Tiny Habits
We all have behaviors we want to change for the better. We want to eat more vegetables, be more patient with our children, go to bed earlier, exercise daily, practice loving ourselves. Why, is it such a struggle to make these changes for good?
First, we judge ourselves far too harshly when we fail. Take losing weight, for example. We commit to creating a plan of what we will eat 24 hours in advance to rid ourselves of a few unwanted pounds. But, then, we go to lunch with friends and eat a bunch of greasy appetizers we didn’t plan on eating. Having fallen off the wagon, we feel bad about ourselves, return to our previous eating habits, and, inevitably, repeat the cycle again and again. We don’t change by feeling bad.
Second, we mistake aspirations for behaviors. A behavior, is something you can do right now or at another specific point in time. For instance, you can put your phone on airplane mode before you got to bed to get a better night’s sleep. An aspiration, by contrast, is impossible to achieve at any given moment. It is something you aspire to. For example, you cannot suddenly get better sleep.
Third, we set big, loft goals and rely on motivation to achieve them. The problem, as we’ve all experienced, is motivation is unreliable. It’s great, in the beginning, especially when researching a new behavior. But as we will earn below, without a trigger, or the ability to do the behavior, motivation won’t take you to where you want to go. We often assume that to get a behavior to happen, we need to focus on motivation, first. But in reality, motivation is not as important as we might think.
How, then, can we create lasting change without risking feeling bad about ourselves or replying only on motivation?
The answer, is to change our habits in tiny ways by this simple formula:
1. Find an Anchor Moment. An Anchor Moment is (1) an existing routine (like brushing your teeth, or passing a mirror) or (2) an event that happens (like a phone ringing). The Anchor Moment reminds you to do the new Tiny Behavior.
2. Make the Behavior You Want Tiny. Focus on small actions that you can do in less than thirty seconds, such as flossing one tooth, doing two push-ups, winking at yourself in the mirror (for self-love). You need to do the Tiny Behavior immediately after the Anchor Moment.
3. Celebrate Instantly. Something you do to create positive emotions, such as saying I did a good job!, Awesome!, Victory!, or I got you! Or even doing a little dance or high five to yourself. You need to celebrate immediately after doing the new Tiny Behavior to wire the new behavior into your brain.
B.J. Fogg PHD says “The essence of Tiny Habits is to take a behavior you want, make it tiny, find where it fits naturally in your life, and nurture its growth.”
So what is your Tiny Habit you want to work on?