Tiny Habits is a good way to change our behavior for the better

As I was making my way through James Doty's book, Mind Magic: The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How It Changes Everything, I came across an intriguing mention of another book: Tiny Habits, by B.J. Fogg. 

After perusing the Amazon listing, and seeing how well liked the book was by thousands of readers, I decided it was worth $11.67 to click on "Buy Now." I've only read the first 40 pages, but I'm liking what Fogg has to say. 

Sure, it appears that Tiny Habits has become a sort of cottage industry since it was published in January 2020. The Tiny Habits web site is testimony to that. However, I suspect that the appeal of the Tiny Habits approach to behavior change isn't so much due to clever marketing, but to the simplicity of the basic notions.

The Introduction describes what they are.

Over the last twenty years, I've found that most everyone wants to make some sort of change: eat healthier, lose weight, exercise more, reduce stress, get better sleep.

...When our results fall short of our expectations, the inner critic finds an opening and steps on stage. Many of us believe that if we fail to be more productive, lose weight, or exercise regularly then something must be wrong with us.

If only we were better people, we wouldn't have failed. If only we had followed that program to the letter or kept those promises to ourselves, we would have succeeded. We just need to get our act together and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and do better. Right?

Nope. Sorry. Not right.

We are not the problem.

Our approach to change is. It's a design flaw, not a personal flaw. 

Building habits and creating positive change can be easy -- if you have the right approach. A system based on how human psychology really works. A process that makes change easier. Tools that don't rely on guesswork or faulty principles.

Popular thinking about habit formation and change feeds into our impulse to set unrealistic expectations. We know habits matter; we just need more good habits and fewer bad ones. But here we are, still struggling to change. Still thinking it's our fault.

All my research and hands-on experience tell me that this is exactly the wrong mindset. 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.

I've been trying out the first two exercises in the book. I usually never do exercises in books, because they're too damn hard, like those in Doty's Mind Magic book. He'll say to do a progressive relaxation exercise for 10 minutes or so, then engage in visualizations of some sort, like what's most important for the reader to achieve in this life, then spend five minutes writing down those insights, and so on.

By contrast, Fogg says: 

I won't prescribe exact habits in this book. I'm sharing a method for wiring in any habit you want. You pick the habits. But right here, right now, I'm making an exception. I invite you to start practicing a new habit each and every morning. It's simple. And it takes about three seconds. I call it the Maui Habit.

After you put your feet on the floor in the morning, immediately say this phrase, "It's going to be a great day." As you say these seven words, try to feel optimistic and positive. The recipe in Tiny Habits format looks like this.

I've been doing this for a few mornings. It really does make me feel better when I say, "It's going to be a great day." Or "I'm going to have a great day." I liked that Fogg said that if saying this feels phony to him, he modifies it to "It's going to be a great day -- somehow."

A basic notion of the Tiny Habits approach is that to be successful with a new habit, it has to be easy to do and pleasurable. 

Here's another exercise that I also like a lot and have been doing regularly.

If there's one concept from my book I hope you embrace, it's this: People change best by feeling good, not by feeling bad. For that purpose, I have created this exercise for you.

Step 1. Write this phrase on a small piece of paper: I change best by feeling good, not by feeling bad. 

Step 2. Tape the paper to your bathroom mirror or anywhere you will frequently see it.

Step 3. Read the phrase often.

Step 4. Notice how this insight works in your life (and for the people around you).

I've put this phrase in my iPhone's Reminders app, which I use as my to-do list. It reminds me that my long-standing habit of feeling bad when I make a mistake, screw up, say something that I regret, or otherwise fail to live up to my expectation about myself isn't at all productive. 

It's almost like I've been addicted to beating myself up. I guess that would be fine if this sort of self-inflicted punishment caused me to be a better person, but it doesn't. That's why I've enjoying saying "I change best by feeling good, not by feeling bad," quite a few times a day. It reminds me to be as compassionate toward myself as I seek to be with other people.

There's much more to say about the Tiny Habits book, of course, as I get deeper into it. Here's the basic model of the book's approach. You can probably figure out what it means on your own, but I'll talk about the model, which makes sense to me, in another blog post. B:MAP means "behavior happens when motivation, and ability, and prompt converge at the same moment."

Comments

[sant64]

Hard Determinism – The belief that since the creation of the Universe, every event is entirely dependent on previous states, thus entirely predictable(theoretically). Since the Big Bang everything that happened up to now was like a clock mechanism and it will be so in the future. Only one future is possible, there’s no route A or route B. Choices made by humans are an illusion.

Free Will – Free will is the ability to exercise a certain level of control over choices.

Putting aside the debate over which philosophy is correct, I note that one can't subscribe to both philosophies. That is, one can't say hard determinism is true and ALSO say (or imply) that they believe in the exercise of free will (e.g. in goal setting).

[Jimmy]

This looks like a redo of what Neville Goddard wrote.
As you go to sleep imagine a goal you want to achieve.
Pick a goal any goal. You must have a goal.
Then as you go to sleep imagine /FEEL what it would be like to hear your friend congratulate you/ shake your hand. Hear your wife talk in a animated way ,say how shocked she was at your impossible accomplishment.
Continue this every night until you achieve your goal. However you don't get to choose the day or time this is accomplished.
Some might call this manifestation mumbo jumbo but it is just imagination.
The whole modern world was created by first imaging the goal. Will it fall out of the sky?
Sometimes but my take on it is effort is involved.
I used it recently to Astral Project like Jurgen Ziewe did in his books and videos. Overnight there was results unlike any I've had in a long time.
So give it a shot ,it costs you nothing unlike all the RSSB groups.

[Jimmy]

Brian you can use the above technique to toss the Donald out of office.
As you go to sleep imagine what it would be like to hear David Muir talking about Trump out of office. Hear your wife crying with joy as feeling is the secret. Then sleep and continue this until your goal is achieved.
I used this technique the last 2 years to get rid of Xi out of office. Now you hear Chinese commentators talking that Xi is finished. I only credit imagination which is God/Jesus inside all of us.
Employ it our not I don't care.

[Ron E.]

B. J. Fogg: - “Wake up and say it’s going to be a great day” My own morning ritual is to look out of the bedroom window across to the ferry port and take in the – always amazing – colours of the sky and clouds, along with the bird activity in the gardens and roofs - and to notice things as the day goes on.

As Fogg points out: - “I'm sharing a method for wiring in any habit you want. You pick the habits.” That’s seems to be the key, ‘wiring in new habits’, similar to Fieldman-Barrett’s programming the brain to have a more positive future response to situations.

Yes, it’s tempting to evoke free will as in thinking ‘who’ or ‘what’ programmes the brain – but, there is no separate self or entity who does this? The brain simply draws upon its own past experiences and info. When it senses that the rattling sound is the loose coins in your jacket and not some external threat, the next time the noise is heard the brain can predict and experience the sound as just coins.

A simple matter of the brain reprogramming itself from its own store of experience and information. If the information is not there then the brain can only rely on what info it has – which may be quite inappropriate to the new situation.