Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything(38)

One tiny statement at the right moment and I can stick to my game plan.





My Recipe—Tiny Habits Method


After I . . .

I will . . .

To wire the habit into my brain, I will immediately:



hear the server offer bread,



say “no bread,” please.”





Anchor Moment

Tiny Behavior

Celebration



An existing routine in your life that will remind you to do the Tiny Behavior (your new habit).

The new habit you want but you scale it back to be super tiny—and super easy.

Something you do to create a positive feeling inside of yourself (the feeling is called Shine).





Refine Your Anchor with the Trailing Edge


It’s worth reinforcing how important it is to choose a precise event in your routine—that Anchor Moment. Using the Anchor “after I pee” got me to do two push-ups. I didn’t need to get more specific than that. But if it hadn’t worked, I could have looked a little closer at the Anchor for a specific moment I call the Trailing Edge. You look for the last action you do in a behavior. The last action of peeing, at least for me, is flushing the toilet. So I could refine my recipe to After I flush the toilet, I will do two push-ups.

To find the Trailing Edge, we look at the Anchor under a microscope to see what the end of an action looks like. This is particularly important for Anchors that are rather fuzzy. Here are some examples of how to be more specific and boost the likelihood of your success by using the Trailing Edge in your recipe.

The fuzzy Anchor of “After I eat breakfast” is better when you focus on the Trailing Edge, “After I start the dishwasher.” The fuzzy Anchor of “After I get home from work” is better stated as “After I put my backpack on the bench.”

One Habiteer (someone who practices Tiny Habits) I taught was trying to create a habit of wiping the kitchen counter. Elena created a recipe with what appeared to be a specific Anchor: After I put my breakfast dishes in the sink, I will wipe one counter.

That recipe looks good, right?

Except it didn’t work very well. Wiping the counter wouldn’t stick. Elena solved the problem by finding the Trailing Edge. She realized that the last action of “put my breakfast dishes in the sink” was turning off the water after she rinsed her cereal bowl. So turning off the water was the terminal point of the Anchor. Her adjusted Habit Recipe then became After I turn off the water, I will wipe one counter.

Guess what? Success.

Finding the Trailing Edge was all it took to snap her new habit into place. The feel of shutting off the faucet and the sound of the water abruptly stopping were sensory inputs that made the prompt more concrete and noticeable. Even though wiping a counter sounds like a small thing, Elena told me that it was actually a big point of tension between her and her husband in the morning. (Crumb-strewn counters being his number one pet peeve.) By incorporating that one simple habit into her daily routine, she changed the tone of their mornings together.

Here are some more examples of fuzzy Anchors alongside revised versions using specific Trailing Edges.



Fuzzy Anchor

Trailing Edge of Anchor



Brush my teeth

Put my toothbrush back into the charger



Pour coffee/tea

Put down the coffee carafe



Take a shower

Hang my towel up after a shower



Shave my face

Put my razor back into the charger



Arrive at work

Put down my backpack at work



Comb/brush my hair

Put my comb back on the counter





Power Move: Start with Anchors


Ready for a twist?

You can create successful recipes in Tiny Habits by starting with an Anchor. It’s basically a flip of what we’ve been doing. Instead of starting with a habit you want to create and finding a place for it, you begin with the routines you already have and find new habits to plug in. If you empty the dishwasher reliably every morning, what new habit could you put right after that? Folding the dishtowels or tidying the counter? After you buckle your seat belt, what new habit might you insert there? Perhaps you take a deep breath of relaxation. Let’s suppose you always put your coffee mug on your office desk. What new habit would fit right in after that reliable routine? Perhaps it’s getting out your to-do list.

Starting with your reliable daily routines—your Anchors—you can find what new tiny behavior to insert after them. Some people use this approach as an advanced technique—something to try when they’ve already created a bunch of new habits but are looking for more opportunities in their day. Others might want to start with it. Either way, you’ve got more than one strategy at your disposal when it comes to creating recipes for Tiny Habits.





Meanwhile Habits


When you look carefully at your existing routines, you’ll find tiny pockets of open time that are ideal places to cultivate a new habit. When I turn on the shower, the water is cold at first. I don’t like cold showers, so my typical routine is to wait until the water warms up, which takes about twenty seconds. This waiting period creates an opportunity: After I turn on the shower (and while I wait), I will . . .