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January is behind us and for many, those resolutions we made just 30 short days ago are behind us as well. Let’s be honest with ourselves for once. Are the resolutions you carefully wrote down, stored on your iPhone, and shared with your family realistic? Can you really stick with them long term?
While searching for a way to set (and successfully stick to) my intentions for 2012, I had the pleasure learning about a new program called “3 Tiny Habits”. “3 Tiny Habits” created by BJ Fogg, PhD, founder of Stanford’s Persuasive Technology Lab, helps people create new behaviors that can change your life. The simplicity of the program is the key to its success. Keep it tiny (and Fogg means TINY) and build from there.
“For long term results to occur there needs to be both a change in one’s environment and baby steps taken when introducing change in your life”, says Fogg. 3 Tiny Habits taps the power of context and baby steps and has proven to be remarkably effective.
The program (which is free) challenges participants to commit to making three tiny changes in your daily life. Keeping the habits really small helps ensure you stick with the new behavior long term. Fogg stresses the simplicity of the program because “failure takes away your ability to succeed in the future”. According to Fogg, “The secret to habits is attaching them after an existing behavior”. A new habit gets attached to an “anchor behavior” and it makes it easier to follow through.
The second secret to his program is keeping it small, really small….like tiny. Instead of “I will exercise every morning this week”, the program recommends setting goals like “After I brush my teeth, I will floss one tooth”. Flossing one tooth is a much more realistic and attainable goal than starting a new exercise program. The satisfaction of achieving the small goal begins a habit of a daily victory. The strength of this triumph, despite its diminutive size, is quite powerful and one is likely to want to experience that sensation again and again.
In addition to his 18 years of research and teaching at Stanford University, BJ Fogg was recently named one of “10 New Gurus You Should Know” by Fortune Magazine. It’s always good to know at least one guru in your lifetime – so I jumped into the week-long program in early January and was pleasantly surprised at its effectiveness. Declaring my 3 tiny habits was probably the hardest task (Fogg provides several ideas if you draw a blank), performing them was actually the easy part.
My days are generally filled with doing multiple things at once in order to use my time efficiently. But that daily approach can lead to rushing, not taking time for myself, and not appreciating the little things in life. So the general theme of my habits was to slow down and take time:
1) After I get dressed, sit down and take 3 deep breaths.
2) After I brush my teeth at night, say one thing I am thankful for.
3) After I get into bed, read one sentence of my book.
3 Tiny Habits allowed me to celebrate the successes of my habits on a daily basis and gave me the power of possibility to make real changes in my life. It gave me the confidence that I can perhaps make life altering changes using this method.
Another early adopter of the program includes thought leader and Jill’s List Advisor Linda Stone. “I loved it. It was super effective. Instead of hyper focus on outcomes, goals that are too ambitious, and failure, 3 Tiny Habits celebrates constant success and one can ease into behavior change.”
“If you plant a tiny seed in a good spot, it will grow in a good spot” according to Fogg. In other words, start here and see how 3 tiny habits can bloom into positive, daily behavioral change. The commitment is minimal (about 3 minutes a day) and the results last a lifetime.
To learn more about the 3 Tiny Habits program, Fogg’s persuasive power research, or to sign up to participate, check out BJ Fogg’s web site at www.bjfogg.com .
Abby Ackerman
