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Dr Rangan ChatterjeeDr Rangan Chatterjee

The Secret To Creating Habits That Stick: Professor BJ Fogg | Feel Better Live More Podcast

How can we create new habits – and stick to them? Is it really a case of will power, motivation, then repetition? Or could there be a simpler approach?

BJ FoggguestDr. Rangan Chatterjeehost
Apr 14, 20201h 16mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

  1. 0:00 – 1:11

    Emotions—not repetition—wire habits: the central premise

    1. BF

      Emotions create habits. So you don't have to have people change 40 things at once or do this huge thing. You just have to help them feel successful on something really, really small. The feeling of success is what wires in the habit. [upbeat music]

    2. RC

      So BJ, welcome to the Feel Better Live More Podcast.

    3. BF

      Thank you. Thank you for having me, Rangan.

    4. RC

      Well, look, I, I'm in one of the most beautiful towns I think I've visited in America before-

    5. BF

      Mm

    6. RC

      ... in Healdsburg. It's absolutely gorgeous, and I'm here studying with you at the moment.

    7. BF

      Yeah.

    8. RC

      Um-

    9. BF

      Well, and thank you for coming. Uh, so, you know, I teach my stuff for two days in a thing I call a boot camp, and it's all about, uh, how to think about behavior change and design for it, and I love, love, love teaching in this setting.

    10. RC

      Yeah. I can see why. Um, so I'm just halfway in so far. I've done one day of the boot camp. We're just recording this-

    11. BF

      [laughs]

    12. RC

      ... at 7:00 AM, early in the morning before-

    13. BF

      Oh, it's early [laughs]

    14. RC

      ... the second day. It is early. Um, but I've been wanting to talk to you for a long time, BJ. I've been super fascinated by your work. And, you know, you are arguably the world's leading expert in behavior design.

    15. BF

      Hmm.

  2. 1:11 – 2:04

    What “behavior design” means and how it emerged at Stanford

    1. RC

      So what is behavior design?

    2. BF

      Yeah. Well, behavior design is a set of models about how to think clearly about human behavior, and a set of methods. Methods are ways of designing. So together, those models and methods is what I call behavior design. Uh, the, the phrase behavior design came out of my lab's work at Stanford in 2010. We realized that, uh, for a couple years we hadn't really been studying persuasive technology, which is what the lab began at in about 1999. And we're like, "No, we're really studying just more about human behavior." And so we put our heads together and thought, "What do we call this new thing?" And we called it behavior design, and so now the lab's name is the Behavior Design Lab, and that's at Stanford, and that's... I run that year-round, and we do projects, uh, year-round, and it's really fun and flexible and, uh, it's a research lab, and that means training students in research and doing the best job we can.

  3. 2:04 – 6:06

    Technology influence and the Instagram classroom origin story

    1. RC

      What's striking for me is that the principles you talk about... You know, I, I'm a doctor, so I'm interested in health. I'm interested in how can I help my patients make better choices? But the principles you are talking about seems to be universal to all human behavior, and so not only has there, is there merit there for, for people, you know, in the health world, but also in the science world, the engineering world, the IT worlds, the, the tech worlds. And I think that's reflected in, you know, this diverse group of people you have here at the moment studying with you.

    2. BF

      Yeah.

    3. RC

      Um, is it true that one of your students set up Instagram?

    4. BF

      Yes. Yeah. Uh, so Mike Krieger, uh, took my class in 2006 at Stanford. And one of the projects there, um... So this was pre-iPhone. This is before the iPhone shipped, and there wasn't really the concept of apps. But a lot of my work is about looking ahead and seeing what's coming and, and, uh, what are the good things we can do with technology. And so I anticipated these things we call mobile phones, we'd be able to take photos and share the photos. And so in the class there was a design challenge. Students broke into teams of three, and, uh, the brief was find some positive way to use this, uh, capacity that's coming, the ability to take photos and share them. And Mike Krieger and his two teammates came up with a concept called Send the Sunshine, which was all about taking a picture of a sunset or a, you know, your pet or something happy, and then sharing it with somebody who needed an uplift in their day. So fast-forward, uh, a few years, uh, Mikey and then another co-founder, Kevin, started Instagram, which is very much along those lines.

    5. RC

      Wow. So, so the idea, in many ways, was seeded in one of your classes.

    6. BF

      Yeah, yeah.

    7. RC

      Wow.

    8. BF

      Yeah.

    9. RC

      Yeah, I don't know how many users Instagram has around the world. I'm guessing it's probably around one billion or maybe getting close.

    10. BF

      It's a lot. It's a lot.

    11. RC

      It's a lot.

    12. BF

      Yeah. A few.

    13. RC

      Yeah.

    14. BF

      Yeah.

    15. RC

      And I guess in many ways you could, you could make a strong case that-

    16. BF

      [laughs]

    17. RC

      ... your work is impacting a significant amount of the world's population.

    18. BF

      Yes. Yes, that's true. I, I... At the beginning I was really, really proud of Instagram. Not like I had really much to do with it. Um, but I just felt like it was this really simple, straightforward way of connecting people. And in fact, at one of the things, my family Thanksgiving... I have a big family. We tend to get, like to get together. I had people go around the table and say, "What are you grateful for?" And this is probably, like, three years into Instagram, and about half the people said, "Instagram" -

    19. RC

      Oh, wow

    20. BF

      ... at their [laughs] Thanksgiving what are you grateful for? And I was like, you know, that's kind of an interesting moment. It's like, okay, awesome. It's helping them feel connected and so on. Today, the way, [laughs] the way things are going, I'm a little bit, uh, less, um... I, I dunno. I dunno what's going on there. But, uh, certainly at the beginning it was, I thought it was a great way to connect people, and it was fun, and not exploiting people, and it was super great.

    21. RC

      Yeah. It's, it's, it's amazing to hear you say that because it sounds like you were ahead of the curve a little bit in predicting what was going to happen. You're talking about the pre-iPhone era.

    22. BF

      Yeah.

    23. RC

      So, you know, if any of us can even remember that pre-iPhone era. I certainly can. I'm sure there's a generation who probably can't and is not even as, as-

    24. BF

      Yeah

    25. RC

      ... not even grown up in that era. But it's interesting that you were thinking about it as a positive, um, you know, a positive way-

    26. BF

      Yeah

    27. RC

      ... to affect people.

    28. BF

      Yeah.

    29. RC

      That was the idea. That was the, the, the project you set the people-

    30. BF

      That was the brief

  4. 6:06 – 11:29

    Why knowledge doesn’t translate into action: discouragement and real life constraints

    1. RC

      So as a doctor I think the bulk of what I now see in my practice, uh, maybe 80% of what I see, is in some way driven by our collective modern lifestyles. And there's a problem out there in that we can give out information continuously, we can, you know, uh, do public health messaging about what people should be doing.

    2. BF

      Yeah.

    3. RC

      But it's interesting to me that information is not necessarily leading to action.

    4. BF

      Right.

    5. RC

      So why is it that people know what they should be doing-

    6. BF

      Hmm

    7. RC

      ... but don't actually do it?

    8. BF

      [laughs] Well, I have two answers for you. I'll be brief. On one hand, I mean, if we wanted to get into it, sometimes I'm not sure people know exactly what they should be doing.

    9. RC

      Okay.

    10. BF

      I think, I think they know the abstract thing, like, "Oh, I should eat better. I should be more active." But the specifics, like what exactly can I do to be more active in my day, or what exactly should I be preparing for my family? Those are the specifics. So that's one answer. The other answer is, you know, people... Well, you know this as well as anybody. Life can be really hard for some people.

    11. RC

      Yeah.

    12. BF

      And life can be hard. I tend to be a big optimist. I think you're an optimist. Uh, but we both see situations where, man, life is tough, and people get discouraged, they get defeated, and they've tried to change their behavior before, it hasn't worked, and so on. And then the environment, the food environment, the sedentary jobs we have, and so on, it just all adds up. And a big part of my work... So there's a research part of me at Stanford, and then just kinda on a whim, an accident, I started this habit formation method that I call Tiny Habits, and started teaching hundreds of people a week Tiny Habits, coaching them personally. This is back to 2011. And about four months into that, I'd probably coached 2,000 people in Tiny Habits, and really getting a strong sense of what everyday people do in a way that an academic research wouldn't. I mean, you do as a doctor, but, you know, the way the academic thing is set up and the way you do research, you're not really interacting with hundreds or thousands of people personally. Uh, and so that was a new thing for me, and about four months in, I got an email from a woman who said, "Oh my gosh, BJ, thank you so much." You know, 'cause in Tiny Habits, um, I teach people how to feel good about their successes and not beat themselves up. And she wrote me an email that said, "You have helped me see I've endured a lifetime of self-trash talk." And that just set me back. I just looked at that, and I read it, and I read it, and I was like, "What?" I mean, this was something as a researcher and as, as an experimental psychologist, I hadn't studied and I really didn't know. But it was by interacting with, like, hundreds and then thousands of people, and then this particular person saying, "Wow, I've had, you know, a lifetime of self-talk trash," that made me just... It woke me up in some ways, and it helped me understand where people are really at. And people have hard lives, and they, they've try-- You know, their, the bill collector's calling them, their kids are mad at them, it goes on and on. And it gave me even more compassion for everyday people and gave me... It was that moment, her saying that, that took Tiny Habits from this quirky thing I was doing on the side to, oh my gosh, this really needs to be a global, global intervention. If this can help people feel more positive and stop the self-trash talk, I need to get this out there. So all that is to say, um, yeah, people may have a sense of what they need to do. And even if they know specifically what to do, uh, so many people are discouraged and feel like, "I'm not ready. I've tried before," and so on. And, and that's a big part of what my work is about-

    13. RC

      Yeah

    14. BF

      ... is like, yeah, you can do it. You can do this, and it's not as hard as people have led you to believe.

    15. RC

      Yeah. I, I resonate with so much of what you're saying because, as you say, when we, we were talking about this yesterday, we come from very different backgrounds in the sense that you have been a researcher, and are a researcher, and I'm a sort of in-the-trenches clinician.

    16. BF

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    17. RC

      So a lot of the tools and techniques that I have found that work with people in real life, um, are very consistent now that I study your model.

    18. BF

      Mm-hmm.

    19. RC

      And in particular yesterday-

    20. BF

      Yeah

    21. RC

      ... going through this in detail, I'm thinking, "Wow, that's why that works. That's why this works."

    22. BF

      Mm-hmm.

    23. RC

      And it's really nice for me to see that I guess what I've intuitively figured out in practice with people-

    24. BF

      Yeah

    25. RC

      ... has this research backing.

    26. BF

      Yeah.

    27. RC

      And it's, it's really fun for me that, because I'm very proud to be a clinician, and, uh, you know, research very much interests me, but I've got to... As a, as a, you know, as a doctor, I've always been more interested in what works with my patients.

    28. BF

      Yeah.

    29. RC

      Um, and obviously when it can marry up with the research, that's fantastic. You know, you mentioned you got this email, that this lady had been, uh, trash talking to herself for many years.

    30. BF

      Yeah. A lifetime, she said.

  5. 11:29 – 17:01

    Why feeling successful matters: habit wiring, motivation, and “success momentum”

    1. RC

      Um, "Oh, it works for them. It doesn't work for me." And one of your sort of key maxims-

    2. BF

      Mm-hmm

    3. RC

      ... is to make people feel good about themselves. I wanna... Y- you know, on one level it's, it's quite obvious why that's important, but on another level I don't think it is quite as obvious. Why do you think feeling good is important when trying to create new behaviors?

    4. BF

      Yeah. Um, I'll try to be brief, and you can ask questions-

    5. RC

      Ple- please do

    6. BF

      ... to drill down further.

    7. RC

      Go as long as you want

    8. BF

      'Cause this could be... This is probably my next book, but anyway. Um, so the maxim is help people feel successful, and that maxim applies to people creating products and services. Like Instagram, one reason it really took off is 'cause as people used it, they took a picture, they put a filter, and they're like, "Oh my gosh, I'm an artist. Look at my picture. It's so awesome." So they immediately felt successful. The feeling of success is what wires in the habit.

    9. RC

      Yeah.

    10. BF

      It's not repetition. It is a feeling of... Emotions create habits. And specifically in Tiny Habits, what we focus on is the feeling of success. So when you do something and feel successful, that behavior becomes much more automatic. You're more likely to do it in the future. So if people can do a behavior like two pushups or, uh, you know, eat broccoli or any little thing and feel successful, then that behavior will become more automatic. And there's ways to hack that and help yourself create habits very quickly. Very, very quickly, uh, if you know how to fire off a positive emotion. The other thing that the feeling of success does is it motivates you to do it again in the future. That's different than wiring in a habit into your brain. So that's, you know, effect number two is increases your motivation. And the third effect, uh, and there's more, but I'll stop here, uh, I call it success momentum. As people do behaviors and feel successful, their confidence, uh, it- you could call it self-efficacy, increases. And that means when they hit roadblocks or little bumps in the road, they can get through them. That's why I like calling it success momentum. They can get through it. And with that increased confidence, with that success momentum, then they can tackle other challenges in their life more effectively. So that and other reasons are why, you know, that maxim. You know, I only have three maxims, and that's number two. And it's just it- if you're designing products and services, bam, that's a key for you. If you're creating new habits in your life, that's a key. Help yourself feel successful. If you're coaching other people, helping other people like you do, that's another... You know, that's the same thing. Help them feel successful. Now, it's only four words, help people feel successful, but the way you do that can be challenging. And it's not obvious to everyday people how, you know, the fact that they just set out their vitamins or took a sip of water, how they can feel successful about that. Uh, but people can learn, uh, to bring up that emotion and wire in these h- positive habits really quickly.

    11. RC

      Yeah. Yeah. It, it's incredible really. And, and it, it very much marries up with what I've seen. Um, you mentioned that's what your next book is about. This is the Tiny Habits book?

    12. BF

      Well, possibly. Well, Tiny Habits, yeah. Ti- Tiny Habits is out at the end of this year.

    13. RC

      Yeah.

    14. BF

      I don't know when this podcast ships, but, uh, let's say January 1st, 2020-

    15. RC

      Yeah

    16. BF

      ... Tiny Habits is available. [laughs]

    17. RC

      I think your work is incredible, and I think it will help people understand how to create a new behavior-

    18. BF

      Yeah

    19. RC

      ... but also help them understand maybe where they, you know... I don't like using the word where they went wrong before. But where-

    20. BF

      Mm

    21. RC

      ... maybe in the past where they haven't succeeded, it might help them see, hey, oh, I get it.

    22. BF

      Yeah. Or how people have handed them products and programs or they've seen them on TV and the internet, and those products and programs were wrongheaded. They were poorly designed, and that's a big part of, uh, what I hope people understand is if you've tried to change your behavior in the past and you didn't succeed, it is very likely not your fault. You are not the one that is lacking motivation or willpower. The program needed to be better and accurate, and there are so many programs out there that set people up to fail. And now I'm an optimistic guy. A lot of people think I'm a lot like Mr. Rogers-

    23. RC

      [laughs]

    24. BF

      ... but I get grumpy about this. When, when somebody, some company, or some institution creates a behavior change program and it sets people up to fail, that's bad. That's, that's where I get really... That, that's where I get my grumpiest is when I see that.

    25. RC

      Yeah. Absolutely. I'm an optimist like you. I think that's one of the reasons why we, we're getting on so well [laughs] over the last couple of days.

    26. BF

      [laughs]

    27. RC

      I, I always think people can make those changes, uh, if we can communicate things in the right way.

    28. BF

      Yeah. Yeah.

    29. RC

      You, you, you say that it's not your fault. Um, uh, my, my next book comes out the same time as yours-

    30. BF

      Mm-hmm. Yeah

  6. 17:01 – 24:28

    A clinic story of strength training: lowering the bar to unlock identity change

    1. RC

      But I, I'd, I, I'd love to hear your expertise on this. So a few years ago, I was in my practice. A patient came in to see me, had a whole variety of different problems, and I was coming across all the research on strength training at that time. And we had a long chat about it, and we felt that strength training would be a really good thing for him to do. It would help his physique. It would help his energy levels. It would help his moods. And he was, he was like, "Yeah. Okay, doc, I get it. I- You've convinced me."

    2. BF

      Yeah.

    3. RC

      And he said, "What do you want me to do? Would you like me to do 40 minutes three times a week in the gym?"

    4. BF

      [laughs]

    5. RC

      I said, "Hey, yeah, that'll be amazing if you can do that."

    6. BF

      [laughs]

    7. RC

      And he said, "Right. Okay, I'm gonna do it. Okay."

    8. BF

      Yeah. Oh, no.

    9. RC

      So he goes out the door-

    10. BF

      Yeah

    11. RC

      ... really, really motivated, really inspired, the, "Hey, I'm gonna go and do this."

    12. BF

      [laughs]

    13. RC

      Four weeks later, he came in to see me at the follow-up, and I said, "Hey, how you getting on?" He said, "Doc, you know what? I, I've actually not been to the gym yet. Uh, work's been busy. Um, the gym's quite far away from where I live. It's pretty expensive. I, I've just not got round to it." And he, and he-

    14. BF

      Yeah

    15. RC

      ... he looks demoralized. And he felt a little bit sheepish that he was-

    16. BF

      Yeah

    17. RC

      ... telling me this.

    18. BF

      He probably didn't even wanna come to the appointment.

    19. RC

      Yeah, exactly.

    20. BF

      Right?

    21. RC

      But all credit to him, he did. And it was interesting 'cause that moment really changed things for me because I thought... I, I didn't think for one minute, why is he not doing what I've asked him to do?

    22. BF

      Okay.

    23. RC

      Because a lot of doctors say that, don't they? They say, "Oh, do-" You know, we tell patients what to do, but they don't do it.

    24. BF

      Yeah.

    25. RC

      I've never really had that view. I've-

    26. BF

      Good

    27. RC

      ... I felt in that moment I'm clearly not giving him information that he feels is relevant for him in the context of his own life

    28. BF

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm

    29. RC

      And I thought, "Right, I'm gonna fix this." So I took my jacket off-

    30. BF

      [laughs]

  7. 24:28 – 26:14

    Why many behavior-change programs backfire: goals, tracking, and guilt

    1. BF

      Yeah. Well, yes, it makes common sense, but then you look at the traditional products and programs for behavior change-

    2. RC

      Yeah

    3. BF

      ... and they don't set you up that way. They have you set a very ambitious goal They have you track it daily so you can see evidence that you're failing. And then they put you on guilt trips by putting you in groups or having a leaderboard and who's winning and who's not winning. All those things [laughs] are not ways to set people up to feel successful. It's just the opposite. So, you know, when you see it from a certain perspective, um, you go, "Wow. Is it..." It's, you know, can a... It's frustrating that, that somehow the products and programs decades ago w- set people up to fail in these ways. And some of those things, like goal setting and tracking and keep yourself motivated, have become institutionalized. And a lot of my work is like saying, "Hey, set those things aside if they don't work for you. You don't have to set an explicit goal. You don't have to track your behavior. You can change your behavior perhaps better without doing those things."

    4. RC

      Yeah. That's incredible. Uh, and again, you were very c- careful to say if that's not working for you-

    5. BF

      Yeah

    6. RC

      ... d- don't do it.

    7. BF

      Yeah.

    8. RC

      And, and of course there may be people listening to this who say, "Well, actually goal setting does work for me," or, "Tracking it does work for me."

    9. BF

      Boom. Awesome.

    10. RC

      Yeah, exactly. Keep going with that.

    11. BF

      Yeah.

    12. RC

      Um, you've been running this Tiny Habits program now for, you know, many years. You've been teaching, as you said, thousands and thousands of people.

    13. BF

      Mm-hmm.

    14. RC

      So I guess you will have developed insights maybe in, maybe in a similar way to me as a clinician, but also in a different way. People who are coming here probably are quite engaged to-

    15. BF

      Mm-hmm

    16. RC

      ... okay, BJ is the world's leading expert in this field. He's gonna help me start to change some of my own-

    17. BF

      Mm-hmm

    18. RC

      ... behaviors, right?

    19. BF

      Mm-hmm.

    20. RC

      So they're coming here with a high level of motivation, I'm guessing.

    21. BF

      Yeah.

  8. 26:14 – 31:11

    What people most want to change—and why meditation is often hard to habituate

    1. RC

      With all these groups that you've taken through your program, what are the common things that people are looking for help with? What are the common-

    2. BF

      Yeah

    3. RC

      ... habits-

    4. BF

      Yeah

    5. RC

      ... that people are saying, "I want to do this, but I can't"?

    6. BF

      Yeah. Got it.

    7. RC

      'Cause I bet you-

    8. BF

      Got it

    9. RC

      ... they must be similar to what the listeners of this podcast-

    10. BF

      Oh, absolutely

    11. RC

      ... are also trying to do in their own lives.

    12. BF

      Oh, absolutely. Okay. Well, let me be clear about, there's, there's kind of two different buckets here. One is the Tiny Habits program that's free online. It's five days and you ... And we interact through email. And that's the program, uh, that I've been running since 2011 and has ... That I measure week by week and have all this data around. And so that, um ... And th- now I have trained coaches 'cause I can't y- you know, I can't coach everybody personally.

    13. RC

      Nice. [laughs]

    14. BF

      I mean, this is personal coaching where I read the emails and I respond and so on. And so that's one. The second one is w- what you're here for now, is my boot camp in behavior design, which is professionals here that are creating products and services to help people change behavior. But like you said, people come here, even though they come here for professional reasons, they're still thinking, "How do I help my kid do their homework? How do I, I get my family to eat healthier food?" So the topics are, and you probably see this all the time, people do care about being fit and looking fit to others. Boom. So there's fitness, whether you call it weight loss or whatever, and part of that is driven by they wanna look good to other people. At the end of the day, uh, we're all kind of vain, and we do care about what others think about us.

    15. RC

      [laughs]

    16. BF

      I mean, frankly we do. Another piece of that has to do with energy, and you've talked about this a lot. Uh, well, I need better energy. Um, people need to, want to be more productive. I don't think that's the number one thing in their mind, but it's there. More and more these days it's like, how do I stay focused? The ability to focus. In fact, some research I did on, it was about 60 different aspirations. In that particular research, um, people staying focused was the number one item, well above weight loss, surprisingly.

    17. RC

      Wow.

    18. BF

      And I think this is a moving target, right? As social media and other things evolve, people's concerns shift. And, um, certainly parents are thinking about how do I help my child succeed? How do I help my child create the positive habits that will help them be happier and healthier and more successful? And it just seems like parents are, of course, pretty obsessed with that.

    19. RC

      Yeah. No, incredible. These, these are universal themes, aren't they, that pretty much all of us wants in our lives?

    20. BF

      Yeah.

    21. RC

      Um, are there specific personal habits that people keep coming back with, like, you know, I would like to meditate every day?

    22. BF

      Mm. Yeah.

    23. RC

      Although you've got interesting views on meditation, haven't you?

    24. BF

      Yes, I do. Yes. I-

    25. RC

      You think it's a hard thing to get-

    26. BF

      It's a very difficult habit to form. Yes, people do want to medi- they ... You know, there's a lot of talk about mindfulness and, uh, a lot of emphasis on meditation. And I think meditation is a great thing. Don't get me wrong. Um, but it is a hard habit to form, and it's hard to form because as people start meditating, they do not feel successful. They sit there and they recognize how busy their mind is, and that's not a feeling of success. Uh, so not on- only does it take time, and not only do people not have perhaps enough training in meditation, those are barriers, but if you do something and you don't feel successful, that thing is very unlikely to become a habit in your life. Now, there's ways to reframe meditation so people do, are not so concerned that there, you know, there's like 1,000 monkeys in their head chattering. That they look at something else for success. But I think most people think, "Okay, I'm gonna calm my mind. It's not calming. It's not calming. I'm terrible at this. Oh, I, I'm just awful at this." And for that reason, that, that's what I would hone in on and identify as the problem with making meditation a habit is it's not helping people feel successful. At least in ways that people seem to typically do it.

    27. RC

      Yeah. I think for me, when it shifted with meditation is when I stopped beating myself up-

    28. BF

      Mm

    29. RC

      ... for having a busy mind.

    30. BF

      Yeah.

  9. 31:11 – 34:31

    Habits as a garden: timing, fit, and playful redesign

    1. BF

      Yeah. Absolutely. One powerful way to think about habits in your life is to think about them as plants. And so imagine you have this garden, uh, and each plant in the garden is a habit. Now, you can just, uh, not design the garden and let weeds grow, bad habits, like think just whatever happens happens. Or you can design the garden and decide what you want here and there and so on. And as you know, if, when you garden, sometimes a plant just isn't in the right spot. It's not gonna, it's not gonna flourish there. It's the wrong time of year. And that's, uh, the garden metaphor in habits, or the garden analogy in habits, is a really, really good way to think about it. It's like, where does this new habit fit naturally in my life? And if for some reason it just doesn't take root, and the root is like the automaticity, how firmly does it, uh, become part of your life, that's not your fault. It's like maybe it's the wrong spot in your life. Maybe it's the wrong time of year. Maybe, you know, three months from now there'll be a perfect time to bring meditation into your life. So if it's not working, redesign it. And if you just can't redesign it and nail it, that's fine. Move on and work on other things.

    2. RC

      You know what? It... You just made me think of something I've not thought about in a long time, and that's with quite a lot of my patients, I, when they wanna make a certain change, um, whether it's... A lot of the time it's getting more active.

    3. BF

      Mm.

    4. RC

      And sometimes it's, you know, in the UK let's say it's in January, and it's dark, and it's cold.

    5. BF

      Yeah. [laughs]

    6. RC

      And, you know, I, I often say to them, "Hey, look, should we work on something else at the moment?"

    7. BF

      Right.

    8. RC

      And, you know... Or in February I say, "Hey, why, why don't we wait for that one until March or April? 'Cause-

    9. BF

      Yeah

    10. RC

      ... it's gonna be spring-

    11. BF

      Yeah

    12. RC

      ... it's gonna get brighter, and I think you're gonna actually want to do that more. I think it's gonna be easier for you to do it then. Let's figure out... Let's work on something else now."

    13. BF

      Perfect.

    14. RC

      And I guess that really, I like it 'cause it marries up with your, with your garden, your plants analogy, is there is a different time for different things.

    15. BF

      Yeah.

    16. RC

      And I guess the more we can tune into that, the more likelihood there is to success.

    17. BF

      Exactly. Right on. And if people think of that analogy, you know, in your garden, you don't plant something and want, you know, expect it to be there for years and years and years. You want to evolve it, and that's just like our set of habits. Uh, just because you started a habit, and if you get tired of it or it doesn't d- do you much good, you can remove it and put something else in its place. And so people tend to have this very rigid thinking about habits. Like, "Oh, yeah, I'm gonna set a goal. I'm gonna walk every day for 60 minutes, and I must stick to that because at one moment in time I set that down as what I was going to do." That's not the right way to think about it. It's sort of like, eh, here's this thing I can design. I'll try something here, and if it works, I'll keep going, and if it doesn't, I'll shift and try something else in its spot, and so on. And so there's kind of a playfulness, uh, that really helps when it comes to behavior change.

    18. RC

      Yeah.

    19. BF

      Like, you're exploring. You're goofing around. You're designing. You're redesigning. You know you're not gonna be perfect. You're not even trying to be perfect. You're exploring to find what fits really well. What's the perfect garden for you in that moment? Knowing that plants will die and move on. You'll replace them. You'll evolve it. Your tastes will change. Your capability will change. The seasons will change. And you just keep evolving it in ways that make you happy and healthy and, uh, that are fun really.

  10. 34:31 – 36:52

    The Tiny Habits recipe: make it tiny, anchor it, celebrate it

    1. RC

      Well, let's, let's dive into creating new habits because, um, clearly it's something we're all working on at various times in our life. No matter what state of health or wellbeing we have-

    2. BF

      Yeah. Yeah

    3. RC

      ... there's generally always something we're, we're trying to introduce, uh, with, with varying degrees of success. So, you know, to be blunt, how do you create a new habit?

    4. BF

      Yeah. It's easier than people think. Uh, there's basically three steps. You take whatever behavior you want and you scale it down so it's super tiny. So you did this well for your patient. Rather than having him think 40 minutes, you scaled it back to five minutes. In Tiny Habits method, you go even more extreme. It's like, what... It's just, like, two pushups or two squats. Super, super simple. So you scale it back to be really tiny, and then you find where it fits naturally in your routine. What does it come after? Um, so for example, if you wanna floss your teeth, you don't floss all your teeth. You floss just one. You scale it way back. I know that sounds ridiculous, but there's a difference between one tooth and all your teeth. And then you find what it comes after. Well, it naturally comes after brushing. So then it's called the recipe in Tiny Habits. The recipe is, "After I brush, I will floss one tooth." Or it could be things like, "After I feed the dog, I'll get out my journal and start writing." You know, and not write a page. You just get out the journal and open it. So you find where this... You scale it back. You st- It's like you're starting a little seed. So let's go back to the garden analogy. You ha- you don't start out a huge plant and try to transplant it. You start it out really small. You find where it fits naturally in your routine. And then when you do that new behavior, you help yourself feel good about it. In Tiny Habits, we have a t- technique called celebration, which allows you to feel a positive emotion in the moment, which then rewires your brain. So your brain goes, "Wow, I just felt really good. What just happened? Oh, I did this and this, and I flossed that tooth, and I felt really happy. I'm gonna... Wow, I'm gonna do that again in the future." So it's the feeling. It's that emotion that signals to your brain, "Wow, something just happened. I need to pay attention, and I need to do that again in the future." Um, now once you see... I mean, this is, this is going against the tradition in a huge way 'cause people have said for decades it's repetition that creates habit. It's a repetition. It's not. Repetition correlates with habit formation, but it doesn't create the habits. It's emotions that create the habit.

  11. 36:52 – 42:30

    Keeping the bar low: “extra credit,” agency, and expanding naturally

    1. RC

      Man, I love that. There's, there's just so much to, there's so much to expand on in there. Um, is this the method you used, I think, is it press-ups you used this to do on yourself?

    2. BF

      Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so in the US we call pushups.

    3. RC

      [laughs]

    4. BF

      Um, yeah. Yeah. So man, I have created, of course, you know, goofing around with this, created hundreds of habits. And, you know, one of mine, uh, is, you know, after I pee I do two pushups. And so, when I'm at home. You know, I don't do it at Stanford. I don't do it in public restrooms.

    5. RC

      [laughs]

    6. BF

      And, but let me, let me use that to, uh, call it a pattern, uh, that you do naturally. Um, and people should really understand. As you floss one tooth or as you do the five-minute kitchen workout or as you do two pushups, and you're succeeding, you can do more if you want, but you don't have to. So one of the key, uh, mindsets in Tiny Habits is you don't raise the bar on yourself. You don't go, "Oh, this week I do two. That means next week I have to do five. Then I have to do 10. Then I do 15." If you raise the bar on yourself, you're headed in the wrong direction. Now, you can do 15 or 20, but you should count those as extra credit, just like your patient did more than five. And you rightly didn't say, "Okay, now go to 15 or 20," whatever.

    7. RC

      Yeah.

    8. BF

      'Cause then you'd be setting him up to fail and feel unsuccessful. So all he has to do is five. Anything beyond that is extra credit, and he can feel, "I'm a superstar." And that's, that's counterintuitive. It's not the tradition of how people are taught to change. But what I found in my research and just working with thousands of people in Tiny Habits is you c- set the bar really low, and you keep it low.

    9. RC

      I don't wanna sound like a broken record, but I, I, I find it so fascinating that the research you have done is marrying up with what I've found.

    10. BF

      Mm-hmm.

    11. RC

      And I've got patients who... Actually, for meditation, yes, I agree, it's, it can be a very hard habit to create. So I've got many patients who I've made a deal with before they've said, "Oh, meditation's not for me."

    12. BF

      Mm-hmm.

    13. RC

      "I've tried it before, doctor. I can't do it." I'm like, "Okay. Um, what do you think you can do? Like, is there, you know, what's an amount of meditation you think you can do every day? Can you do 10 minutes?" "Uh, yeah, probably." I said, "Can you do five?" "Well, yeah, maybe." I said, "Okay." And I remember one patient in particular, we made a deal that she would do one minute a day. I said, "Okay."

    14. BF

      Awesome.

    15. RC

      "We're gonna do one minute a day." I said, "Okay, so you're gonna do one minute a day. Find, when are you gonna do it?" Um, and we, we tried to figure out.

    16. BF

      Perfect. Perfect.

    17. RC

      And I, and I said, "Hey, look. You, you put your kettle on-

    18. BF

      Yeah

    19. RC

      ... every morning to make a cup of tea. So why not when the kettle goes on?"

    20. BF

      Perfect.

    21. RC

      "At that moment you do one minute of meditation."

    22. BF

      Perfect.

    23. RC

      And she's like, "What difference is that gonna make? Shall I do it?" I said, "That's all I want you to do. That will have incredibly powerful benefits."

    24. BF

      Yeah.

    25. RC

      And so she said, "Okay, one minute. That's pretty easy." So she goes and does it. And what I found is that those one minutes make you feel good, right?

    26. BF

      Mm-hmm.

    27. RC

      So that one minute becomes two minutes.

    28. BF

      Mm-hmm.

    29. RC

      That two minutes becomes five minutes. A few weeks, months later, that five minutes become 10 minutes. But when I would start by saying, "Look, I think about 15 minutes of meditation a day is great"-

    30. BF

      Mm-hmm

  12. 42:30 – 49:25

    Good habits and bad habits form the same way—plus why language matters

    1. RC

      Um, and I, I often talk to my patients about this for bad habits. I say, "Look, you know, um, when you feel low, and you're feeling a bit down, a bit stressed, and you go for that chocolate bar or that bag of sweets"-

    2. BF

      Mm-hmm

    3. RC

      ... what you'd call a bag of candy-

    4. BF

      Mm-hmm

    5. RC

      ... um, you feel good, right?

    6. BF

      Yeah. Yeah.

    7. RC

      So then that is wiring in some sort of pattern so that next time you feel low, "Oh, I know. When I"-

    8. BF

      Right

    9. RC

      ... "If I buy a chocolate bar, I'm gonna feel better."

    10. BF

      Right.

    11. RC

      So let's use that process to help the- create good habits instead of-

    12. BF

      Exactly

    13. RC

      ... to hardwire those bad habits?

    14. BF

      Exactly. Yeah. G- you know, the, the way the brain res- good habits and bad habits are w- what we say as, you know, as a culture, like eating chocolate cake at 3:00 in the morning is not a great thing to do, and eating a whole bag of chips while watching football is not awesome. Well, our brain doesn't distinguish between good and bad. All habits form in the same way, good habits and bad habits, and it's this dynamic. You do a behavior, and you have a net gain in positive emotions, if I wanna be geeky about it. You know, you do a behavior and you feel successful, feel good, that behavior becomes more automatic, and that's what a habit is, is something you do quite automatically without thinking very much.

    15. RC

      So, so what is the difference, then, between a habit and a routine?

    16. BF

      Good question. Um, both words are ambiguous and fuzzy. Neither word is a great technical word. Um, we're kind of stuck with those words. Um, neither word is precise and accurate. Um, part of my work will be to further refine those words so they're specific. Um, I think most people can use the word habit and routine interchangeably and it works, but we need a better technical vocabulary, um, than what we have. Habit is... can... Often people use the word habit to mean something that's just high level and aspirational, like, "Oh, I wanna be pro- more productive. I wanna make productivity a habit." Well, that's just a abstract generalization. Uh, if somebody says, "I wanna look at my to-do list every morning," then that's a specific habit. So I don't know if this is very interesting to your listeners, but even the language of behavior change is a little messed up, whereas the word habit means lots of things. Uh, people talk about breaking bad habits, and that's not how it works. You don't just put in force and break it and you're done. So I talk about, in Tiny Habits, my book, I talk about untangling bad habits rather than breaking. So, um, you know, breaking sets up the wrong expectation. Um, so there's a lot of things that have been the tradition in behavior-change programmes or how we talk about behavior change that really set us up either to fail or think about it in the wrong way, and it's, uh, important to help people see it in the right way. And it's fun, too, 'cause once people see it, they're like, "Yeah, of course." You don't break a bad habit, you know, by putting in a lot of force in one moment. You untangle it, and that's... sets up the right expectation.

    17. RC

      You know, I love that, and it's something I've been reflecting on a lot over the past few years, is this whole idea that the language we use-

    18. BF

      Mm-hmm

    19. RC

      ... matters.

    20. BF

      Mm-hmm.

    21. RC

      Not... You know, you could expand this out beyond habits, uh, you know, relationships, um, the way we talk to ourselves. All of these things, the language we use, I think it's on a, on a very deep sorta primal level.

    22. BF

      Mm-hmm.

    23. RC

      It's, it really influences our actions and how we feel about ourselves.

    24. BF

      Yeah.

    25. RC

      And I think you can tell a lot about someone by the language they use.

    26. BF

      Yeah. Yeah. Well, so I have a, a dere- degree in English, a master's degree in English, which is really linguistics and sociolinguistics, and the power of language is the thing that really got me thinking about, wow, one of these days, computers will use rhetoric, essentially, uh, to influence our attitudes and behaviors, and that's what led me to create this, uh, research program around how might this happen and so on. Um, but yeah, language and, and even analogy. So let's go back to the plant analogy. I- if people can look at their set of habits as plants and, and l- let's take the example of turning on the kettle. Let's go back to that. When I hear that, what I'm understanding from it is she has a limited period of time to meditate. I don't know how long a kettle takes 'cause I don't do the kettle, but-

    27. RC

      Yeah

    28. BF

      ... what is it, a couple minutes?

    29. RC

      Yeah, a minute, two minutes-

    30. BF

      Okay

  13. 49:25 – 53:48

    Motivation waves and the Fogg Behavior Model: motivation, ability, prompt

    1. RC

      And, you know, you were teaching us yesterday about this very, uh, powerful relationship between motivation, um, and ability to do something.

    2. BF

      Mm-hmm.

    3. RC

      You know, motivation-

    4. BF

      Mm

    5. RC

      ... and ease and how that-

    6. BF

      Mm-hmm

    7. RC

      ... motivation does come in waves-

    8. BF

      Mm-hmm

    9. RC

      ... so you can't really rely on motivation long term.

    10. BF

      Right.

    11. RC

      Because I think most public health messaging, you know, kind of relies on that, relies on sort of we're gonna give you information, we're gonna tell you how bad this is, how important it is to do this, and we're hoping by giving you that information, it's gonna motivate you-

    12. BF

      [laughs]

    13. RC

      ... to consistently make these choices. Yet we know that it's frankly-

    14. BF

      Yeah

    15. RC

      ... not working because all this information we're giving people is not leading to a change in action. So I wonder if you could just expand on, you know, this motivation wave and-

    16. BF

      Yeah

    17. RC

      ... how important it is to understand that and be aware that our motivation, and I guess our willpower, will run out.

    18. BF

      Yeah. Abs... You know what's interesting about the academic work on motivation, as far as I can tell, and I've looked really hard at it, the, uh, research about how motivation works and the fact that it shifts up and down over time, that was not studied or published until 2007, and it came out in two separate fields that year. Before that time, I can find no academic work that talks about motivation shifting, uh, day by day, hour by hour, even moment by moment. So it's not been part of the academic tradition. But you know, I know, everyone knows motivation shifts over time. It's really high at the beginning of the year. It's higher on Sundays for some things. It's higher on Mondays for other things. Motivation shifts around. And so that somehow that just ha- hadn't become part of the academic work, the understanding that motivation shifts. Now, one of the boot camps a number of years ago, I was explaining this concept. I didn't have a word for it yet, but it's like, yeah, motivation will go up, and it will peak, and it's at those moments when it's high we can get ourselves to do hard things or other people to do hard things, but it's gonna come down because that's how it works. And I said, "Let's name this," and one of the guys at the boot camp, and he's a doctor, Dr. David Sobel, a friend of mine, an MD was there-

    19. RC

      Wow

    20. BF

      ... a, a GP. He's like, "Let's call it motivation wave."

    21. RC

      Wow.

    22. BF

      And I was like, "Thank you, David. It's perfect," 'cause it's like a wave goes up, but you know it's coming back down. Some waves are bigger than others. Some are little ripples. It's... And so that's what, uh, that's what it's called in behavior design is the motivation wave.

    23. RC

      Uh, and I guess that really feeds into, um, this whole idea of helping people feel successful because if you know that your motivation will go down, and that's the natural-

    24. BF

      Yeah

    25. RC

      ... course of motivation, then maybe hopefully people will stop beating themselves up when their motivation-

    26. BF

      Yeah. Normal

    27. RC

      ... does wane because they think, "Oh, I c- I can't do it," you know? "I'm, I'm just not motivated enough."

    28. BF

      Yeah.

    29. RC

      "I don't have the willpower-"

    30. BF

      Yeah

  14. 53:48 – 1:07:51

    Behavior change as a learnable skill: troubleshooting and teaching the system

    1. BF

      Yeah. Uh, I... You know, I'm excited to hear how it goes for your readers, uh, these five-minute workouts. I think it's right on. It's setting people up to succeed. They choose the ones that they want to do. Uh, and hopefully they keep the bar low. They don't say, "Oh, I did five, now I have to do 10." Yeah, you can do 10 or 15. You can knock it out of the park the days you're feeling motivated. So from my research, I draw general, uh, principles out of it, and one of them is that behavior change is a skill. It's a set of skills, just like playing the piano or the guitar. So you can say, "Oh, I have the skill of playing the piano." Well, it's, uh, fingering. It's intim- it's phrasing. It is rhythm and so on. People should look at behavior change in the same way. It's a set of skills. I map it into five categories, and one of those skills is knowing when to push yourself further, like do more than the two pushups or more than five minutes, and knowing when not to, right?

    2. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    3. BF

      'Cause if you're just not into it, you're busy, you're sick, just do the minimum, congratulate yourself, and move on. But other times you'll wanna push it, and this is how habits that begin tiny can expand. Uh, pushups is pretty easy to understand. So you do more pushups to a point where it just barely starts hurting, but not to the point where you hate it. And so you learn how do you go to the edge, and by going to the edge, you expand your capacity, and you expand your understanding of, oh, I'm gonna push myself on pushups. Oh, I'm gonna go this far. Awesome. But not so far that it really hurts. Now, um, if you do push yourself into pain, then if you celebrate extra hard, if you go, "Yeah, my muscles are burning, but good for me. Look how many I did, and look what I..." Then you c- I... Uh, then that seems to offset ... the, the pain that would've, um, caused the roots of the habit to shrivel. So, uh, all this is to say that behavior change is a set of skills. Some peop- uh, there's about 26 of them. Uh, some people are better at others than the individual skills. Um, but one of them is knowing how to feel good about doing something really, really small. That's a mindset skill. Uh, o- one of them is knowing when to push yourself and when not to.

    4. RC

      I, I think this is incredibly empowering, uh, BJ, because I don't think we've looked at behavior change or habit formation as a skill before. I think people feel they've either got that ability-

    5. BF

      Yeah

    6. RC

      ... or they don't.

    7. BF

      Yeah.

    8. RC

      And actually, on many levels, it is arguably the most important skill to learn because our behaviors impact, yes, our health, but our professional life-

    9. BF

      Mm-hmm

    10. RC

      ... our personal life, our wellbeing, our relationships. It all comes on the back of human behavior.

    11. BF

      Yeah.

    12. RC

      Ultimately-

    13. BF

      Yeah. Yeah

    14. RC

      ... everything is a downstream consequence of our behaviors. And so if it is a trainable skill, why are we not being taught how to do it?

    15. BF

      [laughs] Well, I don't know the answer to that, but, uh, in my work, uh, in Tiny Habits and other things coming out, I'm mapping out those skills and helping people learn the... un- understand what the skills are, and then learning to make them part of their life. And you're so right. You know, why, why isn't this taught to every 10-year-old?

    16. RC

      Yeah.

    17. BF

      You know, here are the, here are the skills of change, and we're gonna teach you. We're gonna work on these three this quarter, and next quarter, we're gonna work on these three. And, and you're gonna learn, just like you learn math or writing or a language, we're gonna learn the skills of change. I would love to see that.

    18. RC

      Yeah. Well, I think your pioneering work means that actually this is likely to happen because I think what was striking for me when studying your research but also at day one of boot camp yesterday, and I'm looking forward to, uh, to day two today, um, a lot of it is, is common sense. I- it- it's not common sense. It's, in the sense that, you know, uh, who said that phrase, "The thing about common sense, it's not that common."

    19. BF

      [laughs]

    20. RC

      Um, it's not necessarily common sense, but it's, it makes sense when you hear it. You think-

    21. BF

      Yeah

    22. RC

      ... "Yeah, I get that." But nobody's really mapped it in the way that you have.

    23. BF

      Yeah.

    24. RC

      So what I think you're doing, for me, is providing a structure and a framework to start looking at this, and then it can be taught. Then it can be scaled.

    25. BF

      Yeah. Thank you.

    26. RC

      Um, and I also think you are incredibly modest about the, the impacts of your work because, yes, we mentioned Instagram at the start. I know people from all kinds of tech giants have trained with you and used these skills-

    27. BF

      Mm-hmm

    28. RC

      ... uh, for their, you know, for their own products. You know, I know James Clear came on, did, uh, Tiny Habits with you-

    29. BF

      Tiny Habits years ago. Yeah

    30. RC

      ... yeah, years ago, and he's written, uh, a book, it's Atomic Habits on, you know, again, on how you create these habits. And so I think, you know, to give you your due, I think you are leading this field.

  15. 1:07:51 – 1:16:03

    Myths, predictions, and closing practical tips

    1. RC

      So let's just quickly, um, knock off a few things if we can. Um, research out there, some suggests it takes 21 days to create a new habit, some says 66 days.

    2. BF

      No.

    3. RC

      I'm not convinced.

    4. BF

      No.

    5. RC

      What is your view?

    6. BF

      No. That's, that's... They're looking at old paradigms of change. They're looking at the idea that repetition. It's not repetition. It's emotions. There are some things - and I'm gonna push on this harder to help make it clear. There are some things that are instant habits. Let's say I buy a new car and I really like that car. How long i- does it take to drive that new car as my habit rather than the old car? No time, right? Immediately. How long does it take, um, a teenager to carry her mobile phone around? You, you give your teenage daughter a mobile phone. How long does that habit take? No, it doesn't. So it's not, uh, it's not repetition. It's the emotional experience that people have as they do the behavior. And so yeah, that whole thing about 21 days, 66 days, that's just, um, it's people that haven't looked at it from the right perspective that are pushing that forward.

    7. RC

      Another question. Your pinned tweet at the moment-

    8. BF

      Oh

    9. RC

      ... if I just pull it up.

    10. BF

      [laughs] Oh, no.

    11. RC

      And, uh, which I really, really like. Let's see if I can get it up, uh, 'cause I can't remember it at the top of my head. Um, I really liked this. And, um, oh, where's it gone now? Here we go. "A company asked for my 2020 prediction. Here it is. Please don't be offended. A movement to be post-digital will emerge in 2020. We will start to realize that being chained to your mobile phone is a low-status behavior similar to smoking."

    12. BF

      Yeah.

    13. RC

      You have proven your track record in the past at predicting-

    14. BF

      Mm

    15. RC

      ... what is gonna happen in technology. Why did you make that tweet?

    16. BF

      I'm really hoping, right? So post-

    17. RC

      'Cause I agree, actually. [laughs]

    18. BF

      Yeah, yeah. I'm really hoping. So post-digital probably isn't the right word, but a backlash against always having your mobile phone out, always taking a selfie, being at dinner pulling out your phone. That more and more I'm predicting will become something that people are like, "No, that's bad etiquette. That's not what you do." And even, you know, you know I spend half my time in Maui, and I go to the beach a lot, and it just drives me crazy when people are at one of the most beautiful places on Earth, and there they are on their... I don't know what they're doing on their mobile phone. And it's like, "Look out. You see whales. You see turtles." And so the idea that, um, doing this, people will more and more understand that this is not like being cool to do this. This is a low-status behavior. And I hope with that new framing and understanding, that people will then not be so compelled to do it. And then when they do do it, they will kinda go like, "Oh, I need to step out and check my phone," just like people do that around smoking.

    19. RC

      Yeah.

    20. BF

      And, and so I do think that will happen. I think we can ac- help accelerate that. Um-

    21. RC

      No, I love that.

    22. BF

      Yeah.

    23. RC

      I love that.

    24. BF

      Okay.

    25. RC

      I agree with it, and I think that is coming. Uh, final question then is we are in your house. Behind us, and for those of you watching it on YouTube, I know most people listen to it, there's a, there's ukuleles, there's guitars, there's piano. There's this, uh, this gorgeous... What's that device called again?

    26. BF

      It's called a vast drum.

    27. RC

      A vast drum. I mean, just absolutely [vast drum music] yeah.

    28. BF

      [laughs]

    29. RC

      Absolutely incredible. Um, we probably don't have time to really unpack this, but w- you were saying at the start that learning a musical instrument's super important.

    30. BF

      Yeah.

Episode duration: 1:16:05

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