How Tiny Habits Lead to Big Changes

There are a lot of myths surrounding habits and how to use them to improve your life. The real key to success is forming tiny habits that lead to big changes.

Have you ever heard that it takes 21 days to create a new habit? Or that repetition creates habits? Or even that more motivation is all you need to stick to new habits?

There’s good news—these are all myths! These (and many other) habit myths have held countless people back from making simple changes that can lead to big results.

We recently invited Dr. BJ Fogg to chat with us on The FASTer Way Podcast all about how tiny habits lead to big changes, and he shared truly insightful information that’s literally changing lives. Listen to the full episode here:

listen to the full episode

TINY HABITS

The fastest way to see BIG changes is through tiny efforts. This may sound counterintuitive, but research shows that it’s much more effective than trying to make big changes all at once. 

If you’re trying to set a new habit, this means making one small change that you can make into a regular habit that doesn’t take a lot of thought effort. In fact, Dr. Fogg suggests scaling back habits so they’re super tiny.

For example, if you want to create a habit of flossing every day, the goal shouldn’t be to floss your entire mouth every night before bed, it should be to floss ONE tooth. You can always do more than that, but don’t change the goal of the habit, just consider it extra credit if you go above and beyond.

Keep the habit alive by keeping it super tiny. If the behavior is easy to do, you don’t need a lot of motivation, and if tiny habits are easy, motivation swings won’t derail the habit.

B=MAP

Dr. Fogg’s behavior model says that behavior is made up of three things: motivation, ability, and prompt. 

B = MAP

This is a universal model that applies to all ages and cultures and works for starting OR stopping behaviors or creating habits.

Here’s how it works: motivation goes up and down over time. If it’s hard to do, it requires high levels of motivation—so if motivation sags, you won’t do it. If it’s easy to, you’ll keep doing it. You’re building skills of change, motivation, momentum, and increasing your ability to do harder things. 

Success Momentum

Rather than doing one big thing once, do small things lots of times. This gives you lots of small opportunities for success, which is actually more important than one opportunity for larger success.

It may seem trivial to think in these terms, but you feel almost as successful with tiny achievements as you do with one big one, so give yourself lots of little wins by making those tiny changes!

“It’s the frequency of success, not the size of success, that matters.”

-Dr. BJ Fogg

The Pearl Habit

A “pearl habit” is a great tool that can change your mindset quickly, especially if you’re trying to promote a positive habit change.

You can form a pearl habit by taking something that’s irritating you and use it as a reminder or prompt for something positive.

For example, if someone cuts you off in traffic, say to yourself, “Everyone is doing the best they can do. No one is trying to screw up.” It shifts the mindset and helps remove the anger toward the annoying thing or person. You can use this in any situation where the negative habit is caused by something out of your control.

Promoting New Habits

Some habits are best changed if you can do it as a family or household. This matters most with:

• Nutrition

• Sleep

• Media consumption

• Stress management

The people we live with have a huge impact on us in these areas, so if you can make the effort to set tiny habits together, you’ll see better results! Because we all know what happens when someone breaks out the chips and you’re in the corner trying to eat kale. The chips usually win, right? When you’re all working toward the same tiny habits, no one has to feel deprived or frustrated.

Keep It Positive

The best change comes when you feel successful, not when you feel guilty or threatened. Celebrate your wins, and make sure you’re winning often so you can keep building on that success! 

Dr. Fogg’s book Tiny Habits is out Dec 31, 2019. Be sure to pick up a copy so you can dive into the details of making tiny habits work in your life. Visit tinyhabits.com/book for more information! To learn more about Dr. Fogg and his research, visit bjfogg.com or connect on Instagram @bjfogg.

* This article was originally published here