Tiny Habits

You get down to specifics in step 2. You select one of your aspirations, then come up with a bunch of specific behaviors that can help you achieve your aspiration. You are not making any decisions or commitments in this step. You are exploring your options.

When guiding people in this process, I like to remind them that for now they have magical powers. They can get themselves to do any behavior. Move to Maui. Bring a dog to work. Get a management job that pays 30 percent more. It’s important to explore in this step—and be wildly optimistic. I call this method Magic Wanding.

(A note on starting with aspirations versus starting with outcomes: You can start with either. However, I like aspirations as a starting point because they are more flexible and less intimidating than specific outcomes.)

If someone says “goal,” you can’t be sure what they are talking about since the word is ambiguous. For that reason, “goal” is not part of the vocabulary in Behavior Design. Use either “aspiration” or “outcome” for precision. I once worked with a major

Write this phrase on a small piece of paper: I change best by feeling good, not by feeling bad.

As you know, motivation and willpower get a lot of airtime. People are always looking for ways to ramp them up and sustain them over time. The problem is that both motivation and willpower are shape-shifters by nature, which makes them unreliable.

Remember, for a behavior (B) to occur, three elements must converge at the same moment: Motivation, Ability, and Prompt. It’s a model that has profound implications. Each person’s motivation, ability, and prompt will be different in any given situation.

MOTIVATION AND ABILITY HAVE A COMPENSATORY RELATIONSHIP

No behavior happens without a prompt If you don’t have a prompt, your levels of motivation and ability don’t matter. Either you are prompted to act or you’re not. No prompt, no behavior. Simple yet powerful. Motivation and ability are continuous variables. You always have some level of motivation and ability for any given behavior. When the phone r