past eight p.m., I will stop using electronics and staring at screens. After I lock the doors at night, I will turn down the thermostat to seventy degrees. After I floss my teeth at night, I will turn on my white-noise machine. After I turn on my white-noise machine, I will close my curtains so the room is entirely dark. After I close the curtains, I will spray a little lavender scent in my bedroom. After I get into bed and I’m not sleepy, I will open a relaxing book to read in a dimly lit room. After I want to get up in the middle of the night, I will lie back down for about fifteen seconds. After I keep looking at my clock at night, I will turn the clock around so I can’t see it. After I start to worry about a problem at night, I will say, “That can wait until tomorrow.

Remember, for a behavior (B) to occur, three elements must converge at the same moment: Motivation, Ability, and Prompt.

Their relationship drives our every action and reaction—they are the basic ingredients of human behavior.

The Anatomy of Tiny Habits 1. ANCHOR MOMENT An existing routine (like brushing your teeth) or an event that happens (like a phone ringing). The Anchor Moment reminds you to do the new Tiny Behavior. 2. NEW TINY BEHAVIOR A simple version of the new habit you want, such as flossing one tooth or doing two push-ups. You do the Tiny Behavior immediately after the Anchor Moment. 3. INSTANT CELEBRATION Something you do to create positive emotions, such as saying, “I did a good job!” You celebrate immediately after doing the new Tiny Behavior. Anchor Behavior Celebration

There’s nothing wrong with taking bold action. Life and happiness occasionally demand it. But remember that you hear about people making big changes because this is the exception, not the rule. Narrative drama comes from bold action, not from the incremental progress that leads to sustainable success.

No behavior happens without a prompt.

Step 1: Draw a cloud on a piece of paper. Step 2: Write the aspiration “Get better sleep” inside the cloud. Step 3: Come up with ten or more behaviors that would lead you to your aspiration of getting better sleep. Write each behavior outside the cloud with arrows pointing toward the cloud. You’ve now created your Swarm of Behaviors. Step 4: Put a star by four or five behaviors that you believe would be highly effective in reaching your aspiration. Step 5: Circle any effective behavior that you can easily get yourself to do. Be realistic.

When it comes to building new habits, you can use the connectedness of behavior to your advantage. One of the best ways to build a new habit is to identify a current habit you already do each day and then stack your new behavior on top. This is called habit stacking. Habit stacking is a special form of an implementation intention. Rather than pairing your new habit with a particular time and location, you pair it with a current habit. This method, which was created by BJ Fogg as part of his Tiny Habits program, can be used to design an obvious cue for nearly any habit.*

Behaviors are like bicycles. They can look different, but the core mechanisms are the same. Wheels. Brakes. Pedals.

If you do the Maui Habit and feel that it won’t be a great day, I advise you to still say this phrase. I say it even on mornings when I feel exhausted or overwhelmed or anxious about the day ahead. In that moment, sitting on the edge of my bed, I try to feel optimistic. But if this feels phony, then I adjust the phrase and my intonation as I say, “It’s going to be a great day—somehow.

Keeping changes small and expectations low is how you design around fair-weather friends like motivation and willpower.

EXPLORE WAYS TO STOP A HABIT The Fogg Behavior Model applies to all types of behavior change. In this exercise, you’ll explore simple ways to stop a habit. Step 1: Write down three habits that you’d like to stop. Try to be specific. For instance, write “Stop buying soda for lunch” rather than “Stop drinking soda.” Step 2: For each habit, think of ways you might remove (or avoid) the prompt. If you can’t think of anything, that’s okay. Move on to the next step. Step 3: For each habit, think of ways to make it harder to do (ability). Step 4: For each habit, think of ways to reduce your motivation. Step 5: For each habit, select your best solution from steps 2, 3, and 4. Extra Credit: Put your solution into practice.

It’s going to be a great day.

When something is tiny, it’s easy to do—which means you don’t need to rely on the unreliable nature of motivation.

Using Anchors is a great approach to designing prompts because anyone can do it. There’s no need for fancy watches or whizzy apps to prompt new habits. You can do it yourself more effectively, and you will discover how transformative a simple design hack can be. The power of after is not magic, it’s closer to chemistry. Combine the right behaviors with the right chronology, and, poof, a new habit is created.

After I (ANCHOR), I will (NEW HABIT).

Context Prompts can be helpful for one-time actions, like registering to vote. However, using Context Prompts for daily habits can be both stressful and ineffective.

landscape effectively is one of the biggest challenges in our modern lives. When you set up too many Context Prompts, they can actually have the opposite effect—you become desensitized and fail to heed the prompt. You end up not hearing notification dings and not seeing sticky notes. It’s like living next to train tracks—at first the noise of a train is deafening, then . . . what train?

In my research, I’ve found that adults have many ways to tell themselves, “I did a bad job,” and very few ways of saying, “I did a good job.” We rarely recognize our successes and feel good about what we’ve done.

I wrote each weekend task on a small plastic sticky about half the size of your typical Post-it. I placed all the stickers on a laminated page that was labeled WEEKEND TASKS. Now my typical routine on Saturday mornings is to get out the laminated sheet and put it on the kitchen counter. Simple. This sheet becomes my checklist for the weekend. As I do each task, I move the sticker to the back of the sheet so I see only the tasks I haven’t completed. On Sunday, when I finish the final task, I flip the laminated page over, put the final sticker on the page (victoriously!), and store my laminated sheet of tasks for the next weekend.

I found that people typically have the most routines in the morning. This makes morning fertile soil for cultivating new habits.

Other lives are more unpredictable. No matter how haphazard your day might seem, I guarantee that you already have many routines that occur consistently enough to be used as an Anchor.

To find the Trailing Edge, we look at the Anchor under a microscope to see what the end of an action looks like. This is particularly important for Anchors that are rather fuzzy.

Location is the most important factor when you pair Anchors and new habits.

Good feelings spur the production of a neurotransmitter (a chemical messenger in the brain) called dopamine that controls the brain’s “reward system” and helps us remember what behavior led to feeling good so we will do it again. With the help of dopamine, the brain encodes the cause-and-effect relationship, and this creates expectations for the future.

You are doing something worthy of celebration This is the most important answer because recognizing that you are doing something worthy of celebration will change so much for you. Your ability to ignore self-criticism and embrace feeling good about your successes will ripple out into your life in positive ways that go far beyond the habits you create and celebrate.

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

Search for celebrations that feel authentic to you. If you feel awkward or phony when celebrating, your attempts will backfire. Your brain doesn’t want to feel awkward—it wants to feel good. Celebrations are personal. What makes me feel good (and not lame) is probably different than what makes you feel good (and not lame).

ANCHOR MOMENT An existing routine (like brushing your teeth) or an event that happens (like a phone ringing). The Anchor Moment reminds you to do the new Tiny Behavior. 2. NEW TINY BEHAVIOR A simple version of the new habit you want, such as flossing one tooth or doing two push-ups. You do the Tiny Behavior immediately after the Anchor Moment. 3. INSTANT CELEBRATION Something you do to create positive emotions, such as saying, “I did a good job!” You celebrate immediately after doing the new Tiny Behavior. Anchor Behavior Celebration

People change best by feeling good, not by feeling bad.

Write this phrase on a small piece of paper: I change best by feeling good, not by feeling bad. Step 2: Tape the paper to your bathroom mirror or anywhere you will frequently see it. Step 3: Read the phrase often.

many cases, you’ll find your lack of doing a behavior is not a motivation issue at all. You can solve for the behavior by finding a good prompt or by making the behavior easier to do.

Here’s an easy way to differentiate behaviors from aspirations and outcomes: A behavior is something you can do right now or at another specific point in time. You can turn off your phone. You can eat a carrot. You can open a textbook and read five pages. These are actions that you can do at any given moment. In contrast, you can’t achieve an aspiration or outcome at any given moment. You cannot suddenly get better sleep. You cannot lose twelve pounds at dinner tonight. You can only achieve aspirations and outcomes over time if you execute the right specific behaviors.

EXERCISE #1: EXPLORE WAYS TO STOP A HABIT The Fogg Behavior Model applies to all types of behavior change. In this exercise, you’ll explore simple ways to stop a habit. Step 1: Write down three habits that you’d like to stop. Try to be specific. For instance, write “Stop buying soda for lunch” rather than “Stop drinking soda.” Step 2: For each habit, think of ways you might remove (or avoid) the prompt. If you can’t think of anything, that’s okay. Move on to the next step. Step 3: For each habit, think of ways to make it harder to do (ability). Step 4: For each habit, think of ways to reduce your motivation. Step 5: For each habit, select your best solution from steps 2, 3, and 4. Extra Credit: Put your solution into practice.

By keeping the bar low, you keep the habit alive.

But remember that you hear about people making big changes because this is the exception, not the rule.

but first I had to understand what makes something hard to do. That’s why you should always start with this question: What is making this behavior hard to do?

In Behavior Design we match ourselves with new habits we can do even when we are at our most hurried, unmotivated, and beautifully imperfect. If you can imagine yourself doing the behavior on your hardest day of the week, it’s probably a good match. It’s probably a Golden Behavior.

We should be dreamy about aspirations but not about the behaviors that will get us there. Behaviors are grounded. Concrete. They are the handholds and footholds that get you up the rock face. Your path to the top is your own, and you choose your behaviors according to the particular rock you are climbing.

The purpose of a Focus Map is to match yourself with easy behaviors that you want to do and that are effective in getting you to your aspiration.