Speaker 1: Hey everyone, it's Eric from the one you feed. Happy
Speaker 1: Holidays to you. Whether you enjoy them or you hate them,
Speaker 1: I hope you're making the best of them. As a
Speaker 1: holiday gift and as preparation for the new year, we
Speaker 1: are rereleasing seven of the older episodes. If you're new
Speaker 1: to the show, all these episodes are over a year old,
Speaker 1: so you may not have heard these yet if you've
Speaker 1: only been listening for a year. I picked the episodes
Speaker 1: because either a I think it's a really great episode
Speaker 1: or B I think it talks about behavior change, which
Speaker 1: we're heading into the new year, and that's on a
Speaker 1: lot of people's mind. Speaking of which, we are going
Speaker 1: to try something this new year. We're going to try
Speaker 1: the first one You Feed Group Transformation program. It will
Speaker 1: be a hundred dollars for a month. We're going to
Speaker 1: limit it to ten people. We will meet online four
Speaker 1: times that month, will discuss tips and tricks and different
Speaker 1: ways to ensure that you stay on track behavior wise.
Speaker 1: You'll be able to ask questions of me, and we'll
Speaker 1: do some things where you're paired up as a group
Speaker 1: so that you can get some support outside of the
Speaker 1: calls as well to make sure you get the new
Speaker 1: year off to a great start. So if you're interested,
Speaker 1: just send an email to me Eric at one you
Speaker 1: feed dot net. I hope you enjoy these episodes. I
Speaker 1: listened back to a couple of them, and um, let's
Speaker 1: just leave it at we are getting better at what
Speaker 1: we do. In the very first one, I sound very
Speaker 1: nervous and I was so Anyway, it's still a great interview.
Speaker 1: Enjoy these, have a happy new year. Thank you for listening,
Speaker 1: and we will talk to you soon. Bye. You can
Speaker 1: change your hitter. It's a skill when you get them
Speaker 1: by practice, when you've got to practice in the right way.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great tinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have quotes
Speaker 1: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 1: think ring true. And yet for many of us, our
Speaker 1: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Dr
Speaker 1: b J. Fogg, Director of the Persuasive Tech Lab at
Speaker 1: Stanford University, a psychologist and innovator. His work empowers people
Speaker 1: to think clearly about the psychology to a persuasion and
Speaker 1: then to convert those insights into real world outcomes. B
Speaker 1: J is the creator of the Fog Behavioral Model, a
Speaker 1: new model of human behavior change. He is the author
Speaker 1: of Persuasive Technology Using computers to change what we think
Speaker 1: can do, and co editor of Mobile Persuasion and Texting
Speaker 1: for Health. Fortune magazine selected b J. Fogg is one
Speaker 1: of the ten new Gurus You Shouldn't And here's the
Speaker 1: interview with Dr b J. Fogg. Hi, b J, Welcome
Speaker 1: to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. I'm really
Speaker 1: excited to get you on because behavior change is one
Speaker 1: of my favorite subjects and you are one of the
Speaker 1: best known researchers and practitioners in that area. So I'm
Speaker 1: really excited to go into a little bit more detail
Speaker 1: with the listeners on UM, what's known as the Fog
Speaker 1: behavioral model. But before we jump into that, we'll start,
Speaker 1: like we always do, with the parable. There's a grandfather
Speaker 1: who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there
Speaker 1: are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle.
Speaker 1: One is a good wolf, which represents things like kai
Speaker 1: this and bravery and love, and the other is a
Speaker 1: bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and
Speaker 1: fear and the grants. That stops and he thinks about
Speaker 1: it for a second. He looks up at his grandfather
Speaker 1: and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the
Speaker 1: grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to
Speaker 1: start off by asking you what that parable means to
Speaker 1: you in your life and in the work that you do. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's really the provocative. Actually hadn't heard that parable, befo us.
Speaker 1: I love it. So my reaction is it I think
Speaker 1: that when you feed is the one you pay attention to.
Speaker 1: Not going to be my gut reaction. It's, you know,
Speaker 1: the thing we really have limited in our lives is
Speaker 1: time and attention, and that just is you know, so
Speaker 1: you know, and it goes along, I guess in some
Speaker 1: ways with a meditation practice, the ability to focus on
Speaker 1: what you want to move forward and ignore the the distraction. Um,
Speaker 1: that's that's my response, so like and in fact so
Speaker 1: in my meditation practice. And I'm not great at meditation,
Speaker 1: but one of the practical uses of it is to
Speaker 1: be able to stay focused on word projects or people
Speaker 1: or you know, you're going out to dinner and you
Speaker 1: stay at the dinner and you stay focused with let's
Speaker 1: go on there rather than being distracted. Yep. And I
Speaker 1: do think that there's a direct connection. Excellent, Well, let's
Speaker 1: let's dive into, um, what one of the things you're
Speaker 1: known for, which is the Fog behavioral model. And at
Speaker 1: a basic level, it's really saying that in order for
Speaker 1: a person to achieve a certain behavior change, to perform
Speaker 1: a certain behavior, they've got to be a combination of
Speaker 1: three things. Um, They've gotta be sufficiently motivated, they have
Speaker 1: to have the ability to actually do the behavior, and
Speaker 1: then finally, they need some sort of trigger to tell
Speaker 1: them to perform the behavior. At that point, if those
Speaker 1: three things aren't kind of happening at the same moment,
Speaker 1: the behavior won't happen. And of the things that's great
Speaker 1: about that is that a lot of people I talked
Speaker 1: to a lot of people I work with, and I
Speaker 1: think you, I'm sure you run into this all the time,
Speaker 1: have this idea that these are whether we're able to
Speaker 1: change your behavior not depends on our level of willpower
Speaker 1: or in a lot of cases even our own personal character.
Speaker 1: And um, it looks like you're showing that that's not
Speaker 1: the case. Well, you know, behavior is more than just motivation,
Speaker 1: you know, and so you did a great summary of
Speaker 1: by the ador model, and it's one of the elements,
Speaker 1: but it's not the whole, it's not the whole equation.
Speaker 1: And so what you sometimes you can design for motivation,
Speaker 1: but motivation is very slippery, it goes up and down.
Speaker 1: You have computing motivations. Um. Whereas when you look at
Speaker 1: the other two factors in my model, ability and trigger.
Speaker 1: When you design to make something easier, it tends to
Speaker 1: be more robust um design change or better investment, because
Speaker 1: if you've something easy to do, it doesn't usually suddenly
Speaker 1: you can come hard to do, and then certainly you've
Speaker 1: got to design for triggers. So usually when people kind
Speaker 1: of historically and traditionally, when people talk about you know, behavior,
Speaker 1: behavior changed and really focused on motivation. Even the phrase
Speaker 1: motivate theaor change, and I think my work is um
Speaker 1: in kind of sharp relief to that. Yeah, motivations a
Speaker 1: piece of it, but how about facilitate behavior change or
Speaker 1: trigger behaviors you want? And I think those are the
Speaker 1: things you designed for first and foremost, and that's where
Speaker 1: you really focus. UM. And then you know, in in
Speaker 1: my approach, the way I train people and you know
Speaker 1: innovators and also all the people are coaching in tiny habits,
Speaker 1: it's UM, you pick behaviors you actually want to do,
Speaker 1: and that's where the motivation piece comes in. You don't
Speaker 1: don't think stuff you don't want to do, and then
Speaker 1: you have to like for yourself to do stuff that's
Speaker 1: that's not a long term success strategy, right, So let's
Speaker 1: dive into some of those pieces in a little bit
Speaker 1: more detail. I think motivation. You know, you've got some
Speaker 1: great writings on what the different types of motivators are
Speaker 1: all there are, and we can go into that, but
Speaker 1: let's maybe later, but let's talk right now about what
Speaker 1: ability is. What do you mean by having the ability
Speaker 1: to do an action? And can you give me some
Speaker 1: of the types of things that we might be missing
Speaker 1: or some examples of that. Yeah, well you know, so
Speaker 1: you can think of it as a continuum easy to
Speaker 1: do and hard to do. And then the visual version
Speaker 1: of my behavior model, So people are listening to the
Speaker 1: things to behavior Model dot org and see the visual
Speaker 1: and the horizontal dimension is easy to do, hard to do.
Speaker 1: That's what I mean by ability. And there are three
Speaker 1: ways to think about making something easier to do. So
Speaker 1: if you're there's something you want to do, like they
Speaker 1: work out every day, um, there are ways to make
Speaker 1: that easier to do. One is to get trained, like
Speaker 1: increase your skill, so you know, lessons or some sort
Speaker 1: of training could make it easier to do. Another approach
Speaker 1: is to create a tool or resource to make it
Speaker 1: easier to do. In my own life, I've set up
Speaker 1: a little kind of CrossFit Jim in my garage, which
Speaker 1: makes it a lot easier to do because it's right
Speaker 1: there and there in five seconds. Um. And then the
Speaker 1: third way is to actually scale the behavior back in
Speaker 1: some way. So rather than expecting yourself to work out
Speaker 1: for six minutes, workout for five things like that. So
Speaker 1: those are three ways to think about and walk through. Now,
Speaker 1: get your designing for other people. It's really hard to
Speaker 1: get people to want to take courses or be trained,
Speaker 1: so that's not planning. Usually it's giving them a tooler
Speaker 1: resource that will make the behavior easier to do. That's
Speaker 1: usually the one when you're designing for yourself for other people,
Speaker 1: that's the one that UM that I would focus on most,
Speaker 1: and so um ability in this case, you you actually
Speaker 1: I think break ability into six different potential areas to
Speaker 1: look at for that time, money, physical effort, brain cycles,
Speaker 1: which is like, how how hard you have to think
Speaker 1: about it? Um right? Social deviance, which is what do
Speaker 1: you mean by social deviance? Well, it's it's part of
Speaker 1: the simplicity factors. It means you if you're doing the
Speaker 1: behavior makes you feel funny or odd, like you're being devian.
Speaker 1: It's no longer simple. So for example, let's let's say
Speaker 1: I'm in my garage doing the crossbit stuff and I
Speaker 1: take off my shirt and I think, oh, maybe my
Speaker 1: neighbors will walk by and see me and maybe you know,
Speaker 1: think that we're gonna without a short Rocky Balboa. Then
Speaker 1: it's like that's made that behave your heart now that
Speaker 1: it's funny, you would pick that one out of the list.
Speaker 1: So there's six simplicity factors, and I've tentively scratched that
Speaker 1: one off the list because it also has a motivation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as a motivational quality. It is it does have aspects
Speaker 1: of ability, but has that aspects of motivation. So that's
Speaker 1: the one. If you're to come to my boot camp
Speaker 1: and work with me next week, for example, you I
Speaker 1: have a hand on like I look, I removed this one,
Speaker 1: and let's really talk about the five, the five others
Speaker 1: and the one that you know you didn't get to
Speaker 1: in the list yet I call non routine. And what
Speaker 1: I mean by that is it's the behavior causes you
Speaker 1: to break a routine that you already have. It's no
Speaker 1: longer simple. So if you want somebody to join a
Speaker 1: conference call for three minutes, but it intrudes on another
Speaker 1: meeting they have, it's no longer simple, even though it's
Speaker 1: a three minute conference call. So you've got to look
Speaker 1: at how how behavior fits into your real, everyday life,
Speaker 1: and you've got to design a sort of matches your
Speaker 1: routines rather than conflicting with your routines. Right, and I
Speaker 1: wish listeners and you can as as you said, if
Speaker 1: you go out to any of your many websites, can
Speaker 1: see what this behavioral model looks like written now. But
Speaker 1: this isn't saying that people can't do anything that's hard.
Speaker 1: It's just that the harder it is to do, the
Speaker 1: more motivation you're going to have to have to do it.
Speaker 1: So those things have to have to those have to
Speaker 1: move in tandem together. So if it's really easy to do,
Speaker 1: you don't need a lot of motivation, But if you're
Speaker 1: making a big change, you need a lot more motivation.
Speaker 1: One of the things that UM, you talk about that
Speaker 1: I know preach all the time, you call them baby steps.
Speaker 1: I talk about just breaking things down into the smallest
Speaker 1: possible things start really really small, you know, abandon the
Speaker 1: all or nothing mindset. And you did a video about
Speaker 1: why baby steps can be so helpful. Can you give
Speaker 1: us the short version and of why doing a very
Speaker 1: small version of the behavior? So say, for example, UM,
Speaker 1: we want to get to the point where we um
Speaker 1: you know, look really muscular, UM, but we start out
Speaker 1: by doing fifteen pushups. You know why is that a
Speaker 1: good strategy? Well, like you said, if the behavior is
Speaker 1: hard to do, you have to have high levels of
Speaker 1: motivation to do it, and motivation is very slippery, and
Speaker 1: it's going to be a time when the motivation flips
Speaker 1: and you won't do the behavior, Whereas if it's easy
Speaker 1: to do, motivation can be high or low, and so
Speaker 1: you're going to be able to do the behavior reliably.
Speaker 1: You know, take that baby steps, and as you take it,
Speaker 1: as you succeed on baby steps. And there's really two
Speaker 1: things going on here. One is the small behavior will
Speaker 1: call that a baby steps. That's one of the factors.
Speaker 1: The other one is as you feel successful, and that's
Speaker 1: important in the whole baby steps approach. So as you
Speaker 1: do it and you feel successful, to think capital number one,
Speaker 1: the ager gets easier to do the next time. So
Speaker 1: let's say you do five push ups one day. The
Speaker 1: next day, the five five push up is gonna be
Speaker 1: a little bit easier to do um. Whereas if you
Speaker 1: took the big leaf approach and did twenty five or
Speaker 1: fifty the next day, it's going to be harder to
Speaker 1: do because your sore. UM. So that's one thing. As
Speaker 1: usually as you do there, it will get easier to
Speaker 1: do in the future for writers. And and the number two,
Speaker 1: as you feel successful at it, you get more encouraged,
Speaker 1: your hope goes up, your fear goes down. In other words,
Speaker 1: your motivation naturally rises, so you've got both things going on.
Speaker 1: And that's you know, even the baby Steps is kind
Speaker 1: of a cutesy little name, and people because of the
Speaker 1: movie What About Bob and you know, the whole term
Speaker 1: baby I think they can discount the power of baby steps,
Speaker 1: but it's it's really kind of amazing, uh to see
Speaker 1: the power of it. So it's people take small steps
Speaker 1: and feel SI that's full. Things been easier to do
Speaker 1: when their motivation naturally goes up, which means over time
Speaker 1: they can do harder and harder things. So you ramps
Speaker 1: you up to be able to do the harder thing
Speaker 1: without uh, without you know, the risk of Wow, I
Speaker 1: did fifty plush us and now tomorrow I'm super sore,
Speaker 1: and so I'm either going to really hurt myself, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be painful, or I'm just going to not do it.
Speaker 1: So that's the big leap approach, which I do not advocate, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's one of the biggest causes
Speaker 1: in you know, in my limited experience of you know,
Speaker 1: failed behavior change in my own life and people around
Speaker 1: me is trying to start out with too much um.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think the other thing, for some
Speaker 1: reason is, you know, even when you don't call it
Speaker 1: baby steps, people seem to rebel against this idea because
Speaker 1: they think it seems silly, like that's not going to
Speaker 1: do any good, you know, like well doing walking for
Speaker 1: five minutes, that isn't gonna make any big difference to
Speaker 1: my health. But I recently read something of yours which
Speaker 1: I thought was really um is something that that I've noticed,
Speaker 1: but I certainly have never said it as well as
Speaker 1: you did, which is what's the importance of You talk
Speaker 1: about the importance of doing a habit, even if it's
Speaker 1: a very small amount of it. So you were describing
Speaker 1: a month in which you got really busy and so
Speaker 1: you were unable to exercise as often or as much,
Speaker 1: but you talk about why it was so critical that
Speaker 1: you even did a little bit of it. So why
Speaker 1: is that? And the tiny Habits method is like teach
Speaker 1: people the method, and as we train coaches to use
Speaker 1: the method, one of the analogies we use is, you know,
Speaker 1: a habit is like a little plant, and what you're
Speaker 1: doing with you as your great The habit is you
Speaker 1: want the plant to take a route you wanted to,
Speaker 1: you know, to firmly be in the ground, and then
Speaker 1: you can grow it bigger. Now, once you have a habit,
Speaker 1: the key is to keep it alive. You just don't
Speaker 1: want it to die. And as long as you keep
Speaker 1: it alive, you still have the habit. And so in May,
Speaker 1: my I had a crazy, crazy schedule of teaching, finishing
Speaker 1: up some stuff at Stanford, doing a bunch of stuff
Speaker 1: in industry, and my normal full size exercise habit. I
Speaker 1: just couldn't get that done with all the travel and
Speaker 1: all the responsibilities that I did do really tiny versions
Speaker 1: of it. In other words, I kept that little plant alive.
Speaker 1: I kept the roots connected in the soil. Because then
Speaker 1: when my circumstances changed, when I had time again, I
Speaker 1: was back to normal stuff it. You know, the habit
Speaker 1: re emerged, the full habit. So I didn't feel bad
Speaker 1: or guilty about not doing the full course of exercise
Speaker 1: I normally like to do. Instead, I congratulated myself, like,
Speaker 1: good for you, even though the schedule is crazy, you
Speaker 1: kept the habit alive. You kept this And I really
Speaker 1: do think of this little plant and I just can't
Speaker 1: shrivel up and die. I just keep it because that
Speaker 1: means it will come back. Yeah, and you you retain
Speaker 1: some of that momentum and motivation, you know when I
Speaker 1: always have noticed when you when I ended a dead
Speaker 1: stop on something. You know, once I'm not have no momentum,
Speaker 1: it is so hard to get started. Whereas to your point,
Speaker 1: as long as I've got a little bit of it going,
Speaker 1: it's easier to grow it. But boy, that that starting
Speaker 1: from nowhere is a hard point. Which is why like
Speaker 1: tiny habits or baby steps is so important. Is because
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's sort of the walk before you
Speaker 1: run thing almost sometimes I think, and I think it
Speaker 1: also has an impact on an identity or how do
Speaker 1: you think about yourself? If you completely stop exercise, and
Speaker 1: you'll think, oh, I'm the kind of person who doesn't exercise. Right,
Speaker 1: if you do three to five minutes of excercating the
Speaker 1: hotel round before you go, you know, teach to the
Speaker 1: big company, then still in your mind and just like,
Speaker 1: I'm the kind of person that exercises, you know, even
Speaker 1: when I'm really busy. And so even though it's a
Speaker 1: small act or small behavior, I think it affects how
Speaker 1: you see yourself, and that affects a bunch of other
Speaker 1: things in your life. You tend to behave in ways
Speaker 1: that are consistent with your identity, and so you really
Speaker 1: do want to do behaviors that uh create and reinforce
Speaker 1: the identity that will then lead you to the outcomes
Speaker 1: what you want. Yep. And I think that that's such
Speaker 1: a key point, is that I often, you know, talk
Speaker 1: with people who say, well, I'm the kind of person
Speaker 1: who always starts something and then doesn't finish it, or
Speaker 1: I'm the kind of you know, I'm the one that
Speaker 1: started exercising fifty different times and every time I stop.
Speaker 1: And and I really I think that idea of not
Speaker 1: tying too tightly to that I'm that type of person,
Speaker 1: because so much of this, which your model makes clear,
Speaker 1: is about do we have the right strategies in place?
Speaker 1: Are we approaching it right. It's not a character issue.
Speaker 1: It's a motive vasion ability to trigger issue. And now
Speaker 1: back to the interview with b. J. Fogg. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about triggers. So, what what do you mean by
Speaker 1: triggers and what are some you know, examples of good
Speaker 1: triggers that you've seen versus maybe bad ones or or
Speaker 1: less effective ones would be the word how to use right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In my model, a trigger is the prompt reminder. It's
Speaker 1: the prompt, it's the reminders to think that just do
Speaker 1: this behavior now. And the problem a lot of people
Speaker 1: have is they don't they're not clear about what their
Speaker 1: trigger is. And again the trigger is not the motivator,
Speaker 1: but it's the cut. Then go to the gym and
Speaker 1: start working out, or it's the cut, you know, put
Speaker 1: an apple in your backpack or what have you. And
Speaker 1: so getting specific about what's going to prompt or remind
Speaker 1: me to do this behavior, and you're designed for it.
Speaker 1: So unlike traditional approaches and behavior behavior change where it's
Speaker 1: dependent where the people think about as motivation willpower, I
Speaker 1: think the behavior change as a design issue. In other words,
Speaker 1: designed the trigger designed to make the behavior easier to do.
Speaker 1: It's a lot more like decorating room or rearranging your office. Then, um,
Speaker 1: well it's a lot like that because you're trying stuff out,
Speaker 1: you're designing, and you're seeing if all the pieces fit.
Speaker 1: If they don't, you just redesign it. I have lots
Speaker 1: of ways to trigger, like I'll run through a few
Speaker 1: quickly putting things on your calendar. I'm very calendar German.
Speaker 1: Like even our chat today, you know, so um it
Speaker 1: was on the calendar. I'm I'm a pretty big fan
Speaker 1: of to do lists. As a trigger gets something to
Speaker 1: do list, I'll probably either get it done or I'll
Speaker 1: schedule it to be done. I am not a fan
Speaker 1: of post it notes for certain for habits anyway, because
Speaker 1: I think that doesn't scale. If you're working, you know
Speaker 1: eventually you've got many many habits, and if you're relying
Speaker 1: on post it notes, ever, I just don't think that's
Speaker 1: a good approach. Instead, and in the Tiny Habits method,
Speaker 1: I have people identify a routine they already do to
Speaker 1: be I call it an anchor. To be the problem,
Speaker 1: you anchor it to something you already do. So perhaps
Speaker 1: as soon as I will in my own life, as
Speaker 1: soon as I empty my spam folder, that's my trigger
Speaker 1: to meditate. And it took me a long time to
Speaker 1: figure out where meditation fit in my day and what
Speaker 1: was going to be the trigger, But after a bunch
Speaker 1: of trial and error, that's the time. So as soon
Speaker 1: as that last email goes out on my my spam folder,
Speaker 1: it's clear, it's empty. That's that's the thing that room
Speaker 1: finds me. Ah to meditate. Now in my own line,
Speaker 1: I mean, other people can be triggers, and not just
Speaker 1: people animals. And so let me tell you something I did.
Speaker 1: And I was training some people at Stamford Healthcare last
Speaker 1: week and then the training, uh, we all were like
Speaker 1: talking about changing our behavior. And I said, okay, great,
Speaker 1: I'm going to play with my dog every morning and
Speaker 1: I'll throw the ball. She loves the ball, and so
Speaker 1: i'd take her out the door and I pulled out
Speaker 1: her little ball and he played. Next day, I did
Speaker 1: it again, and on day three, even if I didn't
Speaker 1: remember to get the ball, she was looking up with yeah.
Speaker 1: So she learned it within two days. And then she
Speaker 1: became my trigger to get the ball if I happened
Speaker 1: to forget. So, you know, the dog looking up and
Speaker 1: jumping towards the ball on the patio shelf is a trigger.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, yeah, we're gonna play ball this morning.
Speaker 1: Well that turned out to be a little bit of
Speaker 1: a monster. I'm going up beside. And now anytime I
Speaker 1: walk outside with her, she expects me to play ball
Speaker 1: in her you know, my intention was just in the morning,
Speaker 1: So I have to kind of undo that habit a
Speaker 1: little bit in her, and I'm not sure I'm going
Speaker 1: to do that. That's so funny. I've got a little
Speaker 1: dog who is the exact same way. I think. All
Speaker 1: she thinks about is that ball. And any time I
Speaker 1: walk in the kitchen where the ball is, you know
Speaker 1: she is right there looking, you know, like she just
Speaker 1: her trigger seems to be constant. Um, So let's talk
Speaker 1: about you say that successful triggers have three characteristics. So um.
Speaker 1: You know, first, as we notice the trigger. I mean,
Speaker 1: one of the challenges I have right is if I
Speaker 1: put something up as like a reminder to come up
Speaker 1: on my computer. I have allowful lot of those, so
Speaker 1: sometimes I just don't notice him anymore. Um. Second, is
Speaker 1: that you say you associate it with a specific behavior.
Speaker 1: And then finally, and I think this is another great one,
Speaker 1: is that the trigger happens when we are both motivated
Speaker 1: and able to perform the behavior. Sometimes I get a trigger,
Speaker 1: I get a reminder to do something at the moment
Speaker 1: that I can't do it. Yeah, and that's not helpful,
Speaker 1: that's just frustrating. So people are looking or kind of
Speaker 1: looked at the behavior model with it the curved line
Speaker 1: on it. If you get triggered when you're below the line,
Speaker 1: and I call it the action line, that means either
Speaker 1: you're it was too hard to do, or you didn't
Speaker 1: have motivations to it, or a combination. In either case,
Speaker 1: when you're triggered and you can't do the page you
Speaker 1: don't want to, that does not lead to a good outcome.
Speaker 1: So you really don't want the trigger going off when
Speaker 1: you are you can't do it for at a moment
Speaker 1: that you're not motivated to do it, because you're going
Speaker 1: to be more likely to ignore it right the next time. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you'll ignore it or it'll either frustrate you or and
Speaker 1: not you. And in some cases, I was wearing a
Speaker 1: watch from a certain company and I was driving along
Speaker 1: on the highway and the watch happened me and said,
Speaker 1: stand out. Now it's so it's triggering me this end up,
Speaker 1: but I'm driving and so it's so not only was
Speaker 1: that a little bit, well, it's funny, but let's imagine
Speaker 1: that happened over and over. The annoying but also hurts
Speaker 1: the credibility of the system. I think. So if you
Speaker 1: create some sort of product or service that triggers people
Speaker 1: at the long time, then I just think that that's
Speaker 1: not good for the brand, it's not just for the product,
Speaker 1: and so on. So the timing of the trigger matters
Speaker 1: a lot. You described having a pretty crazy schedule, right,
Speaker 1: Triggers work for me pretty well in routine. Right When
Speaker 1: in routine it's pretty straightforward. When when everything is chaotic,
Speaker 1: do you how do you work to redesign your triggers
Speaker 1: or are certain things habitual enough at that point that
Speaker 1: you remember to do them, or how do you deal
Speaker 1: with that? Well, if we're talking about habits, there's a
Speaker 1: class of habits I call super habits and super habits
Speaker 1: of the things you do all the time, regardless of
Speaker 1: the context. Brushing our teeth in the bad, eating breakfast
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, and so those those habits endour
Speaker 1: even if I'm you know, in Seattle or Boston or
Speaker 1: you know, hiking. Um, then there's another Most habits are
Speaker 1: not super habits. You're very dependent on our context. So
Speaker 1: if we uh, you know, so it's Monday and usually
Speaker 1: or at work, but we're taken it's a holiday, well,
Speaker 1: the context is different. Your typical Monday habits probably aren't
Speaker 1: going to happen, but just that's the failure of will
Speaker 1: power or motivation or not even behavior design. It's just
Speaker 1: how things work. And so I'm a big fan of
Speaker 1: creating like Monday through Friday work habits, weekend habits you
Speaker 1: may differentiate between Saturday and Sunday, and then also travel habits,
Speaker 1: so when you're on the road, a different set of habits.
Speaker 1: So you'll have your super habits, but then will have
Speaker 1: other habits you do when you travel, and don't expect
Speaker 1: your Monday through Friday work habits to automatically translate to
Speaker 1: travel because it's the context different. So you actually design
Speaker 1: a different set of habits with different triggers, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: So that's I think I'm more helpful way to think
Speaker 1: about it. Knowing that you're outside your normal environment, and
Speaker 1: like there's certain things that I will do when I'm
Speaker 1: at a hotel that I don't do when I'm at home,
Speaker 1: and there's things I do at Stanford that I don't
Speaker 1: do when I'm working from home. And so just realizing
Speaker 1: the context is also a big part of what triggers
Speaker 1: us to do things. And so don't get down yourself
Speaker 1: if you. You know, you go on vacation and you
Speaker 1: don't do your typical exercise. Well, that's normal until you
Speaker 1: design a habit for that contact. That's just normal. It's
Speaker 1: not a personal failing. One of the things that you
Speaker 1: talk about with creating habits, you talk about how important
Speaker 1: celebration is. What what do you mean by that and
Speaker 1: why is it so critical? Yeah, celebration is the something
Speaker 1: that you do. It's a skill. It's an act that
Speaker 1: you do to fire off a positive emotion, to makes
Speaker 1: you feel positive emotion immediately. That's what I mean by celebration.
Speaker 1: It's almost like a self cheer or a way to
Speaker 1: spark like happiness or something positive inside of you instantly.
Speaker 1: And the reason that matters, and so that's this is
Speaker 1: part of the tiny Habits technique. The reason it matters
Speaker 1: is your positive emotions help make the behavior become more automatic.
Speaker 1: So if I well, let's take my little dog Millie.
Speaker 1: So I take the ball out on the patio. The
Speaker 1: first morning, I throw it and she is so happy,
Speaker 1: she runs, gets the ball, brings it back. Well, that
Speaker 1: positive emotion starts wiring into her the anticipation to do
Speaker 1: the ball the next morning. In other words, emotions create habits,
Speaker 1: and so the celebration skill it's a hack. You know, like,
Speaker 1: how do you hack your behavior? Well, you learned to
Speaker 1: fire up a positive emotion, so then when the opportunity
Speaker 1: comes to that behavior again, you'll remember to do it
Speaker 1: and you'll want to do it. So I'll just give you. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, if somebody is not flossing and they want
Speaker 1: to make flossing a habit, well after they slost when
Speaker 1: it's all their teeth or I'm a fan of this
Speaker 1: lossing one too. You then celebrate and you say good
Speaker 1: for me? Are you do a fist pomp? For you
Speaker 1: do something goofy in the mare to make yourself feel
Speaker 1: happy at that moment, because that's how you get your
Speaker 1: brain to want to do that behavior again. So I
Speaker 1: call it celebration. It's not a perfect word. It's about
Speaker 1: the best word I can come up with for that.
Speaker 1: It's all about it's a hack. You're hacking your emotions
Speaker 1: in order to hack your behavior. I know there's there's
Speaker 1: a long list, but just a couple that the big
Speaker 1: hitters off the list of bad approaches to change in
Speaker 1: our behavior. Oh wow, Well, one one case thing is
Speaker 1: to distinguish between outcomes and behaviors um and you need
Speaker 1: to translate. And so the outcome might be in lose
Speaker 1: ten percent of my body way or you know, be
Speaker 1: able to do fifty pull ups or finish you know,
Speaker 1: a big report or something like. Those are all outcomes.
Speaker 1: You need to translate that into specific behaviors. What are
Speaker 1: the behaviors that I do to reach that outcome? So
Speaker 1: that step one and often overlooked. You've been designed for
Speaker 1: the behaviors. You can't design directly for the outcomes. Number
Speaker 1: two is probably being unrealistic about your motivation level and
Speaker 1: how it will sag. So when you are thinking about, oh,
Speaker 1: I want to lose weight, or I want to study harder,
Speaker 1: I want to write more, I want to practice more,
Speaker 1: in that moment that you're thinking that through or in
Speaker 1: the course or what have you, your motivation is high,
Speaker 1: at least higher than usual, and at that moment you
Speaker 1: feel like you really can do these behaviors because your
Speaker 1: motivation time and what people don't account for it tomorrow
Speaker 1: or a week from now, or you know, thirty days
Speaker 1: from now, my motivation is going to tag and I'm
Speaker 1: not going to have I'm not gonna be talk about this.
Speaker 1: So you've got to design an approach that accounts for
Speaker 1: the reality of motivation being very slippery. And then I
Speaker 1: think there's others all this one. Um, just if you're
Speaker 1: looking at long term change, there's different kinds of behavior,
Speaker 1: somewhere one time and somewhere episodic. But if you're looking
Speaker 1: at long term change, if you're looking at some kind
Speaker 1: of outcome like being more productive or being healthy or
Speaker 1: reducing rest, those outcomes can be challenging, and so as
Speaker 1: you work on different behaviors to achieve them, I think
Speaker 1: it's so important to just keep going. So if you
Speaker 1: fall up the wagon, or if you mess up or
Speaker 1: you don't, it's not even messing up. If you don't
Speaker 1: do what you're intended, don't make a big deal of it.
Speaker 1: Just take the next step, you know, just just just
Speaker 1: don't give up, and you know, don't don't don't take
Speaker 1: it out on yourself, tunk it down yourself to say, hey,
Speaker 1: you just pick it up the next thing and keep going.
Speaker 1: One of my favorites that would go on a list
Speaker 1: like that is is ambiguity, like not really knowing exactly
Speaker 1: what the behavior you're going to take is like I'm
Speaker 1: going to go to the gym and work out is
Speaker 1: you know, I've I've given myself that before and you
Speaker 1: get there and or it's just harder to even get
Speaker 1: there because I don't know what I'm gonna do, what machines,
Speaker 1: how long? There's so many decisions to make that it's
Speaker 1: easy to not do it. Yeah, there's an interesting I
Speaker 1: haven't named us, and I don't know if anybody has
Speaker 1: named it, but the idea of this as you can
Speaker 1: get very specific about the behavior. Often the behavior will
Speaker 1: just happen on its own without you designing the trigger
Speaker 1: or making it either just getting clear in your mind
Speaker 1: what the behavior can lead to actually drink there not
Speaker 1: in all cases, but um, it's surprising how that dynamic works.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, that's clarity about what exactly is the
Speaker 1: behavior that I'm going to be doing. I can have
Speaker 1: a piuse full effect. Excellent. Well, b J, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for taking the time. I think I could probably
Speaker 1: continue to have this conversation for hours, but I know
Speaker 1: you're busy and I appreciate you taking the time to
Speaker 1: talk with us. We will have links in the show
Speaker 1: notes to UH some of your various different websites. To
Speaker 1: the tiny habits, to the behavior model, etcetera. So thanks again, great,
Speaker 1: thanks for talking, great questions and uh, you know, just
Speaker 1: keep up the good work. It's it's really important that
Speaker 1: people understand how they your works and that's they move
Speaker 1: forward because like you can change your behavior, it's a
Speaker 1: skill and you get there by practice. But you've got
Speaker 1: to practice in the right way. And I applaud you
Speaker 1: for shining a spotlight the better ways to do it. Excellent. Well,
Speaker 1: thanks so much, goodbye, all right bye. You can learn
Speaker 1: more about b J Fogg and this podcast at one
Speaker 1: you feed dot net slash fog. That's f O g
Speaker 1: G