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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
B.J. Fogg
Read between
September 19 - October 10, 2023
GET CLEAR ON YOUR ASPIRATIONS
Swarm of Behaviors
Write your chosen aspiration in the cloud. Next, imagine you have a magic wand that can get you to do any behavior. What would you wish for?
Steps in Behavior Design Step 1: Clarify the Aspiration Step 2: Explore Behavior Options Step 3: Match with Specific Behaviors
A key to lasting change is matching yourself with behaviors that you want to do.
Sharpie and a stack of index cards. I started Magic Wanding behaviors that would help me get better sleep.
started placing them on my Focus Map according to impact.
one-time behavior (installing blackout shades) and three behaviors I could turn into habits
Matching yourself with the right behaviors is the most critical step in the Behavior Design
EXERCISE #1: A SHORTCUT FOR BEHAVIOR MATCHING 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. Step 6: Find the behaviors that have both a star and a circle. Those are your Golden Behaviors. Step 7: Design a way to make your Golden Behaviors a reality in your life. Do your best with this step. I haven’t yet explained how to systematically design a solution, so use your intuition for now.
Most people operate under the assumption that they’ve got to go big or go home. They think that in order to kick a bad habit, destress, or make a pile of money they’ve got to do something radical.
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.
While small might not be sexy, it is successful and sustainable.
When it comes to most life changes that people want to make, big bold moves actually don’t work as well as small stealthy ones.
most people don’t know how to think tiny.
Even if there are times when she can’t do her habits because she isn’t feeling well, she doesn’t go into a shame spiral anymore.
In order to do a behavior, motivation and ability have to exist in sufficient amounts to put you above the Action Line in the Behavior Model.
This is one of the hacks in the Tiny Habits method: Make the behavior so tiny that you don’t need much motivation.
When you are designing a new habit, you are really designing for consistency.
Every day you do the behavior, you build a bit more muscle strength, flexibility, and skill.
When you set motivation aside and design your habits by manipulating ability, you might be surprised at how quickly your habits take hold and grow.
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?
What is making this behavior hard to do?
So what did I do to make flossing easy to do? I searched for floss that would fit between my teeth. After buying and sampling about fifteen types, I found the perfect floss for me.
It allows you to shift into action without confusion, irritation, or exasperation.
By going tiny, you create consistency;
How can I make this behavior easier to do?
INCREASE YOUR SKILLS
GET TOOLS AND RESOURCES
an unfamiliar device with a flat frame and an adjustable blade. Her friend sliced an entire carrot into a salad bowl in about ten seconds with no wobbly cutting board and no dull knife. This seemed like magic to Molly. She asked her friend, “Wow! What is that thing?” It was a mandoline—the first of many time-saving kitchen tools
one small move toward the desired behavior.
The key is not to raise the bar. Doing the Starter Step is success.
Scaling Back. This means taking the behavior you want and shrinking it.
Acquiring skills and tools are often one-time actions best done when your motivation is high. When our motivation is high, we can do more difficult things; but when it’s on the low side, we need to compensate by making the behavior tiny.
Simplicity Changes Behavior
If you want a habit to grow big, you need to start small and simple. Once the habit wires in, you can grow it naturally.
What made that habit hard for you to do?
Prompts are the invisible drivers of our lives.
No behavior happens without a prompt.
write down one thing—the most important thing—that she needed to get done that day on a Post-it.
For some habits, it’s all about finding out where a new habit fits into your day.
Where a habit is located in your daily routine can make the difference between action and inaction, success and failure.
One simple new habit can lead to more habits that ripple out well beyond the initial one.
Relying on yourself to remember to do a new behavior every day is unlikely to lead to meaningful change. Ditto for trying to help someone else cultivate a habit.
This prompt is anything in your environment that cues you to take action: sticky notes, app notifications, your phone ringing, a colleague reminding you to join a meeting. You can learn to design these Context Prompts effectively.
there were certain behaviors I needed to do only once a week: water plants, pay bills, and restart my computers. I first tried setting alarms on my phone.
This kind of prompt is best suited for a one-time behavior
effective Context Prompts. Some are common and obvious. Others are surprising. Here are a few of them. Put your ring on the wrong finger. Send yourself a text message. Write on your bathroom mirror with a dry-erase marker. Rearrange furniture so something is oddly out of place. Set an alarm on your voice assistant. Put a reminder note inside the fridge. Ask your child to remind you. Stick a Post-it on the screen of your mobile phone.
