Secrets to Building Habits That Stick | BJ Fogg

28:15And when we went to high school, he wanted to play the saxophone in the jazz band, which is a totally different instrument, totally different. So he decided to practice six hours a day, which is super ambitious and what he told me this years later that his mom would sit in the other room at the end of every exerciser song she would go all summer long which kept him practicing and kept him going when he arrived at high school as this you know new sophomore that nobody's heard of he auditioned for the jazz band and got first chair and the seniors were pretty pissed off Because like, who is this kid?

28:53He used to play the trumpet. Now he's the, so recognize the pattern here that, and yes, parents can help reinforce, celebrate, but kids are actually really good at this. And I expect in our Tiny Habits for Kids community, we will develop more and more expertise and best practices of how do you teach kids to say good for me or way to go or feel positive about any behavior like homework. So that becomes more automatic. So it becomes a habit. So think through your history. Think through cases like, you know, the mom doing this. Think through what's actually worked in changing your kid's behavior.

29:36Without you constantly reminding the clothes on the floor, and you're going to see these patterns. It aligns with what they already want to do in some way. And they felt successful, whether that feeling comes from themselves, the actual habit they're doing, or that comes from you. All of us, I mean, our accountability groups are largely for this reason. It is the support and the encouragement and the celebrations. And for our live programs, we had improv groups. And one of the things for every exercise, everyone's clapping because you're going out of your way to express yourself. And that's very difficult, especially as an adult, when you're role playing or doing some of these silly exercises in order to learn about communication and just how you're going to express yourself.

30:27And so that applause, that celebration goes a long way in allowing everyone to feel good. So, I mean, we even use it in those classes. Every time that I have participated in those classes myself with our clients, I always have a like, I wish I had applause for everything that I did all day long. If I could just have people all day long, hey, look at you. You had eight glasses of water today. I'd be amazing. Yeah, what a great point. And I'm going to get to maybe a controversial thing, but I'm going to say accountability group is the wrong name. Accountability feels like somebody is following up and nagging me if I don't do it.

31:07It's more like a celebration group. So, yes, social people around us can really help us change our behavior. And, you know, accountability partners and groups, we often call it that. Yes, it can provide motivation when it sags, but it also can make things easier to do. tips and tricks. It also reminds us. So those three points are the points of my behavior model, motivation, ability, and prompt. And then for habits, they can reinforce us. And even if they're not there in the moment, knowing, so let me just pick a kind of a weird example. I play musical instruments every day, even before I go surfing.

31:47I go surfing way before the sun, but then I'm playing musical instruments early, early in the morning. Let's imagine that that were a new habit for me. And I had a group of people, a celebration group or accountability group on that. So let's say I get up one morning and I'm super tired, but like, no, no, I'm going to play my flute or my piano or whatever. And I'm like, oh my gosh. And then I get to tell my group about it later and I'm going to feel so good. So the anticipation of being applauded or recognized can in the moment help make the habit happen and help reinforce the habit. So I do think there's an anticipatory effect of knowing my group's going to say good for me or applaud, or my parents are going to be so happy that I did this, or my girlfriend or boyfriend or what have you.

32:38So social can serve a lot of functions in helping us change. And one of the most important is giving it that emotional, the emotion that will reinforce the behavior. And the opposite doesn't work very well. Guilt, shame, nagging, it can get compliance. Compliance is you get people to do the behavior, but it does not get the habit to form. And there's a difference between compliance and habit formation. Why is positive emotion such a big component of this habit formation? What's going on in our neuroscience that creates that? It's pretty straightforward. I did so much, literally, you know, if you piled up everything I read on this, 18 inches.

33:24I mean, I already knew it worked. I hacked it in 2010. It's like, oh my gosh, when I say victory or way to go BJ or do a fist pump, the habit wires in fast. So I knew the technique worked, but I was like, why does this work? so read tons of stuff on it and then called my academic friends who are experts in emotions like hey here's what i'm seeing here's what i've read and it's straightforward it's simply reinforcement so when you do a behavior and you have a positive emotion your brain takes note it's called the reward prediction error your brain goes whoa you opened the book to and you felt awesome, wow, I'm going to make a note of that.

34:06And in less dramatic terms, it's the release of dopamine. So the dopamine release signals, whoa, make note of this. And then apparently the actual structure of the neurons changes to make that pathway or that behavior more automatic. So it happens more directly and faster. And so there is a physiological change in the brain that I guess is activated through the dopamine. And what causes the dopamine release is emotion. And so if you're good at hacking your emotions, and that's what we teach in Tiny Habits, so you can on demand call on, produce an emotion. And the stronger the emotion, the faster the habit forms.

34:52I hope that's clear to people, like if I feel sitting in the Lanai chair and it's like, oh my gosh, this is so comfortable. I feel so much better. I feel so much successful. If that's dramatic, then I never look at the old Home Depot chair again to sit in it. If it's just very small, like, oh, this is kind of nice, but I sort of like the Home Depot chair too, then you're not going to get the rapid habit formation. So the emotional reaction has to be immediate and the intensity really matters. The more intense, the faster the habit forms. We've talked a lot about creating positive change in habits.

35:31How do we break bad habits that create a lot of positive emotion in us? So, you know, eating the wrong foods, smoking cigarettes, these are all habits that a lot of us are trying to change, especially in the new year. And there's positive emotions associated with many of these behaviors in our life. So how do we break them? So you can see why they wired in, right? Good habits and bad habits form in the same way. Now, the emotion could also be a feeling of relief that can wire in a habit. Now, in the tiny habits method, I've chosen the feeling of success to be what you do with celebration. But if you could cause yourself to feel relief or a release of anxiety on demand, you could use that to wear and have it.

36:14There's just not as great a way to do that, you know, practically. I mean, that's the whole bit of it. You feel better for that few moments after that cigarette than the chemicals that you need to feel cruddy again. But the cigarette is letting off beating yourself over the head with a hammer for a brief time. And then the hammer, you start beating yourself again. And you're like, where's that cigarette? And AJ, I mean, we've been business partners for 15 years now, has seen me fight with cigarettes on and off through that time. But that was always the trickiest part because it did wire itself to relief, relief from anxiety, relief from getting antsy because that's what the chemical does.

36:59It rewires you. Yeah. So notice it's emotion. In this case, overall, it's a net gain in positive emotion. And so whether it's the feeling of success or a sense of relief. Now, let me go to the question, though. Creating habits and stopping habits are not just opposite processes. They're really different. And the tiny habits method is primarily about creating habits, but it can be used and behavior design can be used to help people. And I don't say break habits. I talk about it as untangling. So let me start there. for most of these habits like smoking or social media or snacking most of these kind of habits that people are talking about it's not just one behavior it is a set of behaviors and you can think of that as a tangled cord or a headphone all tangled up but we call it smoking we call it snacking we call it you know screen time or what have you and a more helpful way to think about it rather than break.

37:57Break implies that if you put a lot of effort and energy in one moment, it's done. And that's not how this works. You can probably speak to that pretty well. Instead, untangle, as the word, sets the expectation that it is a process. And just like untangling a rope, you don't start with the hardest tangle first. You start with the easiest, then you go to the next one and the next one and you'll get there even though the tangle looks impossible you understand that if you go through the process and one by one untangle pretty soon it will come free so i think even the shift in that word is important and i explain more about that in the book then i give and i'm really this is the in the appendix i know a lot of you don't look at the appendices but i think the appendices and tiny habits oh my gosh if you don't have time read the book, look at the appendices.

38:52I have mapped out what I call the behavior change master plan, which has three phases. And it's really, how do you untangle, how do you get rid of unwanted habits? Three phases. Phase one is you practice creating good habits. You don't worry about the smoking, the drinking, the, I mean, if it's life-threatening, go get professional help. Stop listening to this, stop reading my book, go get the right help if it's life-threatening. But you first develop more skills of change. I map out what those skills are. So rather than going to this thing you've struggled with for years and hacking something that's really, really hard, you pick habits you want and you practice creating habits.

39:37So your skills of change go up and your confidence goes up. Then you take that to phase two, where you look at your habit, and we'll just say it's smoking. You write down where all the times of the day I smoke, and then you pick the easiest one to untangle, and then you go to the next one. If that doesn't do the trick for you, and oftentimes that will, you can simply little by little stop by untangling these things. If that doesn't do the trick and you need some other behavior, then you go to phase three, which is swapping. Swapping is phase three. Now you'll see many people say the only way to stop a bad habit to swap.

40:14That is not true. We've all stopped habits by just, you just stop. But swapping is more complicated. And that's for if you need like to replace smoking with something else. So you figure out what that is. And you know, it's a flow chart. It's kind of an excruciating detail. It's a system. It's a system. And that's all of behavior design is a system. Although the book is written in narrative with lots of stories. It is a system. And so in the system, swapping is the last phase if you couldn't simply untangle all the little snarls in the big knot. And then there are, because in swapping, what you're doing is you're both creating habit and stopping habit at the same time.

40:56You do not start there. Sometimes people simply creating new habits will, let's say you create some new habits, snacking habits, like find snacks you want, start snacking on those snacks as new habits, and then your identity shifts and you think, oh, I'm the kind of person who eats healthy. Or maybe I'm the kind of person who does healthy behaviors. And then the smoking may go away on its own just because now you think of yourself as a different person. So for that and other reasons, just starting with create new habits that you want is absolutely the first thing to do. And less, and I'm going to say it again, unless it's life-threatening, damaging you, then, damn, go find the right person or the right program to help you and get started there.

41:43I was off and on for years. Stress, whatever, would trigger certain behaviors. However, it was, we signed up for a half marathon, we had gotten a trainer, and there was no way that I could be smoking and then going into how hardcore our trainer was. And then I also really enjoyed the running assignments that I got. And of course, smoking took away from the enjoyment that I was getting from running. And of course, I still run to this day. I try to squeeze in a good one a few miles every week. And that's what, for me, finally allowed me to get a hold where I felt good about it. And stress wasn't so easily able to put me back in those bad habits.

42:25I love that example. That's so right on. And let me share one similar from my own life. So in California, we live in wine country. We live in the middle of, you know, little wine town and so on. And so my partner and I, we started drinking more and more. Like we didn't even like drinking when we moved there. We had no palate. But, you know, the people around you and the context around you influences your behavior. and I didn't have a big problem with alcohol, but it was just like not really serving me. And then, you know, through this process of creating new habits, but it really came down to this new habit of surfing in Maui.

43:04So we also live in Maui about half the time and surfing early in the morning was incompatible with drinking at night. And so it was that then made it like, oh yeah, I'm stopping and I'm not even going to moderate. I'm just done because in the mornings when I go out, I'm there well before the sun comes up in the waves. I want to be 100%, 100%. And so like your quest and your running and other things, it just made drinking a lot less attractive and certainly something that would be incompatible with what mattered more to me, surprisingly. So I don't know if we can prescribe where we should run or go surfing, but understand that creating new habits and having a new identity will then help you with those other habits that are holding you back.

43:54I love that idea of boosting your confidence with new habits that allows the identity shift to change because now you're fueling yourself with positive emotions that allow you then to realize that, you know what, the old habit isn't as important to me any longer instead of fighting with nature and the positive emotions that are tied to the bad habit that we're trying to undo. And that visualization of a tangled, that visualization of tangling behaviors. Now, Johnny and I rail a lot on technology and how it impacts our behaviors negatively from screen time and social media. And you work innovatively in the Bay Area with a lot of companies who are using technology to create positive behavioral change.

44:40What are some examples of technology improving our lives to counterbalance Johnny and I bashing on screen time and social media? Let me first start with, I teach a new class every year at Stanford. It always has to do with behavior change. And it was the one two years ago where I thought, let's take on the challenge of screen time. or unproductive screen use. You understand what I'm saying. There's no great name for it. So fast forward to today. If you go to screentime.stanford.edu, there's a little genie or a little avatar. We call her Screen Time Genie. She asks you a few questions and then she points you to the best solutions to reduce your screen time.

45:23And on the backend, we have over 150 ways, 150 techniques or programs or approaches. I think it's the largest collection in the world. But rather than looking at those, we have a front end cute little genie that directs you. So there are these different approaches. But to your question, oh, my gosh, I take the photos I take on my phone of my friends are really important. Or an article that I'm reading that's important I want to follow, I take a screenshot. Or something I might want to buy, I take a screenshot. And then I have a weekly habit of going back through my photos and processing the photos.

45:58Some of them are like, I want to share this. Some of them are to do's. Some of them are like, no, I guess I really don't want to buy that after all. So just the camera capability is super powerful. I'm using one of my students is the CEO of something I'm pretty new to. It's called Notion. And it's a way to organize. It's like Evernote, but way simpler and better, right? And so Notion is amazing because anything I want to list, I'm doing a research project and here's a paper or here's some data. I want to bring it together in one place. Then it becomes the way I gather and access everything. That's terrific.

46:38I play music off of, I guess it's not screen time, but it's using technology. So yes, there are lots of good things our mobile phones and technology does for us. There are a handful of problems. And this is I really try to get journalists and others to be more precise here. The mobile phone is not the problem. It's certain applications on the mobile phone for certain types of people, ranging from games to social media to, I guess, gambling and stuff. So it's not. So when they say mobile phone addiction, it's like that's you're describing the problem in such an inaccurate way that it's not helpful in solving the problem.

47:21If they said 13-year-old boys' overuse of video games at the expense of their homework, now we can understand the problem more clearly to be able to address that. So, yes, there are problems, but it's not the mobile phone and it's everything on the mobile phone. It's not everything in technology. There are specific things that were designed to be, and video games go way, way back. I mean, probably even before I was born, right? So from video games to social media to, I guess those would be two of the big buckets right there. So if any of you are journalists are writing about this, write about it with precision.

48:00Because if we don't talk about or don't define the problem accurately, we're going to have a much harder time solving the problem. Well, we know many engineers in the Bay Area are working to make these apps more addictive and create habits in ourselves that may be to many of us bad habits in terms of screen time, myself included, especially in COVID. I found myself seeking out information and trying to make sense of what's going on around me. And it has been a difficult battle to be present and remove the entire phone screen time situation from my life. So in those situations where we know that everyone is working to make these bad habits a part of our life, be on your phone more, be on social media more, notifications, what are some simple strategies outside of going to screentime.stanford .edu that our listeners can use?

48:53Yeah, I'll fast forward. I will give you two and maybe more. Number one, one recipe for a tiny habit I do in my life is after I hear my partner talking to me, I will put my phone down or I will turn, I will visibly turn my iPad away. In other words, there's a physical thing I do to indicate to my partner that I'm listening. And that's been great. And it's pretty easy. And it also makes it so I can't multitask. So just after someone starts talking to me, put the technology where you turn it so you're not tempted and you're not accessing it. That's pretty straightforward. This was two years ago, the same year I did the screen time.

49:37maybe this was before the screen time class, at my family reunion in Idaho. And I was in charge, and I have a huge family. I'm a third of seven kids. And my siblings have had tons of kids and grandkids, it seems. We pick a theme. And I picked airplane mode as our theme. And the idea was, guess what? When we all gather here to our family cabin on this island near Yellowstone, them, you can't be on your screen. Because everyone was pretty unhappy with how it had gone in previous years. Like we gather from everywhere and people sit there and they're looking at their phones on Snapchat or Instagram or what have you.

50:16And that was great, actually. I thought I'd get massive rebellion, but I got buy-in even from the kids. We got great buy-in. So just the first example was a personal habit you can create. The second, I think, is an indicator that you can, when people come to a party, when people show up, like in my class, it's like, you can't use technology in my class. Sorry, put it away. Oh, I have to take notes. Take notes on paper. Sorry. You can set for a social arrangement that you're in charge of, and even some maybe you're not. You can say, hey, if you're coming to dinner party at my house, there's no phones at the table.

50:53And so I think we will get there where the etiquette of using technologies in a social setting is going to shift. We can be leaders in establishing that. I think it's probably shocking for people to hear that in my Stanford class, at least when it wasn't on Zoom, now it's on Zoom. But before that, it was like no laptops, no iPads, no phones out. You're going to be here 100 % fully present. And if not, I want you out of my class. I don't want you taking up a seat for a student that would pay full attention and contribute fully. So I think we're in the process of developing that. And so that would be two examples.

51:32One's personal and one's more social and the social context. We need to be leaders in that where for some of us, myself, I'm 47, did not always have smartphones, actually had to take notes, all of these different things. But also when we started implementing it in our classrooms, because kids will be taking notes on their phone. and of course and I was like listen I need you to be writing down notes because whatever you're entering in is not entering in your head it's just going in your phone or in your computer and it's gone and it's lost you're not retaining anything and I've had so many younger clients who would always say that's just how I do it no that's how you have adopted to do it it doesn't mean that that technology is there it's actually helping you some can use that technology better than others but we still have to take in consideration where we're at as human beings and how we learn.

52:29AJ and I talk about this all the time that everybody learns differently and you have to be respectful and honest with how you learn and not try to compensate just because the way you're going to take notes on your computer or on your phone is much easier. It may be much easier. That doesn't mean you're retaining it. Well, I think we are in our adolescent stage of these kinds of technologies, meaning we have access to them. We think we have power to use them, but man, we're awkward and we're making mistakes and we're gangly and we're figuring it out. And I'm an optimist that we will figure out how to let technology support us in becoming, you know, happier and healthier.

53:11And that we'll understand the ways technology does exactly the opposite, makes us less happy and less healthy. And we will reduce those kinds of things. I think there's more awareness around these issues than ever before and how distracted and addicted we've become to some of these technologies that are hindering us from being present and having these great relationships and being there for our kids and being there for that class to soak up the information. We love giving a challenge to our audience. What's a tiny habit that you would encourage everyone in the audience to take on to change their morning, change their evening, change their life?

53:46How about if I give three and it'll be fast. First thing in the morning, after your feet touch the floor, say, it's going to be a great day. Now, you can whisper it. You can think it vividly in your head. You can say it out loud. Say it out loud. Say, it's going to be a great day. Thousands of people, I call it the Maui habit. I gave a talk at TEDxMaui on this and named it the Maui habit. And it just starts your day in a great way. So that's one. Number two, find a physical activity. I do push-ups to do after you pee. So when you're at home, not when I don't do it at Stanford and I don't do it in hotels or at conferences, but after I pee, I do two pushups.

54:26Now you can do counter pushups. You can do squats. You might even stretch, but there's something about the physical pushups or squats that is a gateway. So many people say, oh my gosh, I only intended to do this. And now not only am I doing 10 to 12 pushups, but I started doing other exercises that I couldn't get myself to do before. So bam, that. Next, find a way, a moment in your day to call your parents. And I'm saying this out of experience. Since the pandemic started and my parents being more isolated, I was like, I got to be in better touch. And so I found that the moment I get in my little Honda element with my board on top, and once I pull onto the road, so after I pull on the road, I will call my parents.

55:10And that I'm suggesting that because doing that on a daily basis has been really a game changer for our relationship. I didn't expect this, but I'm understanding them better. They really look forward to my calls. We're much closer. And it doesn't have to be a long conversation. And it doesn't even have to be interesting. I mean, I'm like, oh, I'm still wearing my wetsuit because it's cold today. And I'm wearing my wetsuit, which I normally don't do. And they love it. So I would say those three, you know, Maui habit, pushups or squats, and then connect with your parents or if your parents aren't around or it's not there with somebody on a regular basis.

55:48I love that carving out time for those relationships that matter. Thank you so much for joining us. We love wrapping every episode with the final question of our guest. What do you think is your X factor that has allowed you to reach success in your life? What sets you apart? Other than the people around me and my teachers, who have been massively wonderful, including a Sunday school teacher she's acknowledged in my book when I was eight, I just think I am endlessly curious and I never run out of questions. Now, to my teachers, that can be infuriating, but I'm curious and I'm truly curious and I always have questions.

56:29And I think as a researcher, that's a great thing. As someone who teaches a new class every year at Stanford, that's a great thing. So there's also a downside to that endless curiosity, but I think that's what's helped me question the tradition. It's like, does it really work that way? That doesn't feel right to me. So maybe it was, is the ability and the proclivity to question. Thank you so much for stopping by and having fun with me and Johnny. We're excited to work on our Maui habit. Thanks you guys. I appreciate you helping me share this.

57:11Thank you for joining us for another fantastic podcast. And at this point, I would love to celebrate one of our X Factor members. Zach, take it away. Hi, my name is Zach. I'm an educator who's always seeking opportunities to challenge myself and grow, which is why I decided to enroll in the Unstoppable course offered by Art of Charm. This course has had a profound impact on me, offering incredible content and personalized support from the entire AOC team. I've particularly enjoyed the comfort zone challenges, which have expanded my limits. I even got the whole family dancing in random public places like no one is watching.

57:50Most importantly, that's strengthened our bond and been fun. What sets this court apart is its foundation in acceptance and commitment therapy, or ACT, always focus on action. I'm eager to take the next step in my development by joining the X Factor Accelerator. I'm hungry for more. If you're considering joining, I assure you the benefits are real. The AOC team is committed to their promises and offer genuine support throughout the journey. I'm confident that investing time, money, and energy in this course will be worth it for you, just like it has for me and my family. Best of luck. Thank you, Zach.

58:28It was a pleasure working with you too. And we want to see and hear you and our audience in the next few weeks on the Art of Charm podcast. 95 % of your success or failure in life comes down to who you surround yourself with. David McClellan of Harvard did a 25-year study on the characteristics of highly motivated, successful people. The people you habitually associate yourself with determine the level of success you achieve. Who you let in your inner circle has a huge impact on your beliefs, your values, and your actions. Here's the kicker. We all have this reference group. Think of them as your personal board of directors.

59:06Surround yourself with winners and magic happens. Imagine transforming your everyday just by upgrading your tribe. We created a free mini course for Art of Charm listeners with our best networking strategies and mindsets. Social Capital Networking is not just another networking guide. It's your doorway to turning acquaintances into lasting connections. Real relationships that push you towards your goals, both personal and professional. Head over to theartofcharm.com slash SC to get your free mini course. If you've gotten value out of any of our podcasts, please head on over to your favorite podcast player and rate and review the show.

59:43It means the world to us and it helps others find the show. And before we head out, a huge thank you to our producers, Eric Montgomery and Michael Harold. Now everyone, go out there and have an epic 4th of July.

1:00:22Yeah, but I remember you Oh, yeah, I remember you You were my best But I found you the wrong way