You make these small changes and it changes how you think about yourself.
It changes your self -talk.
It changes your relationship with emotions So you're more inclined to embrace positive emotions and not let the negative emotions get you down some ways I'm getting chills because That is such To me that is just I'm still fascinated with how that works Hello and welcome.
I'm Shane Parrish and you're listening to The Knowledge Project a podcast dedicated to mastering the best of what other people have already figured out This podcast and our website fs .blog help you better understand yourself and the world around you by exploring the Methods ideas and mental models from some
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If you enjoy this podcast We've created a premium version that brings you even more you'll get ad free versions of the show early access to episodes Transcripts and so much more if you want to learn more now head on over to f s blog slash podcast or check the show notes for a link Today I'm talking
with BJ Fogg who founded the behavior design lab at Stanford University in addition to his research He also created the tiny habits Academy This episode is you guessed it all about habits how we make them how we break them How emotions and story impact them and what motivates us?
It's time to listen and learn How did you get interested in habits Oh Well, it probably goes back to my childhood.
I grew up in a culture that was all about changing your behavior optimizing your life and Habits to do and habits not to do I was raised Mormon in California and within that religion, you know You can't smoke you can't drink and you're supposed to study the scriptures and pray and so on So I think I grew
up with a lot of attention around habits and then later Fast forward to being an adult Just really interested in helping people be happier and healthier.
And I think that also got wired into me whether it was that Mormon background or whether it's just born with that desire and in Studying human behavior and things came together.
It's like man you know what this thing about habits and creating habits can be way easier than people expect and let's really dive in and do a bunch of practical research and testing and BAM and help people you live on Hawaii, right?
Part of the time in Maui.
Yes. What does it mean to be happy and healthy?
Of course it's different for different people but for me Nature is a big piece of that for me and I didn't realize this I didn't realize the pattern how important connecting to nature is for me to be healthy and happy and it's different for different people but Yes, I taught a class to classes.
The only class I ever repeated at Stanford.
I always teach a new class was on Behavior design to help people connect to nature But I didn't recognize how important that pattern was in my life I'd moved out of Silicon Valley in about 2001 because I just felt like it was dehumanizing me and So even though I still had teaching and research at Stanford
We kind of escaped about two hours north where I where we moved to live next to a river and the whole reason we moved out was to be by the river and get out of what I felt like in Silicon Valley was just greed and Exploitation and just not real relationships.
If you couldn't help somebody financially just seemed like they weren't interested in so that and then one day I was sitting in our home and it's in Hillsburg, California and I looked around the living room and Every single piece of every painting every anything in the room had to do with nature I had
plants I had rocks.
I had feathers the carpet was leaves and I looked around and said, okay BJ This is Claire.
You're kind of obsessed with nature.
So for me, that's really important and Here in Maui and I surf every morning.
I get in the ocean every day and that's really important for me to Start my day and also to end my day getting in the water just for me I've just found that really really helps for me It's really nature is the foundation of being happy and healthy and frankly my spiritualities That's what it is for me.
I'm sure it's that's not true for everybody That's really interesting to me.
I would like to hear more on the differences between sort of being on the island environment and sort of being on campus Very different on the good news side of things is with my lab my research lab at Stanford we meet once a week year -round and We've long done that through video conferencing it was on Hangouts
and then we shifted to zoom a few years ago So that doesn't change anything at all It doesn't matter where I am the lab and how we interact with that and slack stays the same One thing it has in common is I feel very at home when I'm on Stanford's campus and I feel very at home when I'm Here in Maui
or close to nature and then there's other places where I just don't feel at home like say I go to Chicago and I keynote at an event I go to a hotel and yeah, I'm there but and Events nice, but I don't feel at home I don't and I really can't wait to leave and get back to I guess a place that's Just a little
more more me and more comforting more Energizing I guess it has to do with both of those things I think that's a really good way to put it I want to dive into behavior change a little bit we tend to think that if we give people the right information It'll cause a behavior change, but I don't I don't
think that's true. Can you walk me through?
I know we've all thought that we've all hoped that for a long time and It is important and in tiny habits.
I point this out and I pointed it out for a while that That informational alone does not reliably Lead to sustained behavior change now information can be part of the puzzle, but that alone doesn't Seem to do the trick for most people.
So seeing statistics seeing data Won't necessarily change somebody's behavior in the long term and back in the day when the quantified self movement was more visible and buzzier and more exciting That was one of the things I mean, I really really liked the people involved and I really liked to see technology
Be created to help people be healthier and more productive and happier and so on But I couldn't get super enthusiastic about the overall idea of quantified self because I knew that just giving somebody data About their sleep or about how many calories or about whatever?
Wasn't going to add up to be a Thing that would create lasting change in most people's lives Now I imagine there are a few unusual people that all they need is data and everything else clicks together Yeah, now there is one qualification chain for this that where it does help information and Let me
drill down on where and it doesn't work if it's information about why you should do something in a domain We already understand pretty well like nutrition or sleep or stress reduction more information about why you should reduce your stress Seems not to lead to lasting change.
So that's not a good equation and then just statistics and things like that without any And here's the key information about how to That's good.
Okay. So When we talk about information that can be lots of things But if it's information about here's the behavior to do and here's how you do it Then that is a great approach.
But that's a specific kind of information.
So specifying the behavior and Making it easier for people to do now notice in those two things that maps to my behavior model Which is like this behavior happens when three things come together at the same moment motivation ability and prompt so if you give information that specifies the behavior well,
that's the B and the behavior model and Then gives people more ability then you've hit I think the most important things in changing behavior be specific and make it really easy to do so When I teach my boot camps and that's for industry innovators Who are creating products and services to change behavior and health
or financial stability or stress?
I? Do teach them to explain to their colleagues information alone does not change behavior And if people have like oh we're gonna do this information campaign or we're gonna educate people to push back on that and say no No, no information alone is not reliable and in changing behavior long term however
if there's already budget for Some sort of campaign or learning or whatever then take that budget and use it to help people get really specific about their behaviors and Explain how to so rather than try to motivate people through some information campaign Match them with the best behaviors and then
make those really easy to do and then you're on your way When I was talking with Daniel comment on the podcast.
He said there was two ways to sort of like make Behaviors easier in a way you have a carrot in a stick kind of approach where you sort of add force or you remove force In your experience, is there a better approach?
Yeah, I have a different model for that.
I mean I totally I get that and I like that but I have a different model Of how to think about how to make something easier to do and in my model and I call it the pack person model There are three approaches Number one is you train the person so that person gets more capable you skill them up Now that doesn't always
work because a lot of people don't want to be skilled up They don't want to be trained but you consider that option first if we're trying to help people say cook more vegetables Or eat more vegetables for dinner.
Well train them skill them up teach them how to acquire them How to cook them and so on?
So that's one option is you change the person you make them more capable and in that way the behavior becomes easier to do Number two and the next thing to consider and there's a sequence and all of my work.
It's all a system There's a sequence and how you think and solve these problems number two has to do with redesigning the environment or the context to make it easier to do and So you put tools or resources into somebody's context now notice this is different than skilling somebody up You're not changing
the person you're changing their environment or if you're designing for your own behavior you change your own environment So you get the gear you need to wash the vegetables the gear you need to chop things up and so on Tools and resources would also include checklist recipes how to videos Anything
that you'd put in your environment that would make it easier to do including another person who walks you through the steps That's bucket.
Number two is can we redesign the environment of the context to?
Make the behavior easier to do California one of my garages is converted to a gym like a crossfit gym well, I changed my environment to make working out easier to do and people can think of lots of examples of this the third and there's only three buckets here is you take the Behavior and you scale
it back So you take whatever action that is such as oh I want to work out an hour a day and you scale it back to well Maybe I'm just gonna work out for four minutes So you're actually changing the action to make it tinier So those are the three buckets you can change the person to make it easier to
do if I skilling them up You can change the environment by giving people tools and resources or yourself tools and resources and In the third approach if you need this you take it and you just Scale the behavior back to be super tiny rather than paying all your bills You just pay one rather than flossing
all your teeth. You just floss one tooth rather than Eating five servings of healthy vegetables for dinner you just prepare one or maybe even eat one bite I mean in tiny habits you shrink it as tiny as you can go and still keep the behavior meaningful.
That's really interesting I want to dive into environment a little bit more and normally when I hear examples of environmental change it's it's sort of very physical and visual in the sense of I put a gym in my garage or I put my running shoes next to my door or What does it mean in the context of a knowledge
worker? Like how do we set up an environment to make better decisions to think about our you you are asking me such a good hard question I love this I'm a person who creates models and frameworks and so on and the one Concept that I've not been able to nail is to do a theory or framework or model of environment
context or environment I'm using those as synonyms It's hard But you're right.
There's the physical aspects of it, but then there's like these digital environments you know what's on your screen and what's open and what's easily accessible and then Environment and context can also be how you perceive the exact same landscape around you So say I'm here in Maui and I'm like, oh
I could walk some places I don't know where I'm walking and then I see a map of trails nearby and I look at the trails and I'm like, oh just that Insight that there are trails around me then changes.
I It's not that the actual landscape has changed but my perception of the landscape has changed and right now if we want to Talk about corona virus issues people are perceiving People around them differently.
So it's not like your neighbors have changed.
It's not like that doorknob or the elevator button has changed But now we have a different perception about oh my gosh, what does that door mean?
What does that elevator button mean in terms of contagion?
So I do think and this is why the question is such a good hard one That's one way we can change the environment is change our perception of it.
Is that an information?
Like what information alone change the it may be see this is this is why it's a hard question Maybe yes, you know, this is a model, you know as I was trying to map it out So I've mapped out what is ability what is motivation what is behavior all of those things?
And when it gets to context, it's such a hard thing to feel like you like I solve the puzzle elegantly for it So that is, you know a kind of project that's in the back of my mind And if there is a solve, you know, maybe I'll stumble across it someday or some maybe somebody's already solved it And that would be
awesome That there could be a map that's given to me of the hiking trails Near where I live in South Maui and then just looking at that map will make oh I'm thinking differently now about my environment.
Oh, I now know how to go hiking more easily So it didn't actually maybe motivate me to hike but it would help me do what I already want to do And that's a really important concept and it helped me by seeing possibilities by seeing how to go hiking Like that a lot talk to me a little bit of motivation.
What what is motivation like if we break that down?
Hmm Well, I there's different frameworks and definitions of motivation and when I talk about motivation It pretty much maps to how everyday people at least in the Western culture.
I live in and talk about it It's a it's a drive to do something or an aspiration in the moment in my work Looking at habits and behavior change.
Yes motivation is one of the three components of any behavior Motivation ability and prompt and if there's no motivation you will not do the behavior by definition and We have everyday experiences that show that if there's a behavior you don't want to do even if it's super easy You won't do it even
when prompted The way I break motivation down I've two models for this one is an analytical model and one's a design model and let me parse out the difference there when you see a model of any type, especially when it comes to social science or psychology some models can be used for analysis a lens
through which you look at something and understand it better and Some models can be used for design the pack person model that I talked about ability It's like skill of the person change the environment or scale the behavior back That is a model that can be used for design because you can walk through
those steps and then design solutions Then there are other models including ones I've created that are only good for analysis So I've mapped out the different ways behaviors can change think of that as like the periodic table of elements but for behaviors and My first publication on this I had 35 different
behavior types I simplified it since into 15 and people can find this at behavior grid org There's 15 ways behaviors can change and that's nice, you know, it's like oh, here's where habit is in this grid That's one of the 15.
Here's where stopping habit lives.
Here's where one time behaviors a new behavior is there's 15 ways Now that's a nice framework, but you can't use it for a design very well It's an analytical tool So when it comes to motivation them I've got one that's more about Analysis and then the pack person that's more about design the analytical
framework I have for motivation as I say There are three core motivators One is pleasure and pain So it's what you're sensing in the moment and that's a core motivator for everybody pleasure and pain two things the next it has to do with anticipation its hope and fear and It's the idea that if I do
X Y will happen And if Y is a good thing like oh if I take vitamin C, I won't get sick.
That's hope Whereas fears.
Oh if I touch this elevator button and Get a virus I'll get sick and that's fear So that's two sides at the same point and then the third core motivator is a social one which has to do with Wanting to belong or the fear of being rejected and then I think is a good Analytical framework, but it's not that useful
for design if you wanted to map out, you know what motivates human beings well pleasure pain hope and fear and Social acceptance and social rejection.
That's I think quite comprehensive but from a design perspective like if you had to find a way, let's say you wanted people to Drink more filtered water for example, and if you wanted to get people to do that You would say well, you know people have to have some motivation to do this to drink this kind
of water So what are our options number one in the pack person model you align it with what the person already wants to do So with an ongoing aspiration, it might be they want to be healthier.
It might be they want to avoid contaminants It might be that they want to stop drinking soda any of those you could align with them now drink this filtered water It will help you be healthier and so on so you look at what do people already want to do?
That's one option. The next one is to and I in the next one I don't love it has to do with the action You attach some sort of benefit or punishment to the action.
Some people call this carrot or stick But yes, you can do that.
I don't think it's the best way to design for motivation, but it's out there It's an option.
So that's bucket number two bucket number three again has to do with the context or the environment and In that case the motivation comes from what's going on around you So if you're in the midst of a global pandemic Well, there's lots of motivation to do certain behaviors If you are going to a nightclub
What happens in the nightclub motivates you to do other things?
So it's really that motivation is a function of what our context what surrounds us Including our perception and what surrounds us and that kind of motivation tends to be fleeting because we move from context to context environment to environment and In one context we might be motivated to do X and in a different
one. We might be motivated to do Y Or things will change over time, you know things that are happening in the news.
Oh my gosh we're really concerned about stocks or really concerned about coronavirus and Fast forward a year from now those probably won't be top of the news and people will be less motivated around those things so that third type of motivation is a contextual one and It has to do with a concept that I
call the motivation wave so things will happen around us that will increase our motivation to do stuff, but the reason that I Along with colleagues.
Thank you. David Sobel for naming this for me call it a wave is it will go up but then it's gonna come down and If you need people to do hard things, you've got to prompt them When there's a motivation wave not after the wave has subsided.
So if you need people to buy Candy canes well ask them to buy candy canes in early December come December 26 They're gonna be a lot less motivated by candy canes if you want people to buy your tax preparation software There's a season for that so the way it goes up and it goes down and that's how I
think about contextual motivation it's something that we as individuals don't have a lot of control over but it happens and Understanding how to help people do hard behaviors one of the ways to do that is to prompt them during a motivation wave then people will do hard behaviors and They'll do them
reliably as long as the motivation wave stays high I've other ways of thinking about motivation, but those are two one is analytical and one is more of a design framework I'd love to hear about the other ways you have a thinking about motivation Well, one of the ways is which I so I'm so excited about this and have been
for a decade So my motivation about this hasn't subsided is how motivation interacts with ability and so Again, my behavior model is behavior happens when these three things come together at the same moment motivation ability and prompt and motivation and ability those two components have a relationship
and If you look at the graphical version of my behavior model There's a curved line and that curved line shows the relationship and essentially and it took me chain I'm embarrassed to admit eight years to find the right word to describe the relationship.
But here's the word.
It's a Compensatory relationship so they can compensate for each other so if motivation is low for any given behavior Then the ability must be high.
In other words, it has to be easy to do Otherwise you won't do it if motivation is low and it's hard You don't do it But if you can take that other teammate ability and make it really strong make it really easy to do Then you do it reliably that insight is what the tiny habits method is based on Now
let's change the situation.
Let's say your motivation is really high Well, that means you can do easy or hard things so there is this relationship where they work sort of hand -in -hand and That is really exciting because it's quite hard for anybody To design a way to increase your motivation and sustain it keep it at super high
levels over time. That's very hard to do So because that's a reality instead you can say well if motivations high I can get myself to do hard things or I can get other people to do hard things But when it drops lower We need to scale that back and not have other people or myself do hard things then
just do really tiny things So you are adjusting the difficulty of the behavior?
According to the level of motivation in that moment.
Oh, that's fascinating Yeah, I mean conceptually I love it.
This was like I'm so excited.
What's the word for this and it took eight years It's compensatory they work like teammates But you see this all around you go into I'll just talk about Stanford fundraising I've helped them some if somebody's really really motivated and excited about Stanford You don't ask them for a $10 donation you
asking for a hard behavior, you know, if they've done a startup and Had a good exit you asked them for millions of dollars, right because they're super motivated But if they're not super motivated you don't ask them for thousands of dollars.
You asking for 10 or 100 That of course works and you know different kinds of sales parents use this all the time and so on so if you can Understand the level of motivation in that moment then you can adjust how difficult the behavior is and in some ways what you want to do is Get yourself or other
people to do the hardest behavior.
You can do in that moment given your level of motivation How do we understand for ourselves or others where we are on this motivation with that is a Hard.
Thank you for that hard question.
That's hard. That's hard.
That's like the Well, I'll tell you what alphabet Google came from that They solved it in one way and that is the whole backbone of Google was exactly figuring that out and the way it works For Google and the word they figured out early Larry and Sergey is wow if somebody goes in and types in How do
I save more money into a search engine?
Well guess what that's what they're motivated to do in that moment and we're gonna queue up things for them So we're gonna deliver to them what people already want to do.
So that's one of the things I talk about a lot and I call it a Maxim maximum number one is help people do what they already want to do notice how Google did that with search and then They sold ads on that search.
Okay, so they were able to say hey You got a solution to help people save money.
We can find people who want to save money.
We're gonna match you up We're gonna charge you to get in front of those people.
So in some ways the ability to Sense what that person wanted in the moment not sense because they typed it into a search box gave Google the ability to sell ads against that and then deliver whether it's sponsored products or more organic Solutions that weren't paid for right to those people now that's
in the case of search They came in swept and they kind of have a monopoly on that But in other domains like if you're in sales and face -to -face good salespeople know how to sense how motivated is this person?
I Think that's what good teachers do.
I think good coaches have a way of doing that What's the level of motivation of this basketball player or maybe even you're coaching and debate or what have you?
so we do that intuitively what's Not solved yet is some universal way of saying how motivated is my mom right now?
To eat broccoli, you know, how do I know that?
How do I sense that there are some proximal ways of doing it?
But no overall level now when it comes to ourselves how motivated am I to do X?
Sometimes we just have a feeling other times you could just say well You can determine the level of motivation by understanding how much work you're willing to do in other words The effort how hard the behavior is You can then map that back to level of motivation.
I'll give a true example from my life Passwords passwords passwords passwords.
Okay, finally finally finally thanks to my former student Rameet Sethi reading the latest version of this book I was like, okay PJ you're gonna do a password manager That's pretty hard But I had so much built -up frustration around passwords and stuff and using different devices and all this kind of thing
And I don't use the same password, you know, I have I actually have an algorithm for creating passwords But the algorithm is kind of broken down and so I thought okay.
I'm gonna do this. Well, that's hard I had lots of motivation.
So the fact that I was Inputting the work to do a password manager helped me see how you're really motivated to get on top of this password problem So in some ways By seeing how hard people are working at something.
That's an indicator of their level of motivation I like that a lot.
Is there a relationship between sort of motivation and your Sense of self or your self -talk your identity and maybe emotions.
Yes, and it's probably it's complicated And I'm not sure anybody has totally figured it out Because those are big categories, but certainly there's a relationship Let me start here in Different contexts we have different things that motivate us in some ways You can think of that as wearing different
hats or having different identities in different contexts.
So in some contexts I'm an uncle like at a family reunion some context.
I'm a teacher like at Stanford and other contexts I'm a you know, okay surfer not a good one not a terrible one and so in each of those contexts, I'm a different person and What motivates me is different in each one and I'm behaving differently in each one based on that role that I'm playing That said
I do think there is a general that some people would argue with me a general And I'll call it self -efficacy Even though Albert Bandura who pioneered the concept and so I may argue with me.
I do think that people have a generalizable sense of Yeah, I can do this Whatever the context is whether I'm at a family reunion or at Stanford or out in the waves, bam Here's a huge wave.
I'm gonna do this or here's a huge teaching challenge I'm gonna do this or Wow, my family reunions really going south.
I got to step and do something big I'm gonna do this so I do think that sense of being able to Take action and get good results can generalize across domains even though self -efficacy is mostly being conceptualized as domain specific your efficacy around cooking vegetables will not translate to doing
taxes, but I do think With and this is how I've seen it in tiny habits and coaching people in tiny habits when people See that they can change behavior and reach a success Yes, that helps wire in the habit and it helps them sustain the change over time the feeling of success is what wires in the habit
and It keeps people going But that feeling of success seems to generalize and help people Unlock in other areas where they were fearful before so the fear diminishes so the hope can emerge So think of hope and fear as vectors Pushing on each other and if you can diminish the fear then the hope can emerge
Which is a motivated and allow you to do harder things So and this is what I've seen in my tiny habits research since 2011 And I didn't understand what was going on until about 2013 so week after week teaching tiny habits measuring it week after week Every Sunday, I would look at the data if I was busy
on Sunday Monday so I'd see what happened last week and what's going on and about 20 % of the people week after week would report that within the five -day program They would step up and do a hard behavior and I was like wow I mean in the other Parts of the data I would see that the behavior change would generalize
most people start doing other behaviors Naturally even within the five -day period but there was this you know this and it was a range from you know say 12 % 24 % was at the range and 18 20 % on average probably and it was like what's going on here and what I Finally understood and took a while to figure
this out is that when people feel successful?
even on tiny things It changes how they see themselves in other words you can get an identity shift from even Very tiny changes you feel successful around and once I saw that I was like that's amazing I mean, so you don't have to go to some big boot camp You don't have to be indoctrinated You don't
have to get a new degree to feel like you have a new identity and competency you can just floss one tooth and allow yourself to feel successful and Recognizing you're changing and that has This shift in how people see themselves and so I started asking a new question then about in the tiny habits program
And people would fill in the blank After doing tiny habits for five days I now see I'm the kind of person who and they would fill in the blank and I started this in about 2013 and It was so interesting to see what would come back now 90 % plus were positive once in a while people say I now see I'm the kind
of person that I can't even do tiny things But far and away most people say I now see I'm the kind of person who can change I'm the kind of person who can follow it through.
I'm the kind of person who can set a plan and stick to it and that Was my favorite thing so whenever I would look at the you know, the the results after every week I would go and look at what percent of people made a big change because I'd love to see that number because it still Fascinates me.
Oh my gosh. All you did was, you know, two push -ups and floss one tooth and fill a glass of water and Now you've made this huge change in your life And then the other one is just to see the comments of how people have described how their identity had shifted and it happened quickly and Because of just these
tiny successes It's really interesting to me to think about like how you can go from flossing a tooth to sort of like leaving your job or starting In business, but the way that it changes perhaps how you see yourself or builds your confidence or changes your self -talk Becomes really interesting.
Yes Damn. Thank you for yes.
Yes Yeah, and that to me is I don't want to say magic because I'm a behavior scientist, but that is like Oh my gosh, that's like the loophole.
That's like the portal You don't have to do these massive things to get this shift in identity and shift and self -talk You can do it through these pretty simple and straightforward ways.
So That is indeed the subtitle of my book tiny habits.
It's the small changes that change everything That's what the subtitles about you make these small changes and it changes how you think about yourself It changes your self -talk it changes your relationship with emotions So you're more inclined to embrace positive emotions and not let the negative emotions
get you down some way I'm getting chills because that is such to me that is just I'm still fascinated with how that works and and people will and for years they wrote me emails because you know the tiny habits Five -day program was done through email and personal coaching through email.
They're like BJ. Am I crazy?
you know, I'm now doing this and this and I stepped up into this and I just feel like I can do anything and Am I going insane?
I think no, that's actually a really good sign.
You're seeing yourself in a new way You're seeing that you can succeed you You're seeing that you've developed skills of change and you're applying those effectively and good for you.
You're not going crazy You are blossoming talk to me about how we reduce fear It's hard one I you ask such good hard questions I'm not sure I'm the world's expert on this I mean the way I think about fear is that we have a cause -and -effect relationship in our head if X then Y It's like a causal and our
brain is it really good at these cause -and -effect relationships?
And that's what we're absorbing.
I'm thinking even as babies and so on I don't study babies, but you know, we're saying if this then that if this then this bad thing happens That's fear.
I think I'll kind of push it out there Shane and you pull it back if you want One of the things so back in the day I was a humanities major and a writer and I was a terrible writer at the beginning But I worked really hard at it and got good and then started writing professionally and would write On
professional projects or contests to work my way through college And then I worked as a ghost writer and an editor and I was really big into narrative and story I'd love personal essay so I'd write a lot of personal essay which narrative plays a big part and part of looking at story or narrative or whatever
you want to call it and Understanding the power of it was about setting up what you're doing I think I think the whole reason stories exist whether they're in folk tales or songs or parables or little sayings is to Perpetuate a sense of cause and effect if you're honest people will like you if you lie
You'll be kicked out of the community if you follow the rules, you will succeed and a well -told story Essentially is setting up if you do X.
This is what happens why here's the result so stories Well -told stories can establish hope like if you save for retirement You will be comfortable and you won't be in the poor house or you won't have to live in your daughter's home when you grow You know so a story about that like, okay now I have hope
and that will motivate me to save or stories can establish fear If you don't do X or if you do X, here's the bad thing that will happen and It's my personal belief.
I haven't studied this maybe somebody has that our brains When we hear is a narrative or story that encapsulates a cause and effect relationship We have a really hard time Pushing back and saying no, that's not true so a well -told story in some ways is the only persuasion tactic for which we don't have good
defenses for and I'll push it one more thing out there and you can pull it back if you want and that's why I think there is a Commandment about not bearing false witness not telling false stories because whoever set up those commandments knew somehow That if you tell the community a false story That's
gonna stick in their brains and they're gonna have either a false hope or a false fear and it's very hard to scrub That out.
So this is something you do not do you do not tell false stories The role of narrative is like so fascinating to me, right?
Where if you want to change what you see you change the narrative you change the story you tell yourself But at some points it makes sense to dilute ourselves and to be overconfident, right?
If you're trying to start a business you have to tell yourself a story that you're the exception Yeah, and you read all these publications and you follow bloggers who are telling you that story so you can maintain your hope and Squash down the fear.
Yes stories are entertaining But I think we've evolved for our brains to I mean that's how we learn how the world works You know cause and effect relationships and stories are a technology for transmitting cause and effect relationships within Communities and through the generations.
That's how I see it.
I think that's a good way to sum it up We've talked a lot about individual level behavior change.
How do we change the behaviors of groups or tribes?
Yes, a great question There was a year at Stanford where the whole year of research we called it change together and what we wanted to look at whether how do we Change groups and we mapped out different patterns, of course another framework another model for this and It's harder to explain This because it's
like a two by three thing and anyway but just I'll get to some of the conclusions from the research is that there are different patterns that work for changing groups are changing together one distinction that we drew out of the research is we called one type of group like if you want to change your
behavior you can join a destination group or a journey group a Destination group is a community that is already doing what you aspire to do So let's say you aspire to work out.
Oh, let's pick something easier.
You you aspire to study a lot You're in college so guess what move into the honor storm where people are already studying and then it makes it easier for you to change and Study because you've joined this group that is they're already doing that.
So that's one way Another way is called the journey group where you join up with other Novices who also want to make this change and together you make this journey and you all Study more or whatever you're choosing.
So you've got these two patterns going on Then on top of that you have the issue of leadership We would call this person the guru I mean, I know a lot of people don't like the word But in a lot of group change efforts You do have a leader or a guru or somebody who's saying here's what we're doing duh
duh duh duh duh duh duh duh that guru can be situated within a destination group or a journey group and People can in some system so we took a whole bunch of different change systems like Weight Watchers and Toastmasters and and map them down like what's going on here in terms of the group dynamics
in terms of leadership And then there was one more component is what happens to the members of these groups?
and one of the common patterns was You then work up and then become a teacher or even a guru you begin maybe as a novice You're not really doing it very well But then you take on a role where you then you're teaching others in either group the destination or the journey group That's common between yeah.
Okay. Yeah And so you have these variables that kind of mix and match and then we went out and grabbed programs in the world that we felt like were effective and mapped them out and there were these Systematic patterns of how you change together.
It's not like here are the three patterns.
It's more like here at 12.
It's not 200 there's like 12 and Those seem to be the factors of it's the community already doing the behavior or you are you journeying together?
What's the role of leadership?
And then what's the status or the role of the member as they become more competent when you were saying that I was thinking well What is the role of my friends then in my behavior or my destination or my journey?
I hang out with the most my co -workers my friends.
What role do they play?
Massive massive good or bad.
Yeah, so Yes a lot.
I mean Most people don't like to admit this but our behavior is so influenced by our environment More than we think and part of that environment is the people around us your friends If you want to eat in a certain way and they eat in a totally different way That's hard if you're hanging out with them
during an eating context if your friends are really into was he studying and doing homework BAM you're gonna probably study and do more homework But we do have identities different identities in different friend groups and knowing how to move among them to optimize ourselves or achieve our aspirations
is a skill For some people and this is hard You may need to turn the volume down on some friendships or even end them If those friendships are not taking you in the direction you want to go.
That's just the reality in other cases Just to talk about households As friends, let's say you can hopefully have a household where you say hey everybody I'm not drinking coffee for the next little while And I need your support on this and your friends will support you rather than sabotage you Now hopefully
people in your household will support you when you Want to make a good change and not sabotage you but there is unfortunately situations where you do get sabotaged by friends or members of your household Even if they don't mean to they might just say oh you're going through another phase or oh Didn't
you know x y and z you shouldn't do that?
And that was part of what we looked at in the change together project and we don't have a perfect answer for this You're part of a community or a part of a social group that you really can't get yourself out of But it's taking you in the wrong direction in terms of change or it's or it's pigeonholing
you and not allowing you to change That's a hard problem.
I'm not sure there's a simple answer to that.
What's the complicated answer?
What are your hypotheses here?
You leave the community you you join a different community you create I mean, I mean if in the ideal world you go Oh, I'm gonna align myself affiliate myself with people who either a destination group If he's gonna support me in this change or a journey group people that are on this journey with me
as well You know if you're in a job and you can't quit the job if you're in a family and you're not gonna Separate yourself from the family that solution.
I just said is may not be that practical What are the other parts of the environment that we probably don't think about that have a massive influence on our behavior?
Wow, I wish I had the framework.
I wish I had the model of environment cuz then I could just go here with the five things Off the top of my head I'm gonna think so we've talked a little bit about the perception of what's around us.
And so I'm not gonna go there and Certainly our social environment BAM Not gonna go there I'm gonna go with our built environment and I mean it with some details I think lighting matters so much If you look around the places where I live I have like hacked the lighting like right now I have a huge window
open in front of me and I have full Sun coming in right into my face and Then in the evening the light changes, you know So I really think lighting plays a big role and there's a research on this I'm not an expert on the studies, but I think the lighting is a huge deal I think sound is a huge issue
and managing our sound environment is harder than the lighting environment.
I think that's a big deal Creating an environment and this is different than light and sound but it's a big part of my life And it has been for a long time is how do I rearrange my environment to make the good behaviors?
Really easy to do and I'm constantly designing and redesigning and optimizing and it can be as simple as this in Our California home and here in our my home.
I have a drawer with my vitamins and supplements in it So I know some people think vitamins are a bad idea.
Well, there's certain vitamins and supplements I think are good for me.
So let's set that issue aside, but there are certain things I want to take every day So I have a drawer with the vitamins in it Exactly the ones I want to be taking when and in some cases I I take the cap off the vitamin bottle So it's really easy to get out or in some cases I have a little dish that I
put the vitamins in in other words Rather than the cover that I have to fumble through and rather than on the counter.
I'm making a mess Over the years I've learned just put it in a drawer Make the drawer dedicated to exactly your daily vitamins and then don't even require yourself to take the cap off the bottle Just make it so easy to do now right now my vitamin drawer here Am I always a little bit of a mess because I've
run out of some and I'm trying some new things and So one thing I will do probably this afternoon while I'm on phone calls is I'll go in and tidy up that drawer And it's not just a tidying exercise.
I'm Simplifying that behavior.
I'm redesigning that environment.
I'm upgrading it so that behavior becomes a lot easier to do and When it is easier to do that means I don't have to have much motivation So what I'm doing is I'm designing for the reality that motivation goes up and down and we don't have a lot of control over that so the way you get around that is you
just make behaviors really really really easy to do that you want to do and At least the way I look at it, it's an ongoing you need to do refresh refresh of what's in your fridge Like we range our fridge in a way We call it super fridge everything in there you can eat, but it takes some care and feeding
once a week You got to stock the fridge whether it's your closet whether it's what's on your phone home screen Yes, there's a lighting and there's sound but then there's just designing things around you to optimize your behavior And that's I've long been obsessed with that It sounds like almost like
a conscious approach to your environment And it almost sounded like you have a ritual like a ritual around it well, I I do and for some of these things I don't need to rearrange the fridge every day or I have a car that I use just for the beach and surfing.
It's a Honda Element.
It's great. It's a little beach car and it gets to be a mess, you know, cuz there's like this here and sand and Stuff, you know, it just happens So once a week I have these once a week routines these rituals The habit is to pull out a card that has a list of here's what I'm gonna do every weekend It's
clean the fridge clean the bathroom tidy my car.
So on the habit is to pull that card out with these little stickers on it and Then I just at some point during the weekend.
I just do the task like through the car.
I go to the car tidy things Throw things away that need be thrown away did it and then in my own practice of this what I've learned is if I set the bar too high like the car has to Be sparkling clean.
I'm not gonna do it.
I'm gonna my brain will sabotage me.
I'll find reasons not to do it So in the tiny habits way all I have to do is tidy one thing in the car And the tiny habits way when I go to the fridge every week to clean it I only have to do one thing like oh, here's some pesto that I'm pretty much done with like Okay, let's recycle the pesto container
Well, guess what if I thought I had to clean the whole fridge again It's like not gonna do it But if it's like I live to do one thing and then once you start it's like oh, here's this here's this There's this and next thing you know in most cases You've done a pretty good job on the bathroom or the fridge
or the vitamin drawer or the car So yeah, there's these approaches to managing my environment that I've systematized that's all in the service of Optimizing my habits which in turn is What I do so I can have more positive impact in the world because that's what it boils down to for me It's like I need
to be as effective as I can and helping people be happier and healthier so all of these things even tidying the car and Cleaning super fridge is toward that end.
So I then can be super effective at helping people I can't let it go without asking why you call it this super fridge You know my partner and I started doing this a while ago And he feels a lot of ownership over it because he maintains the kitchen mostly it might have been his word I'll give this answer
I guess Super fridge is a good name because once we started Rearranging our fridge environment to support us in the nutrition habits We wanted and to make the bad nutrition habits impossible.
So in the fridge There's nothing in there that I have to resist or have use willpower to not eat it's like all on the game plan anytime as much as I want and Once we did that and lived with that for a few months Well, probably the insight came after a couple of weeks.
It's like oh my gosh The job of the fridge isn't to keep things cold No, the job of the fridge is to help us eat on our game plan And that totally changes a reframing how you see it.
Yeah, it's like yeah, it's not a cold It's not a cooling device.
It's a help us eat healthy device and in that way it gave us I feel superpowers So that's why I feel like super French.
It's it's like almost like a companion.
It's almost in my mind It's I've all personified it.
It's like this is your job in this home is to help us eat healthier Go super for it.
I love that. I'm totally gonna steal that my kids are gonna They're gonna love this How do we how do we make a bad habit harder to do or how do we change a bad habit?
Like I was thinking about asking you about biting our nails But you know I've completely stopped biting my nails as a result of this Pandemic going on right now.
Good for you. But in general like how do we go about stopping?
Habit? I mean habits are sort of neutral, right?
They're neither good nor bad.
How do we stop a habit that we feel is bad for us?
Yeah, the the valence of that word has shifted over the last ten years Even ten years ago when I was training the Weight Watchers Innovators at their headquarters They were unwilling to use the word habit in their program because they felt it was mostly a negative word So that was a snapshot in time.
I remember about ten years ago fast forward to today It can go both ways today But there was a time when it was considered mostly negative and yes, you're right habits are habits the way they form good habits What we call good habits and bad habits they all form in the same way our brain The way that brain gets
rewired. It's not like here are the good habits and bad habits It's this thing behaviors become automatic and then it's ourselves or the culture that labels them good or bad creating habits is Pretty straightforward and easy and that's what the tiny habits method is all about for creating habits Stopping
unwanted behaviors are what people call breaking bad habits Can be much much harder and it's not the same thing and they're as different as growing this little tree, let's say a palm tree with coconuts to pulling it out of the earth, they're different processes and Unfortunately, there's a lot of information out
there that tells people how to break habits.
That is not effective enough it's limited and In response to that I've created a three -phase I call it master plan for behavior change That's exactly for very very Wired in habits that people want to get rid of some habits are really easy to stop for it So we're not talking about those, you know Like
stop the habit of going to the gym stop the habit of paying your bills Those are easy to stop but it's these kind of habits It's not as simple as many people have said and that really upsets me You know some people have trivialized how hard some of these habits are to stop and the problem with that is that when people
read that and then they can't stop drinking or smoking or Playing games on the internet or gambling then they blame themselves and they beat themselves up and they think I'm flawed I'm terrible.
I'm awful and so people who mislead others about how to Get rid of unwanted behaviors are actually damaging Lots of people and that makes me grumpy so in response to that I said no, here's the system.
There's a three phases to it I'll just go through pretty quickly Shane and these aren't for like Oh, I'm I'm gonna stop the habit of you know, leaving the pen out on the counter.
We're talking more ingrained habits that are more complicated first of all think of it as untangling But phase one is you practice creating good habits so you set the bad habit aside and say I'm just gonna create a bunch of good habits and In the process of creating good habits Your identity will shift
and that may push out some of the unwanted habits You'll develop the skills of behavior change behavior changes a skill and you will use those skills later And then you'll also develop more motivation.
Why because your fear of change will be reduced So that's why in phase one you focus on creating good habits phase two Then you look at the habit you want to stop and you untangle it For each one of these phases there's a flow chart in the back of my book tiny habits So, I mean, of course, I think of everything
in terms of systems and flows and it's a it's a comprehensive system and in phase two you identify which part of the tangle you want to undo and you see if you can remove the prompt and If that doesn't work then you see if you can make it harder to do in other words Manipulatability and if you can't
do that, then you see if you can change the level of motivation So you're using the components of the behavior model systematically prompt ability motivation in that order Step by step if what one works you're done and you can go to another tangle in the habit if it doesn't work You go to the next step.
So it's a system if you find you cannot just simply stop the habit Then you go to phase three phase three, which is about swapping it.
Okay, so many people say you must swap it That's not true in this comprehensive system.
That is the last phase.
So instead of coming home from work and Getting on I'll say YouTube one of my friends has a YouTube addiction What will I do instead?
So then that person would look for a swap which is at this at once you're stopping habit And then creating a new one and there's a systematic way for doing it It builds on prompts ability motivation just like all the rest of the behavior design system And so you what you look for is something to swap
in that will be more motivating or easier to do or both Than the existing habit you want to untangle So that's a high level summary focus on creating new habits then see if you can stop the habit and then Neither of those work go to phase three and then you focus on swapping but you don't have to guess
there's a system for that that I've mapped out and it's comes back to the order of what you do and How you pick which behaviors and everything in behavior everything comes back to prompt ability and motivation Those are the components you have to fiddle with to either create a behavior or get rid of one
One of the parts about your book.
I love the most is the appendices where you had all these beautiful diagrams almost like flow charts and That were super easy to understand and go through.
Thank you. I'm I'm I'm smiling big and kind of a laughing Thank you for that those got pushed back to the appendix not by me, but my editors if Just me.
I mean the book is written as you see in a way that has these true stories That show how people have used this and you know tiny habits and behavior design that transform their lives and then you know, here's how you do it so like but the flow charts were deemed way too complicated for most people and very
off -putting and Psych, I know people are gonna open to the book and see a flow chart and put it back down Oh, that's interesting.
I know it's kind of sad, but you have to Meet people where they are and I believe yeah, there's people like me who are like, oh he thinks in systems.
This is so exciting This is great.
Yes people like us but not everybody does that and in fact One of the people I was working with on the book She did doesn't think in any graphics just turn her off and it's like no, no the graphic look at this the graphics showing more than what we can actually say in words and she just wasn't her thing
so it was so good to have her input because I mean she was a very she is a very very smart person what it helped me realize is like oh not everybody wants a graphic or a flow chart or if this then that if this then that and That's my bias towards stuff But not hers and so I want to be able to reach
people like her So the compromise was to push that and other things were a little more technical back to the appendices and I'm so happy they're there at least well I forgot to ask you to kick off the interview and ask you what does a habit a Habit is something that we do Quite automatically without
thinking very much.
And does it get formed by repetition then?
Yeah There has been a lot of stuff out in the world that says repetition creates habits But that's actually not how it works If you look at the study that people cite most When they're making that claim, it's a 2009 2010 study It was you will see that that study showed that habit strength correlates
with repetition It wasn't even designed to show causal relationships.
So yes Habit strength correlates with repetition, but repetition is not what creates the habit That would be like saying I'm gonna do a study of fit people and Guess what hanging out in the gym leads to being fit.
Okay, everybody go hang out in the gym because my study shows That the fittest people are the people that spend the most time in the gym.
So go hang out in the gym So you go to the gym or I go to the gym or somebody goes to the gym They hang out at the snack bar and watching TV and whatever.
They're like, I'm not getting fit.
What's going on? That's how this research is being misapplied And so to set the record straight as you saw in the book, I have a chapter called emotions create habits So it's emotions that cause our brain to rewire like oh my gosh That helped me feel successful or that that was instrumental so the problem
and I knew That would be controversial and that would upset people because some people have established their whole careers Around the idea that repetition is what creates habits Yes I talked about the for like a paragraph in my book and I move on to what really works because if the book is in my Work
in general is not about pointing out.
Here's everything that's wrong.
My work is here's how to do it, right?
Here's how to think about it in the right way.
Here's how to do it in the right way But I will say here that the problem this isn't in the book But the problem with people believing that repetition creates habits number one, it's not accurate number two, then they see the Changing behavior is something they must endure or suffer like oh if I just
didn't go to the gym for 21 days Even though I hate it.
I'll have the habit or 66 days or 108 days or whatever they've heard So then they see change and suffering or endurance and then they may procrastinate doing stuff And then when it doesn't wire in after 21 or 6 then they blame themselves So all those are bad things.
So instead if people understand that emotions create habits Oh, and by the way, it's positive emotions that help you change best that means you feel good through changing and you don't have to procrastinate it and You by helping yourself feel successful.
Not only do you learn the habit But then you have all these other positive effects some of which we've talked about earlier So I think it's a really important shift for people and Even though I know there's even more criticism coming toward me around this I have to put it out there have to put out the truth
as I see in as my research supports is Emotions create habits and that also means you don't have to it's not 21 days or 66 days in my data I've seen for years that the vast majority of people report that a habit has become automatic or very Automatic within five days and that's a function of their emotion as
they do that new behavior so if they do the new behavior and feel a Intense positive emotion as they do it or immediately after then that will help that behavior become more automatic and in tiny habits We don't leave the emotion to chance.
There's a technique we call celebration Where you hack you're basically hacking your emotion You're calling up a positive emotion by doing a fist pump thinking about a great song thinking of holding your dog anything that helps you feel a positive emotion and that's a way to hack the Bring up a positive
emotion order to hack your brain and help to have it wiring quickly I like that a lot.
That's a I think that's a great place to end this conversation BJ this it's been long overdue that we We've had this I really appreciate you taking the time.
I Thank you for the great work.
You do and thank you for helping me show this Hey one more thing before we say goodbye the knowledge project is produced by the team at front up Street I want to make this the best podcast you listen to and I'd love to get your feedback If you have comments ideas for future shows or topics or just feedback
in general You can email me at Shane at FS dot blog or follow me on Twitter at Shane a parish You can learn more about the show and find past episodes at FS dot blog slash podcast If you want a transcript of this episode go to FS dot blog slash tribe and join our learning community If you found this episode
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