Forget Big Change, Start With A Tiny Habit by BJ Fogg (Transcript)

Dr. BJ Fogg- Computer Scientist

It’s great to be with you guys today. I have to get up at 4:00 in the morning because I live in the wine country. And so driving down here early in the morning, when the sun was coming up, it was — on one hand I wanted a little more sleep, and on the other hand, it was a beautiful morning coming in.

I teach at Stanford University. I do that one day a week. I figured out how to do that along with the Internet and phone calls, and what have you. My work is all about behavior and how you design to change people’s behaviors.

And what we’re going to do right now, we’re going to practice some behavior change. And the organizers of this event have been very good at providing some supplies. So I want all of you to look under your seat, right now, and see what surprise is waiting for you.

What I want you to do, and we debated whether we should really do this or not, but we’re going to do it. If I want you to tear off one piece of floss like this. And what we’re going to do, don’t do it quite yet, but we’re going to practice what I call a tiny habit. And in this case, we’re going to do something very, very small, and I’m going to have you floss one tooth. Not yet, we’re going to do it all together. I know some of you think that’s kind of gross. But we can do this.

Now, there’s one more piece, and I’ll explain this a little bit later in my presentation. After you do a tiny behavior that you want to repeat in the future, or maybe expand, what you need to do is celebrate victory immediately, right away. So I’m not talking about going out to the bar, or going and making cookies, or what have you. You need to tell yourself, in some way, that you’re awesome.

So we’re going to practice this. There’re a few ways to do this. I have about 10 different ways to celebrate, but we’re going to start with one that’s pretty common, that works, and it goes like this. I’m awesome!

You ready? One, two, three, I’m awesome!.

[Audience: I’m awesome.]

Let’s try another celebration. This one is bingo. Ready? One, two three, bingo!

[Audience: Bingo!]

Awesome. I’m awesome.

There are some people, when they’re working with tiny habits with me they like doing a little dance. That makes them feel like, “Yeah, I’m rocking it.” Okay, ready? Little dance. One, two, three. Awesome!

Now we’re going to get to this in a minute, so just hang tight. I’ll give you a little bit of background, and we’re going to practice this together. You guys are great sports in practicing the celebrations with me.

I’m obsessed with how behavior works. Even on vacation, I’m thinking about behavior. I’m watching behavior. I’m reading stuff on it. I’m trying to understand it systematically. And when I’m sleeping, and this is a little bit scary, I’m thinking about behavior model, behavior grid, domino actions, motivation waves, in my sleep. And this happens almost every night now, so that’s a little freaky. But I learn things, so that’s nice.

I would’ve never expected that a year ago that today I would be doing 50, 60, 70 push-ups a day, but all this is part of being obsessed with a behavior. One of the things that you need to do is practice changing your own behavior. That gives you an understanding of how behavior works.