Tiny Habits

                                                      

“When you know how to create tiny habits you can change your life forever”

BJ Fogg PHD

I’m psyched!  I came across an awesome 'TED Talk' and Waa La...it's just what I needed. I mentioned last week that I want to get stronger.  My biggest barrier has been getting and staying motivated to actually do that. 

But then I watched a video titled Forget big change, start with a tiny habit. What I love about this 18 minute presentation is that it’s stuff I already know…and I already agree with…it just helps me to put it all together.  Dr. Fogg is a behavioral psychologist; one whose study, research and self-experimentation has led him to determine a formula for long-term behavior change.

Fogg says that in order to see long-term change happen, three things must occur simultaneously: the behavior, the motivation and the trigger.  And he tells us that the harder the behavior is to accomplish, the more motivation it takes to do it for the long term.  So if we want to change our behavior for the long term, then our best chance of being successful with it, is to break down our large goal into smaller behaviors.  And then break those down into tiny behavior steps, which are easy to accomplish and take little motivation.  Then we pair up the tiny step with a trigger.

I’m not going to go into any more detail about Fogg’s formula; instead I want you to watch the ‘TED Talk’ for yourself.     

                     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdKUJxjn-R8    

I am really drawn to this ‘tiny step’ idea as you can imagine.  I have continued to reflect on the necessity to create goals in our lives, write them down in specific and measurable language and regularly review them.  What I have grown to realize though, is that the more I break down that goal into clear, easy action steps….or behaviors….the more likely I am to be successful. 

So why not incorporate this idea into our desire to achieve a goal.  How about my goal of getting healthier? Using Fogg’s philosophy I will take my goal of getting healthier and break it down into categories; and one of those categories is my goal to become stronger.   I need to then take that and break it down into behaviors that need to happen in order for me to accomplish that.  If you’re like me, we too often think in big leaps.  For example: I think about what I need to do to get stronger and I think I should join the gym and go and work out for several hours a week doing strength training….that’s where my lack of motivation kicks in, as well as the difficulty with the task, and I decide “Oh well, I’m old; I’m not supposed to feel stronger….or maybe I’ll just think about signing up for the gym after school gets out.”

But Fogg reminds us to think in terms of tiny steps….He gives an example on the video of attaching a task that is easy to do, and doesn’t take much motivation, and includes it with a trigger.  He decided that every time he pees he will do two push-ups!  (that way by the end of each day he will have done 10-15 push-ups)  As he starts that habit, he said he increased the amount of push-ups he chooses to do. 

After I finished listening to Fogg’s TED Talk, I thought, “That’s Perfect….that’s what I will do!” It allows me to break down the larger goal of getting healthy, to a smaller goal of getting stronger, to doing two push-ups several times a day.

I immediately go down on the carpet to do a push-up.  "Ohhhhhh No!  I can’t do a push up! I can't even do a girl's push up...I’m too weak…are you kidding me! Shoot!"  But wait….. I’ll break that down to tinier steps.  I’ll do push-ups against the wall, and work on getting stronger until I can manage to do a floor one. I also am going to steal Dr. Fogg's idea of using  ‘going to the bathroom’ as a trigger. I'll do 5 push up's against the wall 5 times a day.   

Now it’s your turn.  Think about a goal you want to achieve, break it down to  tiny, easy behavior steps and attach it to a trigger.  Start today and let’s see how we do.  I'm expecting all of us to get great results! I’ll check in next week.

In the mean time, email me with your ideas for tiny steps:  smallsteps4bigresults@yahoo.com