The Psychology of Making & Breaking Habits | Jim Kwik & Dr. BJ Fogg

Dr. BJ Fogg. He is the founder of Behavior Design Lab at Stanford University. In addition to his research, Dr. Fogg teaches industry innovators. I mean, co-founder of Instagram, so many people going through your training. He's created Tiny Habits Academy, which I encourage everyone to look into to help other people around the world. We're going to be talking about— his book came out at the same time as Limitless, and it was really wonderful. We've had him on our podcast and featured him numerous times. I'm always recommending him. He's a was on our book list, Tiny Habits, right? The small changes that change everything, where all of you as readers, you can discover the landmark Tiny Habits method that has helped countless people build their ideal lives. So everybody here, they probably— and I invite everyone to think about this— that they probably want to start something or they want to stop something or they want to do more of something or do less of something. Right. And for me, my approach has always been Yes, the goal. It's nice to have a clear objective and a target, but really focusing the energy on the habits that will get you there, whether it happens to be your wealth or your health, growing your business, whatever. And we have such a high retention and completion rate for our quick reading and our quick recall program. And, you know, is based on, based on your model. And so you developed the Fogg behavioral model. Which emphasizes— everyone knows this— motivation, ability, and prompts, right? B equals MAP. I would love for you just to take a moment and then we'll get really more granular. Maybe you could elaborate on these elements. How do these elements interact to create or change a habit, and how is it different from traditional methods of habit information, if that makes sense. Maybe there's some myths or some lies, some misinformation, because you're in a unique position where, you know, a lot of the people that are teaching habits, they, they were inspired by you, right? Or maybe they were trained even by you.

So what you have is you have the domain of behavior. So this circle represents all behavior types. So behavior, so this is the superset A subset of that is something we call habits. Habits are behaviors you do quite automatically. Okay? So habits are a subset of human behavior. There's another behavior type, I call it a one-time action. And then there's another type that's about stopping behaviors. All behaviors come back to motivation, ability, prompt. So as you know, the behavioral model, behavior happens when these 3 things come together. So all behavior, including habits, including one-time actions, and what comes to stopping a behavior, you want to remove one of these elements. So this applies to all behavior types. I just even wanted to put, without these 2, I wanted to put this into the paperback version of the book to be like, a habit is a type of behavior. And I explained that, but I think the visual could have helped people. And so, So the behavior model applies to all types. The way you design for this is different than this. It is different than this. But you, these are the, the levers you have to play with is motivation, ability, and prompt. And it's continued to be, for me, frankly, a blast to work and develop and leverage the behavior model. It, it, it just keeps yielding really interesting opportunities. So You've read the book, you've seen the discussion of the behavior model in the book, so I won't go into more on that. I'll stop on that part, Jim, at that point.

No, that's wonderful. One of the questions that Jenna had prepared was, in the years since you've published the book, have you come across any new discoveries or insights that you wish you would've included?

There's this celebration type. So Emotions create habits. That was a big statement for me to make back then. I was putting like all the chips on the table with my career. It's like when I was very confident and that was correct, and it goes against the tradition of just keep repeating, you know, repetition's the key. It's not the key, it's emotions. And celebration is how you hack that. But emotions can happen naturally to help you wear in the habit. And some people have a really hard time with the celebration technique because it's like, oh, it's too cheerleader. Why should I do this? But there are a whole bunch of ways to celebrate, and that's in the book. But one of them that we're emphasizing a lot in the Tiny Habits Academy and coaching people is a celebration. It's like a purpose-focused celebration. Like, what's my high purpose in life? One of mine is to teach people. How habits work so they can be happier and healthier. That's why I'm super happy to be here. That's like, yeah, my purpose. And so if I'm doing a habit like hydrating, I can, as I drink the water, I can think this helps me fulfill that purpose of improving people's lives for the better. So what you do is in that moment, you self-reinforce, you celebrate. It's a type of celebration where you're not like clapping for yourself or smiling or whatever, which does work if That, and if you can do that, but what seems to work for everybody, even the most skeptical, is connect that specific action with a higher purpose. So this is helping me succeed. So I'm feeling successful in doing this thing that is my purpose on this planet. I think more on that to help people, because there's some people that just reject the celebration. They don't even seriously consider it. Like, nope, not doing that. And that's too bad because if you're great at that, that gives you a superpower for habit formation. That is the key.

Yeah, we have a whole chapter in Limitless about the power of purpose and connecting their learning to a higher purpose and an identity, which I feel like creates greater sustainable completion, right? Be able to follow through. Man, there's so much I want to talk about. There's a myth that there are— there's— when you look on social media, there are all these memes saying it takes 21 days to change habit, 66 days, right? The number fluctuates. What's your stance currently on the number of days? Because you mentioned time or repetition and then emotion. What would you say to somebody who's saying 21 days, 66 days, whatever? Is it a matter of days or is it just every day?

It's the wrong question to ask. Yeah, it's the wrong question.

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And I'm not sure why people are so obsessed, and they have been for a while.

Yes.

Obsessed about how long. It's just the wrong question. It should be, how do I form a habit quickly? Or how do I form a habit successfully? Or what causes a habit to form? Those are the right questions. The number of days, I don't know why we're obsessed with that. But, you know, if you go and look at the study, but look hard at that study and see if you think that's a quality study.

Okay.

Yeah. And you could even read it in the abstract. It's like, right? And all of that came from this single study, which it's like saying it takes 66 minutes to cook dinner. We did a study with college students on how long it took to cook dinner, 66 minutes. So therefore everybody, all your dinners should take 66 minutes. It's like, well, for this person in this context doing this, it took 66 minutes. with this method, but you might have a more effective method of cooking dinner. So I just think it's the wrong question.

I feel you. That definitely resonates with me. So what are like the most common challenges people face when trying to form new habits, and how does your model address these challenges?

A few things. One, they stay too abstract, and I think you Jim and the community, you get this like, oh, I want to read more. That's an abstraction. I want to sleep better. That's abstract. You got to boil it down to what the specific action is and ideally a habit. So that's very, very common. So they just try to motivate themselves towards something abstract. In behavior design, you get specific and you make it easy to do and you make sure there's a prompt. So it's almost like the opposite. Like if you want to read more, Well, what's the specific action? How do you make it really easy to do? Ability from the ability model. And what's going to prompt you to do it, right? Next is don't pick habits that you don't really want to do. Don't pick the shoulds. Pick what you want to do. So, you know, in terms of reading more or being physically active or eating differently, there Many, many different options for that. So pick the specific actions you actually want to do and even the aspiration you're focused on. So too often people pick the shoulds, like, I really should be doing this, and those almost never become habits. I'll just mention one more. There's more on the list. Thinking you have to be perfect. The very black and white thinking. This is in the book, but I think it's worth bringing up for most everybody in terms of changing your behavior. We're all like little babies learning to walk. I mean, you can get better and better, and with time you get better. For the most part, most people are like little babies learning to walk in this domain. You don't expect a baby to be perfect when a baby falls down, you don't say, oh, it's over. Stop trying walking. No, the baby just gets back up and keeps going. That's how to view yourself in this quest to create habits or change your life. You're going along, you're going to tumble. Just get back up and keep going. With time, you'll be able to walk, you'll be able to run, and so on. And feel good about all those little steps. That's what parents are doing for babies. They're reinforcing the baby. If the parents only criticize the baby, it's like, oh, you fell, you're not good at this. Why aren't you better at walking? No, the parents are just cheering on every little tiny progress. And that's what we need to be doing for ourselves as we're working on new habits or changing our lives.

Yeah, this is something I'm very cognizant of. Our son turned 1 this month and is literally going through this and in real time. So this is a Very timely. We had a number of questions in the community about the role of technology. So with technology in the digital age, how do you see technology playing a role in habit formation, if any? And are there any specific technologies or apps that you use that you find particularly effective? Is this something that you've explored in terms of apps or platforms or tools to support habit creation inside?

People aren't going to like, some people aren't going to like this answer. The short answer is no.

Okay.

Now we have habits that involve technology, you know, like using social media or et cetera, et cetera. When I need a book, I go to Amazon. But do you need an app to track your habits? No. Do you need an app to help you Create the tiny habit recipes? No, we do have on the tiny habit side of things, technology solutions that can help you do that, but you don't need it. So the short answer is no. Now, some people may find it helpful to use something. Now, I, I'm going to make a distinction. This is not in the book, so I will go here.

Yeah.

There is something that I call strict tracking where it's like, okay, I'm going to put a check in the spreadsheet every day I do this, and when I don't, I'm going to put a frowny face or an X. And strict tracking, I don't like that. It highlights your failures where success tracking is every time you do it, there's a marker. And so it helps you feel successful. And the days you miss, there's no like memory or right in front of your face that you missed. So I call one strict tracking, and I know a lot of apps, all right, which is, I don't look at all the apps on habits, but I suspect a lot of them Assuming you have to strictly track. And I'm a fan of success tracking and there's, and you might use an app for that, but then it's an extra step. Then you have to have a habit to use the app.

Yeah.

What, one thing I'm doing right now, you know, I just put something up on the wall. One thing I'm working on is balancing on one foot with my eyes closed. So I just turned 60 and the research shows You can do it for 6 seconds in your 60s. Like it gets smaller and smaller and smaller. And then pretty soon, you know, you can't do it at all.

Standing on one foot with your eyes closed.

Eyes closed. Yeah. And it's like, no, I'm going to work on this and I'm going to show, and you know, I, my average right now is about 24 seconds. So you can do it. But just on the wall, I just write the date and, you know, I do a few times. And I don't sweat it if I miss some days, but I'm success tracking. I'm looking at how the numbers go up and up and up and up. I'm not tracking the days where I miss. I'm just, it's helping me feel successful because I'm seeing the progress there. So I would consider that success tracking. And sure, I could use an app for that, but it's way easier to just have a little note card on the wall and I put a pencil on a string right next to it.

Well, we, we, uh, our Kwik Reading students, um, we, we have the, the most popular speed reading program, which is really a smart reading program in the world. And we use analog. We do exactly that, success tracking, where people are tracking their reading speed and comprehension and they get to see that upward mobility. Um, and it's very reinforcing, right? Especially sometimes you don't realize how far you've come, uh, because it just becomes your new baseline or your new norm. But it's Wonderful to see that kind of progress. I had a question in the community that I want to highlight. It was something in the nature of what strategies do you recommend for ensuring new habits are sustained over the long term, especially when you're looking at that M, if the motivation happens to wane over time? Is there something that, that kind of resonates with you?

Let me give 3 answers here. Looking at— I know what the first answer is. I don't know the second and third of them. They'll come to me.

Okay.

Multiple answers.

That's awesome.

I don't have an acronym like Jim does. That would be awesome. Number one, if your motivation to do a habit wanes and it's like, I really don't want to do the eat the fruit every day habit or the balance on one foot habit, let it go. Let it go. Like you see in the book, I talk about habits like a garden, and sometimes a plant or shrub will serve its purpose or will no longer delight you. Let it go and you have real estate to do something else with that. So that would be number one. Number 2, if you, part of you still wants to do the habit, so I'm almost creating a flowchart in my mind, like, yeah, It's kind of served its purpose, but I still think it's good for me. And da da da da. Make sure that you keep the habit really easy to do. Number one is by scaling back the habit, like setting the bar really low. The tiny habits method is not you set the bar low and you raise the bar over time. It's not two push-ups, four push-ups, six push-ups. You set the bar low and you keep it low. You will naturally do more, but you do not raise the bar. Okay. So if you raise the bar, like now I'm up to 20, 25 pushups, that will require motivation and you will eventually start failing on it, right? So the Tiny Habits method is not start small and grow it. It's you start small and you keep the bar low and you exceed the bar whenever you want. Day 1, if you want, do 25 pushups on day 1. So just check the habit, make sure you set the bar low enough. That's on the ability side. Now there's something else you can do on the ability side so you don't have to have high levels of motivation is redesign your environment to make it really easy to do. So I have a place in our Maui home here where I balance on one foot. I have a clock on the wall, I have a pull-up bar. So there's a gym, not, there's a gym 40 yards from where I'm sitting, but guess what? That's too hard to do. I want everything here in the home. So I did construct The first version broke and I knew it was kludgy. And so it was actually this morning that I got final pieces in for a really, really solid pull-up bar that I built myself to make it really easy to practice hanging on the pull-up bar, doing pull-ups, all that kind of stuff. So redesign your environment to make it really easy to do. So again, we're not boosting the motivation, we're both setting the bar low and redesigning your environment to make it easy. is you're making it so you can be, do the habit reliably without high levels of motivation. So you're kind of getting around the question of how do I keep my motivation high for this habit all the time? Because there's no great way of doing that unless you enroll in the military or you go to CrossFit. And once you're there, they have you as this captive person. They make you do all these hard things, which is great, but you're not always at CrossFit. Not everybody can join a community like that that pushes you to the extreme. So that's answer number 2. Answer number 3 would be, oh, what would it be? Oh, the identity shift. So I started in about 2014 asking about identity shift in the 5-day program because I kept getting emails back from people like, oh my gosh, BJ, I now see I'm the kind of person who can change. I now see I'm the person who followed through. And so, I mean, from the very beginning, I'm a researcher. So the 5-day program always had an evaluation at the end of the week. So I added that and I just got thousands and thousands of statements of how people's identity shifted actually very quickly as they felt successful doing the habits. Now, there's not a lot in the Tiny Habits book on identity because another book came out before me, somebody who took my 5-day program and talked about identity. So I was like, they're going to think I'm derivative from this person. So, I'm going to just do a little bit here, but the identity shift and embracing a new identity will help you do a whole range of behaviors that are consistent with that new identity. And in the behavior design and tiny habits view, that identity shifts when you do a habit and feel successful, your identity in that domain will shift. I'm the, like, flossing. I'm the kind of person who cares about my teeth. Or physical activity or strength training. So now that I'm 60, I've always kind of cared about that, but I'm the kind of person who cares about, you know, muscle strength. I'm the kind of person who reads, or I'm the kind of person who is creative. And you can create that identity and embrace it by changing your behavior even in tiny ways and feeling successful. So it almost feels like it's a I don't want to say a trick, but it's like, well, you know, you can get somebody to think, I'm the kind of person who eats healthy. If they create a new habit, however tiny, of eating healthy and they feel successful, then they start thinking of themselves, I'm the kind of person who eats healthy food. And then their future behaviors will be more in line with that identity. It's like, wow. So when I saw that in 2014 and started understanding the power of that, I was like, So that would be answer number 3, is allow yourself to feel successful so you can fully embrace this identity. And that identity, we're just wired to act in ways that are consistent with our identity.

So the idea here with environment, that really resonates with me because you want to make what's good for you easy and you want to make what's not so good for you more difficult, right? For me, I have the pull-up bar right in the doorway of my office. And so it's something that just— and it also provides a prompt for me. Like, the more I see it, I just, I just do it and I don't even think about it. Dr. BJ Fogg, thank you for taking your time. Be limitless, everybody. Thank you.