How To Create New Habits Fast with Dr. Fogg

If you’re relying primarily on willpower to create a habit, you’re approaching it wrong. Start with a behavior that you actually want in your life. The Fogg Behavior Model: Behavior happens when there is motivation, ability, and a trigger.

The Fogg Behavior Model: B = MAT

B stands for Behavior

• Get specific. Specificity can change behavior.
• If you want to read more, decide: What book do I want to read? How many pages do I want to read? What time? How long do I want to read? Where will I read?

M stands for Motivation

• Pick a behavior you already want to do – not something you should do.
• There’s no magical way to create inherent motivation.
• It’s very hard to create a habit around something you dislike, but you can create a routine.
• Information combined with emotion is a long-term memory. Motivation is charged with emotion.
• What defines a habit is how automatic the behavior is. That’s why it’s a myth that it takes 21 days to create a habit. The behavior doesn’t switch into a habit from Day 20 to 21.
• The level of automaticity is a continuous variable.
• You can hack automacity by firing a positive emotion inside yourself as you do the behavior or immediately after.
• Make yourself feel a positive emotion on demand and that will make the behavior more automatic.
• The more intense the emotion, the faster the habit forms and the more permanent the habit becomes.
• Try an internal or physical celebration when you perform the behavior – like singing a celebratory song in your head.

A stands for Ability

• The easier you can make the behavior, the more likely you are to do it as your motivation increases and decreases.
• You want a behavior that doesn’t require a lot of motivation because motivation is fickle.
• The Tiny Habits Method asks you to shrink the behavior into its smallest step – like just opening the book.
• The more you do a behavior, the easier it gets.
• You develop momentum and consistency because behaviors naturally grow.
• You start learning to carve out a space in your day to do the behavior.
• Not every habit needs to start out tiny, but it’s a reliable method.
• Think through all the simplicity factors:
• How much time does it take?
• How much money does it cost?
• How much effort does it require?
• How much do you have to think about it?
• If your habit doesn’t stick, try re-designing the environment. If it still doesn’t work, re-design it again.
• Think about habit formation as a design process and not a willpower process.

T stands for Trigger.

• A trigger is a prompt or cue. What will remind you to do the behavior?
• A trigger can come from your environment.
• Try putting a post-it note somewhere. This doesn’t scale well, but it works.
• A trigger can be internal – where you suddenly remember the behavior. This isn’t a great trigger because it’s unreliable.
• A trigger can be an action or routine you already do.
• This is why you can create a lot of habits at once.
• Get really clear on where this new behavior can fit naturally in my day. You could read when you sit down on your commute or journal in bed.
• If you try a spot and it doesn’t work, don’t beat yourself up. Just try another spot.

Learn more in his book, Tiny Habits.