In this TED talk, BJ Fogg shares how you can build tiny habits for major change. He gives a number of examples as well as the process for doing so.
To make any change, there needs to be a shift in behaviours. But the question is, “where to start?”.
The good news is that behaviour change is not as complicated as people think. It can be quite systematic and covered by the Fogg Behaviour Grid which show 15 ways for this.
And for long-term change it can be narrowed down to 2 key areas:
- Change the environment – this can include your social environment and is a tricky one.
- Change habits – build tiny habits that affect behaviour and ultimately outcomes
Focusing on the habits is not generally the problem. It’s the automaticity of it that needs to be trained and so it’s the ‘trigger’ component that needs work.
There is a format that can be used to build these tiny habits. And it goes like this:
After I [existing habit], I will [tiny habit]
By adding a small activity after an ingrained habit or behaviour, it’s easy to build a new habit.
Think after; waking up, going to bed, coming home for the day, making a cup of coffee, washing your hands…there’s any endless stream of activities that you can add other small actions to the back end of.
All you need to do is to align the frequency with the pre-existing activity and take action.
Here is the full 17-minute TED talk where BJ shares other examples to build tiny habits as well as the need to celebrate the process of action taking as well.
Want to watch even more TED Talks we have shared. Check them all out here.
