BJ Fogg
Anchor It, Then Celebrate
Prompt and emotion
BJ Fogg, Tiny Habits, 2019
Forgetting to do it and doing it without it sticking are two different faults. How each one is fixed.
What actually happened?
Fogg's anchor method hangs the new behaviour off something that happens every day without fail: after I brush my teeth, after I pour the coffee. The anchor solves the prompt, so memory and alarms are no longer required. The second move is less intuitive. The instant you finish, give yourself a clear positive signal: a fist, or saying nice out loud. He refuses to let this step be skipped, because what makes the brain keep a habit is the emotion at completion, not the number of repetitions. It sounds silly. It is what fixes the habit in place.
An anchor has to be one specific action
In the morning is not an anchor. Putting the cup down after pouring coffee is. The more specific the anchor, the more reliable the trigger; a vague window of time is no prompt at all and leaves you relying on memory again.
Write every morning usually fails. After I pour the coffee I write three sentences does not, because it has a moment attached.
Celebrating is not rewarding
A reward is a benefit handed over afterwards, a meal out when it is done. A celebration is the emotional signal at the moment of completion. Fogg wants the second, because only something simultaneous with the behaviour builds the association. A reward is too far away to do it.
After the two push-ups, say I did it, and mean it. Saving it for a big meal at the weekend helps almost nothing.
Diagnose the three separately
When it does not happen, first work out which part broke: you forgot, which is the prompt; it was too hard, which is ability; or you did not want to, which is motivation. The three have completely different repairs, and mixing them leaves you with I should be more disciplined.
Always forgetting the tablets is a prompt problem: get a pill box that lives in one place. Finding it a nuisance is ability: sort a week at a time.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: the new habit keeps breaking.
Ask first: what daily certainty is it hanging off? Do I give myself a signal at the moment I finish? And when it fails, was it prompt, ability or motivation?
Where it goes wrong: turning the celebration into a ritual of self-praise, which moves your attention off the thing and onto the feeling.
Lines to keep
Hang the new behaviour after something that happens every day.
You change best by feeling good, not by feeling bad.
Same situation, other people are asking
I practice constantly and I'm not getting better.There are six things I want to fix and I'm fixing none of them.I go hard for a week and then touch nothing for a month.I set the same resolution every January and land in the same place.I want to change a habit · all 6 questions →If this one named what you are going through,
send it to someone who needs it, or keep it somewhere you will find it again.