Three Tiny Steps

Fogg’s research has taught him that human behavior is systematic. Each of our actions and decisions is fueled by three components—motivation, ability and triggers. Our behavior, particularly our habits, comes from an underlying motivation, the ability to complete the particular action and a stimulus that provokes the action.

For example, your morning alarm blares and you immediately turn it off and get out of bed—or you do after a couple rounds of hitting the snooze button. Getting up to start the day is your motivation, locating your alarm clock within arm’s reach creates your ability to fulfill it, and the loud, incessant beeps are the triggers, reminders to your instincts that the next action is to turn off the alarm.

The road to any desired behavior—say, increasing productivity on the weekends, making more sales calls or eating healthier—can be jump-started with three baby steps:

·         Start Small

• “Pick a small step toward your goal—a step so tiny, you’ll think it’s ridiculous,” Fogg says. Because it’s radically easy, you’re more likely to actually complete the behavior, regardless of how much or how little motivation you feel. 

·         Find an Anchor

• Choose an existing routine in your life to act as a trigger for your new behavior. Parking your car, brushing your teeth or taking a shower are all routines that can act as great anchors to trigger a new habit. “Whether you realize it or not, you have all sorts of routines,” Fogg says. “I call these anchors that you can connect to your tiny behavior. The key is to pick which routine is the right trigger for your small, simple behavior.” The blueprint for your new behavior should complete the following sentence: After I (routine), I will (tiny behavior).
• Let’s say you want to be more active. Begin small. For example when the phone rings try doing some exercise while on the phone, walk while you talk or do some squats, perhaps even some kettlebell exercises. Or after going to the bathroom do a set of pushups then immediately wash your hands.  It’s important to note that if you try to start a habit and it hurts, you’re making it too hard. It has to be something that’s not a big deal, where you just think, oh, it’s just two curls with the kettlebells. And after it’s over, be happy that you did it when you had planned to do it.

·         Celebrate Immediately

• In building a habit, it helps to reward yourself in positive ways that are as small as your tiny behaviors themselves—give yourself a thumbs-up, a smile in the mirror, or tell yourself good job! “Notice how often athletes celebrate and when they do it—immediately,” Fogg says. Not only do small celebrations reinforce desired behavior, but they design for what Fogg calls “tiny thrills.” “Our brains are very bad at distinguishing between I did this huge thing and I’m feeling awesome about it and I did this tiny thing and I’m still feeling awesome about it,” Fogg says. “Somehow in our heads we exaggerate, which is a good thing. That’s part of the hack—building success momentum, allowing you to feel successful, allowing that success to be larger than it rationally should be, then growing and leveraging that attitude into bigger things.”