Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything(18)

We don’t stop and we don’t explore his idea in depth. Mark continues to write things down and I continue to say, “Great. What else?”

When guiding people in this process, I like to remind them that for now they have magical powers. They can get themselves to do any behavior. Move to Maui. Bring a dog to work. Get a management job that pays 30 percent more. It’s important to explore in this step—and be wildly optimistic. I call this method Magic Wanding.

Even with a magic wand in hand and my encouraging them to use those superpowers, people sometimes wish for practical behaviors (which is fine). Some wishes are behaviors you do one time: download a meditation app. Some wishes are for new habits: stretching for two minutes after every conference call. And some wishes are to stop doing a behavior: stop checking e-mail after seven p.m.

To generate lots of behavior options, you can use the following categories during your own Magic Wanding sessions.

What behaviors would you do one time?



What new habits would you create?



What habit would you stop?





After you come up with each behavior wish, think to yourself, Great. What else? and keep going. Eventually, you will have a Swarm of Behaviors that will range from wacky to logical to surprising. And that’s a good thing.

As you come up with behavior options, you’ll see that there are lots of ways to reach your aspiration. In a later step, you’ll sort through these options and get realistic. But for now, you want to explore widely, and the fantasy of having magical powers helps you get there.





Many different behaviors can lead to your aspiration





If you haven’t gotten started, you can do that now.

Write your chosen aspiration in the cloud. Next, imagine you have a magic wand that can get you to do any behavior. What would you wish for?

The Swarm of Behaviors tool has boxes for ten behaviors. But don’t stop there. The more ideas, the more breadth, the more variety, the better results you will have in the later steps of Behavior Design.

If you’re having a hard time coming up with fresh ideas, enlist other people. Ask a partner, your kids, even your social media friends if they can suggest any behaviors that will help you achieve your aspiration. You could say (or write), “If you could get me to do any behavior that would help me ____, what would it be?”

You might be surprised at what you hear. And don’t worry if some behavior wishes are totally unrealistic. I’ll show you how to select the best ones—and how to make those a reality. For now, getting creative and coming up with new behaviors will help you have more fun and be more successful.

Once you’ve exhausted the powers of your magic wand, look over your behavior wishes and try to make each one more specific. If you’ve written down “play with my dog” as a way to reduce stress, you could make that wish more specific by revising it to this: “Play fetch with my dog each evening at home.” After you revise your behavior wishes to be super specific (what I call “crispy”), move on to the next step in the Behavior Design process and get analytical and practical.





Intuitive Guessing vs. Skillful Matching


Before I give you the next official step in Behavior Design, I want you to understand the larger context of designing for change.

A major flaw in the way people typically approach change is how they decide what behavior to put into practice. How people decide to get from point A (the start) to point B (reaching their aspiration or outcome) varies widely, and here are some of the most common but flawed ways they do this.





Wrong way #1: Just guessing, no methodology


Let’s say you’re riding the bus to work. While stuck in traffic, you look out the window and see a guy on a bike whiz by. You think, Now that is the way to commute. I should do that! I used to bike. I love biking! Unfortunately, you were twelve the last time you rode a bike, and your current commute is fifteen miles. But you really want to do it (in that moment!), so you buy a bunch of gear at a bike shop. You put on all the gear the next day, and as you step out the door, you discover that it’s cold and raining. You didn’t buy gear for that, so you feel a flash of annoyance and disappointment, and you walk to the bus stop instead. In the end, biking to work turns out to be a poor match for you.

The problem with this approach is its haphazard nature. It’s like playing roulette. Maybe you’ll buy the right stuff that will help you do the behavior, maybe you won’t. Your behavior is too big of a leap, or it’s not. Maybe it’s realistic for your life, maybe it’s not.

With Behavior Design, you don’t guess.

Okay, next problem.





Wrong way #2: Inspiration from the Internet


Many of us watch talks online and get inspired. Lots of speakers have amazing stories and do awesome things. Let’s say you watch a video featuring a Buddhist monk who is a meditation master. He’s speaking with wisdom and grace. He doesn’t seem stressed out or even slightly grumpy. He’s telling you about his blood pressure (awesome) and his resting heart rate (even more awesome), and he presents the brain scans to prove it. You think, Oh, my gosh. I see the power of meditation. People have been doing this for thousands of years. At the end of the talk, he says that thirty minutes a day is all you need to substantially improve your life in these scientifically irrefutable ways. You’re blown away. You have to do this. You’re going to do this.