Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything(31)
By lowering the bar, I was able to hack my brain. Writing the number down wasn’t intimidating—I felt I could do it. Once I did, I had already taken a step toward completing the full behavior, so I picked up the phone and dialed. Think about how many of these tiny to-dos that you don’t want to do are clogging your brain every day. It can get mentally exhausting. Taking the first step, no matter how small, can generate a sense of momentum that our brains love. Completing tasks gives us a boost of confidence, and this increases our motivation to do the entire behavior.
In the next chapter, we’ll talk about prompts. The last component of the Behavior Model is also the next step in the process of cultivating successful Tiny Habits. We know that no behavior happens without a prompt. Prompts are the cues that remind us to act. They are the spark that lights the fire. So why not make the prompt easy, too? What if you designed a prompt that was already built into your day? Something that takes no time, effort, or money to construct? Now that sounds simple.
Tiny Exercises for Making a Habit Easier to Do
There are two parts to this exercise. The first focuses on analysis, the second on design.
PART A: ANALYSIS OF A DIFFICULT HABIT
Step 1: Write down one difficult habit that you tried to create in the past but couldn’t make stick. If you can’t think of anything from your own life, then use this: Eat more vegetables every day.
Step 2: Ask yourself the Discovery Question: What made that habit hard for you to do? Consider the links in your Ability Chain: Did this desired habit require too much time? Money? Mental or physical effort? Did it disrupt your routine?
PART B: DESIGN TO MAKE YOUR HABIT EASIER TO DO
Step 3: For each weak link that you found in step 2, ask yourself the Breakthrough Question: How can you make this habit easier to do? For example, you might consider how you can make this habit require less time. But make sure to come up with a variety of ideas for each weak link.
Step 4: Select your top three ideas from step 3.
Step 5: Imagine yourself taking action on your top three ideas to make the habit easier to do. Explore in detail how you would do that.
Extra credit: Put your insight into action and see what happens.
To help you with this exercise, I brought back our friendly PAC Person to remind you of the three ways to make a behavior easier to do.
Ability
Chapter 4
Prompts—The Power of After
Prompts are the invisible drivers of our lives.
We experience hundreds of prompts each day, yet we barely notice most of them. More often than not, we simply act. The stoplight turns green—you hit the gas. You’re offered a cheese sample at the grocery store—you eat it. A notification pops up on your computer screen letting you know you have a new e-mail—you click to open it. Some prompts exist naturally—you feel a few drops of rain on your arm so you open your umbrella. Some prompts are designed—the smoke alarm blares so you open a few windows and rescue that forgotten pizza in the oven. Whether natural or designed, a prompt says, “Do this behavior now.”
But this is the crucial nugget: No behavior happens without a prompt.
People respond reliably to prompts when they are motivated and able, which is exactly what makes well-timed prompts so powerful. The writers who create clickbait headlines and the designers who craft the apps on our phones know this. There’s a reason many of us can’t resist clicking on an app with a little red number on it—that feature has been designed to grab our attention and get us to act. Internet advertisers know that if you can combine a prompt with a motivator (Click here to win a prize!), people will respond in even higher percentages.
On the flip side, if there is no prompt, there is no behavior even if you have high levels of motivation and ability. Maybe you wanted to use the meditation app that you downloaded last week, but since there was no prompt, you forgot.
Life is filled with an overwhelming number of prompts that we don’t want, but there are plenty that we do want. But most people soar on autopilot at the behest of invisible prompts while desperately trying to remind themselves to do things they keep forgetting to do. If your desk is covered with sticky notes and your phone is pestering you with notifications and you are still not doing the things you want to do, it’s time to take the power of prompts back.
In this chapter, I’ll teach you how to design prompts in or out of your life. Once you’ve matched yourself to the right behavior and made it easier to do, you’re ready for the next step: Designing a good prompt for the behavior you want. This is important. Don’t leave prompts to chance.
Steps in Behavior Design
Step 1: Clarify the Aspiration
Step 2: Explore Behavior Options
Step 3: Match with Specific Behaviors
Step 4: Start Tiny
Step 5: Find a Good Prompt
In the Behavior Model, motivation and ability exist on a continuum, but prompts are black-and-white. You either notice the prompt or you don’t. And if you don’t notice the prompt, or if the prompt happens at the wrong time, then the behavior won’t happen. That makes prompts a crucial component to get right. Designing a good prompt is a key part of Fogg Maxim #1: Help yourself do what you already want to do.