How to pursue your New Year resolution when you lack willpower
Before reading this article you need to do a thing. Go to the bathroom cabinet and grab a floss. With the power of tiny habits I will show you how you can floss a tooth with no willpower.
First we need to establish some key words.
- Behaviour is the way you act in a particular circumstance.
- Habit is a familiar behaviour that you repeat over time.
- Changing behaviour temporarily will not break a habit.
- A long term behavioural change will create a new habit.
In 2009 Dr. BJ Fogg, professor of behavioural change at the University of Stanford discovered that there are 15 ways to change your behaviour (in theory). However, from his studies it seemed like only 2 among these ways can guarantee a long term behavioural change (aka change in habit). These are environmental changes and tiny habits.
Environmental Changes
When a change in the surrounding environment happens, inevitably your behaviour will change. This concept can apply, to the city you live in, your colleagues at the office, the friends you spend time with. The smallest change in these environments which can be physical, social, or other, will force you to undertake a new behaviour.
For instance if your boss values your work you will feel appreciated and act confident, but if your boss gets replaced by somebody who thinks you are a lazybones you might become insecure and act unassertive.
Relying on environmental changes to modify your behaviour is not recommendable. In this scenario the majority of changes can be cause by other individuals or phenomena you have no control over.
In conclusion, a change in the environment around you will cause you to change your habits in a way that is not voluntary or foreseeable, thus not optimal.
Tiny habits
In the past, scientists have always assumed that in order to change your habits you need to apply some level of motivation.
BJ Fogg advanced a new theory where it is said that motivation can only be applied to temporary behaviour change, but not long term. “Relying primarily on motivation to change you behaviour long term is a losing strategy” he said.
But using the theory of tiny habits everything changes. BJ was a revolutionary scientist who wanted to stay in shape (just like you and me). So one day he decided that he would have combined his knowledge on behaviours with some pushups to get fit.
He used a powerful formula that recited:
“After I will use the bathroom, I will do 2 pushups.”
Dr. Fogg had reason to believe that people struggle to keep their level of motivation high with time, so he designed a method where the behavioural change you apply is so tiny that you don’t really need any motivation to execute it.
For instance doing 2 pushups or flossing one tooth are very simple behaviours to repeat and they are more likely to become a habit than another activity that requires much more motivation (such as doing an entire workout).
You already know how to floss all your teeth. You just need to train making it automatic, (this will make it become a habit).
Tiny habits is the only way to create habits that is reliable and systematic.
Why does this work?
Most of us try to induce behavioural changes for habits that involve health or productivity. In our mind seems intuitive to design new habits that bring results in a direct way, such as eating healthy and jogging or reading a book and set up a schedule.
The theory of tiny habits however, suggests that we should pair existing habits and new behaviours to lead to these outcomes.
Tiny habits work because, contrary to a direct outcome that requires motivation, they create very little imperceptible changes that little by little will make you approach this health outcome in a very reliable way that doesn’t regress with time.
When do Tiny Habits happen?
There are 3 factors that need to happen at the same time to cause a behaviour. These are: some level of Motivation, the Ability to perform such behaviour (or difficulty to perform in some cases) and a Trigger.
For example the behaviour of you brushing your teeth is caused by:
1) you wanting your teeth to be clean,
2) the fact that you are capable of washing them and
3) the trigger is the moment when you go to the bathroom after every meal.
Only if all these 3 factors appear together you will actually brush your teeth.
Now, there is a complication, motivation and ability are tradeoffs.
This means that activities that you can perform very well require very little motivation and, with the same principle, activities that are more challenging will require more willpower.
Imagine if I asked you to stop reading this article and run a marathon before finishing to read. You probably wouldn’t do it because this activity is very difficult and therefore requires loads of motivation.
Imagine if, instead, I asked you to stop reading this article, standup and make 5 jumping jacks. You probably don’t want to do that either, but the fact that what I asked you is so easy to perform (high ability) you might still do it even if you still have the very low motivation.
This proves that since it is too complicated to maintain a high level of motivation throughout the day, we should focus only on tasks that we are good at because they are easier to do.
Dr. Fogg thought “Why don’t we just perform activities we are very good at so that we can still perform them even in lack of motivation?” From this moment tiny habits came to light.
A trigger
Now that we have ability and motivation, we are only missing a trigger in order for a behaviour to occur. Creating or finding a trigger can be challenging. Most triggers do not happen consistently and you might find yourself in the wrong place or at the wrong time to execute your new behaviour.
Despite that, we do have some behaviours that we perform regularly always in the same place at the same time. For example having breakfast, taking a shower or reading the news. If only we could decide to use existing behaviours in our lives to trigger new behaviours.
Oh wait, we already do it!
After a shower, I will put on a pair of clean socks. (This is a typical one for me)
After I got dressed in the morning, I will take the trash outside.
If you use an existing behaviour in your life and you put the new tiny behaviour after it you can use the existing behaviour as a trigger for the new behaviour.
This is a breakthrough, you don’t need to write post notes, set up alarms because you just established that you will do your new behaviours after these triggers.
After. After is the secret.
After I … , I will …
This is the magical equation of tiny habits.
What kind of habits can you create?
Everyone has their own routines and building a tiny habit is something extremely personal. Do not try to copy others’ habits, but create your own. You know the formula. I will write down a few that can inspire you.
In the morning:
- After I will have had my tea, I will tidy up one item in the living room.
- After I start the dishwasher, I will water the plants.
- After I walk out of the door, I will say today will be a great day.
Or in the evening:
- After I enter the house at the end of the day, I will kiss my girlfriend for 10 seconds.
- After I get home, I will set up the clothes for the next day.
- After I have put my PJ on, I will read two pages of a book.
When you know how to create tiny habits you can change your behaviour and your life forever.
You don’t need to gather much motivation to perform new habits.
Now, I promised that I would have shown how to floss when having no willpower. So here is a tiny habit for you.
After I read a Medium article, I will floss one tooth.
