Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything

by B.J. Fogg

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.

Self-criticism is its own kind of habit.

The essence of Tiny Habits is this: Take a behavior you want, make it tiny, find where it fits naturally in your life, and nurture its growth.

Keeping changes small and expectations low is how you design around fair-weather friends like motivation and willpower. When something is tiny, it’s easy to do — which means you don’t need to rely on the unreliable nature of motivation.

A behavior happens when the three elements of MAP — Motivation, Ability, and Prompt — come together at the same moment. Motivation is your desire to do the behavior. Ability is your capacity to do the behavior. And Prompt is your cue to do the behavior.

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)

If celebrating the small stuff is hard for you, the go-big-or-go-home mentality is probably sneaking up on you. Shut it down. It’s a trap. Celebrating a win — no matter how tiny — will quickly lead to more wins. Think about all those times you could have changed but didn’t, and here you are, two squats in — changing.