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A Stanford University psychologists elegant three-step

method for creating new habits


qz.com/877795/how-to-create-new-good-habits-according-to-stanford-psychologist-b-j-fogg/

Written by Lila MacLellan


If you hate the monotony of running on the treadmill, but drag yourself to the cardio room daily, believing selftorture will eventually become a habitthats not heroic; its bad design.
According to B.J. Fogg, a psychologist and researcher at Stanford University who has studied behavior change
for more than 20 years, doing something you dont enjoy and subsequently failing to make it habitual is actually
more detrimental to a mission for change than doing nothing at all. To create a real lifelong habit, the focus
should be on training your brain to succeed at a small adjustments, then gaining condence from that success,
he argues. To do that, one needs to design behavior changes that are both easy to do and can be seamlessly
slipped into your existing routine. Aim for automaticity.
As proof of this concept, Fogg points to the massive experiments for which weve all been the lab rats: the
success of tech giants like Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, companies that have made fortunes
testingand guring outhow to make millions of people use their products as automatic habits. This is Foggs
area of expertise at Stanford, where he researches the ways computers (including mobile phones) can persuade
humans, a eld known as captology (from CAPT, computers as persuasive technology, a term Fogg coined).
He also directs the Stanford Persuasive Tech Lab and runs persuasion boot camps for industry professionals.
To help people gure out how to make new behaviors they actually want as routine as turning to Google to
search the web, he developed the Fogg Method, which references several psychological theories and is
comprised of three key steps. The rst is about identifying your specic desired outcome: Do you want to feel
less stressed at work? Lose 10% of your bodyweight?
Next, identify the easy-win behaviorshe calls them tiny habitsthat will put you on the path to that goal. (This
requires introspection, because the going method for reducing stress may not be the behavior that will work for
you, Fogg emphasized in an interview with NPR last year. Maybe youd nd short walks more meditative than
meditating, for instance, or perhaps jogging with your retriever sounds more inviting than lacing up for a spin
class.)
Finally, nd a triggersomething that you already do as a habitand graft the new habit onto it. That might
mean putting out an apple on the counter every time you start the coeemaker in the morning, Fogg explained to
NPR. Notice I didnt say eat the apple, he added. Lets not get crazy.
In an online Tiny Habits program that Fogg provides for free, he sends followers sample recipes for commonly
held goals related to lifestyle topics like productivity, relationship building, or health. One such recipe: After I
nish brushing my teeth, I will oss one tooth.
You can see where this is going. Tiny Habits works by designing out the need to feel highly motivated to get a
task done. Motivational levels come and go with the wind, but ossing a single tooth is achievable no matter the
emotional weather. Besides, most days youll nd yourself ossing a few other teeth becausewell, why not?
One day your goal might be to simply put on your sneakers the minute you start the dishwasher in the evening.
Slowly, naturally, youll start walking, too, and adding other, more ambitious goals to your routine.
That said, theres one other ourish necessary to making this hack work, says Linda Fogg-Phillips, B.J.s sister, a
former health coach who now runs the online program. After carrying through with a tiny step, participants in the
online seminar are instructed to give themselves a celebratory pat on the back. That might be by saying, Yay, or
Victory, for example.
The organizers admit it sounds goofy to celebrate because you managed to oss a single tooth, or do a push-up

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after using the bathroom (another popular recipe), but, Fogg-Phillips tells Quartz, Youre rewriting your identity
as someone who succeeds.
More than 28,000 people have completed the ve-day free program. In exit interviews, 80 to 90% of graduates
say they feel condent about their ability to change their habits, according to Fogg-Phillips. More than two-thirds
of their participants report theyve also noticed other, unexpected improvements. One woman set a goal to pick
up one piece of garbage or misplaced item from her car every time she parked in her garage, for example; she
soon found she was straightening out her house, too.
According to Fogg-Phillips, the ripple eect is common, and psychologists arent sure exactly why it happens.
One theory: Thanks to the small victories, says Fogg-Phillips, people might consciously or subconsciously break
down other barriers in their lives.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that B.J. Fogg teaches at Stanfords computer
science department. In fact, Foggs current appointment is in the Graduate School of Education. He is the
director of the Persuasive Tech Lab, as was stated, and he previously taught in the computer science
department.

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