Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything(90)
BY DOING
Teach and guide others in Shine. Explain that there’s a new word for a powerful emotion. Describe what Shine feels like and what it does (wires in new habits). You can also explain how to celebrate. And you can actively celebrate others when they do something good. You can create Shine at any moment and even (especially!) for tiny successes. Your daughter picks up one toy (out of dozens) and puts it away—clap for her or give her a hug.
Share this book or its exercises. Go online and get my templates for the Swarm of Behaviors and use it with friends and family. You’ll find the tiny exercises in this book are effective learning tools at work, church, or school.
Create a family tradition of positive change. Start now no matter how challenging it seems. By sharing the Tiny Habits method and the concept of Shine, you can begin today to support one another in change. As you learn and practice change skills together, you will create a lasting legacy of empowerment.
In 2007 I taught what is probably my most famous class—dubbed the “Facebook Class” by the New York Times. Facebook had just launched its app-hosting platform, and I ran a new course at Stanford to better understand how everyday people using social networks can influence others. Using an early version of my principles and processes, students created apps and set them free in the real world (of social media). They were more successful than I could have imagined. Within six months, the students, without spending any money, had engaged more than twenty--four million people. I saw the awesome potential of Behavior Design to change the world and the awesome responsibility that comes with it.
In this book I’ve shared some important insights about how to think about and design for behavior change. The way I look at it, it’s like many breakthrough discoveries—when you uncover a universal principle, it has the potential to be used for good or evil. You can use the principles of basic chemistry to create fertilizer and life-saving medicines or you can use those same principles to make chemical weapons.
After we wrapped up the Facebook class, I immediately focused on how we could use technology-mediated social influence for perhaps the most ambitious, pie-in-the-sky good of all—world peace. Within three months, I created a new Stanford course called Peace Technology and invited students to join me. This effort expanded after the class ended, and it continues today in research labs and centers around the world under the title of Peace Innovation, with headquarters now based in The Hague.
On a smaller level but with the same lofty ideals, my focus outside of Stanford has been teaching innovators how to create products that improve wellness, financial security, and sustainable practices. The focus on doing good is a natural one for me. I grew up in a religious tradition that made this clear: Where much is given, much is expected. I’ve always believed that.
I recognize that I’ve been fortunate in my work. Over the years, people have opened doors for me, challenged me, and inspired me. As a result, I could focus my research, my innovation efforts, and my life on discovering and articulating the models and methods you have learned here, including the Tiny Habits method. I feel I’ve been given an answer to a puzzle piece by piece. And when it snapped together, I recognized something brand-new but yet so familiar.
Then I had the airplane dream, and I realized that I had failed to share much of my work. And I was deeply troubled by that fact. I believe that it’s not ethical to have the potential to do good and not use it for the benefit of humanity. It would be like finding a cure for cancer and keeping it to yourself.
But I am thankful and thrilled that this book is now a reality and in your hands. (And I’m certainly glad that I’m sleeping better.) If I had that airplane dream today, I would not feel regret. And I can’t wait to see how you’ll use these models and methods to make your life happier, help those around you, and make the world a better place.
I believe this book gives you everything you need to meet whatever challenges come your way and realize whatever dreams you’ve not yet been able to achieve. You now have a system for change, which means you don’t have to guess. You can design for whatever aspiration or outcome you want.
But that’s not all. You can now filter out all that noise and confusion about habits and human behavior. Because you know how behavior works, you know what to pay attention to and embrace, and what to ignore and discard. If an e-mail from a friend comes through about a new exercise or diet program, a quick scan will tell you all you need to know. Will it help you do what you already want to do? Will it help you feel successful? The answers to those questions are freeing because if the change program doesn’t satisfy these two requirements, it’s not worth your time.
The quality of our life on planet Earth depends on the choices we make every day—choices about how we spend our time, how we live our lives, and most important, how we treat ourselves and others. I’m sad to see how people seem more bitter, divided, and overwhelmed than ever these days. We are, as a global community, increasingly disconnected from ourselves and other people. The first step toward fixing what ails us is to embrace feeling better.
Habits are a means to this end.
They teach us the Skills of Change, and they propel us toward our dreams, and they add more Shine to the world. By embracing feelings of success and adding more goodness to your day-to-day life, you are making the world brighter not only for yourself but also for others. You are vanquishing shame and guilt, and you are freeing yourself and others who have endured a lifetime of self–trash talk.