E235: Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything (BOOK REPORT)

E235:Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything (BOOK REPORT)

When it comes to change, tiny is mighty. There are super small changes that change everything in our lives! These changes become habits, and those tiny habits can make or break our futures. Why? Because a lot of our habits happen automatically, or by default. This can lead to frustration, or feelings of going through the motions with no goals achieved or set.

It can also lead to happiness, freedom, and success by your definition. The difference between these two outcomes? Is a life by default, versus a life by design…

Welcome back to the Women’s Empowerment Podcast, I am your host and Healthy Habit Mentor Valerie LaVigne. I help women like you create a life by design, not by default so that YOU can truly step into your best self and finally let go of the toxic habits holding you back.

Part of what sets me apart from other Health or Life Coaches is that I use the power of simple changes; small and seemingly insignificant behaviours; tiny habits that lead to TRANSFORMATIVE results.

I combine my love of neuro/behaviour science with spirituality such as astrology and human design to support my one-on-one clients and our community members. Speaking of Human Design, I am a line 1 profile meaning I am an investigator and love diving deep into topics that LIGHT ME UP! Habits – naturally.

Something I started last year on the show was sharing some of my research and findings through “Book Report” Style Episodes. These episodes feature books I’ve read and how I use them to support my clients.

If you haven’t already guessed it, today’s book report is TINY HABITS by BJ FOGG. (affiliate) sound familiar? Maybe because it’s a New York Times best seller, or maybe because a couple other books I’ve shared on the show mention this book too!

And for good reason, Fogg has done some pretty groundbreaking research and founded the Standford’s Behavior Design Lab.

He shares his decades of research in this book and like the effectiveness of tiny habits, he breaks down the concepts into tiny pieces and builds them in sequence throughout the book.

For the goal of this episode, I’m going to focus on a few key pieces in the book that I found most insightful, and I also use with my own clients. We’ll discuss and dive deeper into each of the elements of behaviour change, followed by how a tiny habit becomes transformative.

[03:12] The Anatomy of Tiny Habits

But first, let’s break down the Anatomy of Tiny Habits (p.12). This is important because most of the time tiny is the only option. Change is rarely immediate and certainly not automatic right away. Making small and significant changes grows into more lasting and impactful change.

In fact, I was speaking with one of our Healthy Habit Members and we were building out her new habit of practicing pilates on the patio. This client loves to “Go Big Or Go Home” and through the membership program she has really learned how detrimental this can be. With the support of some questions and suggestions from, she was able to create a super simple tiny behaviour that would help her do the absolute bare minimum of the habit and she felt affirmed that even if she just did this bare minimum it would still count.

This is crucial to the bigger transformation, because if we can’t even get the ball rolling then we won’t be able to build momentum or a foundation to GROW!

Let’s understand the Anatomy of Tiny Habits according to BJ Fogg.

The first part is the 1. ANCHOR MOMENT. This is an existing routine or an event that already happens. For my client every morning when her alarm goes off, she puts on her comfy bathrobe and will have a slow and relaxing morning routine. The Anchor Moment reminds you to do the new Tiny Behaviour.

The second part of the habit is 2. NEW TINY BEHAVIOUR. This is a simple version of the new habit you want. You do the Tiny Behaviour immediately after the Anchor Moment. For my client this meant put on pilates clothes after her morning alarm goes off. AFTER that the robe can go on.

And finally the third part of the Tiny Habit anatomy is 3. INSTANT CELEBRATION. This is something you do to create positive emotions, such as saying “I did a good job!” You celebrate immediately after doing the new Tiny Behaviour.

You can remember the Anatomy of Tiny Habits with the letters A, B, C.

A = Anchor

B = Behaviour

C = Celebration

This book has a huge emphasis on the power of TINY. The smaller the behaviouor, the better. One of the reasons for this is because you are more likely to do a simple action. If the actions are too extravagant, complicated, or they take too long, then there’s less of a chance you’ll repeat it. This is something that comes up often in my work.

People are reaching out to me in frustration or anger as to why their new two-hour morning routine didn’t stick. Or why they can’t stay consistent with their daily workouts. While there are always many layers to unpack and each client is unique, one of the most common reasons is because the new behaviour isn’t tiny enough.

[06:57] Elements of Behaviour

Let’s understand this better through the Elements of Behaviour. In his book Fogg says “You can change your life by changing your behaivors. You know that. But what you may not know is that only three variables drive those behaviors.” (p.19) This is demonstrated through the Fogg Behavior Model.

B = M A P

B behaviour

= happens when

M motivation &

A ability &

P prompt

Coverage at the same moment

According to Fogg, this model works for any and all behaivours. Take a moment to consider a current or new behaviour of your own. Before we break down each part of this model, think of your motivation for this new or current behaviour. Your ability to complete the action, and what prompt or anchor you have that gets you in motion.

When I do this activity with myself or my clients, there tends to be a moment where the lightbulb goes off. And sure enough, the reason for that is because we’ve already implemented the behaviour model in one way or another.

I really like Fogg’s visual representation of B=MAP, which shows how motivation and ability work in relationship to each other (p.23). If you’re listening to this episode, check out the show notes wherever you’re listening and head over to the video version of this episode on YouTube to see this model in action.

And if you like visuals, there are LOTS of them in the TINY HABITS book. (affiliate).

[08:33] Motivation

The first thing that we need to have to complete our behaviour is M for Motivation. Motivation is complex and often unreliable. It fluctuates, sometimes on the same day!

So why would motivation be so important if it isn’t that effective? Great question. Because motivation is our WHY and our WHY Is the most important thing. When we understand the aspiration and the outcome we want to achieve we can find the best behaviour that will help us reach that outcome.

In my own coaching and teaching, I ask my clients and students how they want to FEEL. This feeling word is our motivation/aspiration/outcome. When we understand how we want to feel, we can begin to brainstorm behaivours and actions that help us feel this way. There is always more than one, and usually MANY different behaviours we can do to get to this outcome.

[09:38] How to Choose Your Golden Behaviour(s)

Part of how BJ Fogg helps you choose your new behaviour is by first, brainstorming all the ways you can connect to the desired outcome, and then by organizing the options into one of four quadrants. (p.64)

This is another visual that shares two arrows crossing each other in + formation. The upward arrow says “High-Impact Behaviours” and the downward arrow reads “Low-Impact Behaviours.” Then the arrow pointing to the right says “Yes I can get myself to do this behaviour” or the left, “No I cannot get myself to do this behaviour.”

Using the list of habits and behaviours you brainstormed, place the behaviours in their quadrants. Whichever behaviours end up in the top right quadrant are both High-Impact and actions you can get yourself to do. Fogg calls these your “Golden Behaviours”

While I do not practice this exact exercise with my clients, we do go through questions that weed out the low-impact and low motivation behaviours, and we identify the “golden behaviours” for them. In my experience, there are typically only 1 or 2 golden behaviours that really stand out to the client I’m working with, so that is where our focus lies.

[10:58] Ability

The next piece of the Fogg Method is ABILITY. This is such a key ingredient in creating a new habit. And funnily enough this is where most people usually get bored or where habits seem un-sexy, but it’s one of my favourite parts of habit-formation.

The key to a person’s ability to be SUCCESSFUL with their new behaviour is SIMPLICITY. Here’s how I’m going to lay it out, and maybe you’ve heard this before.

[11:24] The Habit Tree

I want you to think of the biggest tree you’ve ever seen in real life. Imagine yourself with that tree again, standing beside it, maybe touching it, maybe taking a rest under it. Maybe you looked at it and said, “That’s a big forking tree right there.”

This is what everyone wants in their life. They want the huge tree! They want the benefits of the shade from the tree, and maybe the fruit or the flowers the tree makes. They want to climb the tree to see new heights.

The tree did not appear as this miraculous huge tree overnight. This big mother-forking tree was once a tiny seed. Yes. It was once a “boring” seed, that perhaps someone planted in the ground and every day, little by little this seed began to grow. And more and more days, weeks, months, years, perhaps DECADES went by before this tree became the tree that you know and love today.

The reason why so many people fail with habit-formation, they don’t reach goals, they don’t achieve outcomes, they don’t FEEL their feeling word is because they have overlooked the SEED!

They couldn’t see the potential and the possibilities. They couldn’t look beyond what was there to what could be! But that’s not even the worst part.

The worst part is that if you aren’t planting your own meaningful or intentional seeds, other seeds; other behaviours will form in your life without you knowing. And instead of the big beautiful tree you aspired to be, there is a garden of weeds aka bad habits and negative feelings, and you’re not even sure how they all got there in the first place.

This is a life by default, and this breaks my heart. So how do we avoid this? How do we grow our big tree?

We live a life by design, and that starts with our Tiny Habits. Let’s get back to the book for some tips on our Ability to form a new habit. Fogg writes:

“What I’ve found in my research and years of experience is that your answer [to what is making your habit hard to do?] will involve at least one of five factors. I call them the Ability Factors. Here’s how they break down.

Do you have enough time to do the behaviour?
Do you have enough money to do the behaviour?
Are you physically capable of doing the behaviour?
Does the behaviour require a lot of creative or mental energy?
Does the behaviour fit into your current routine or does it require you to make adjustments?” (p.79-80)

You ask these questions with your “Golden Behaviour.” If it passes all the questions then you’ve got your new habit, and if not you’ve saved yourself a lot of time by uncovering an obstacle before you physically got to it.

I have these questions as part of my 1:1 coaching. It’s actually part of my Clarity Call where new people can book a 45 minute session with me to create an action plan with some next steps specific to their new behaviour. In that session, we’re using the B = MAP formula in many ways. I also have a question of my own that I add, which is “are there any obstacles that you can foresee when you begin this new habit?”

Sometimes the words “physically capable” or “mental energy” for example, don’t resonate with everyone, but when they take a moment to really think about the behaviour in action, they begin to see some ways that it might not work out.

Asking these questions, or practicing the actual habit together highlight what could go wrong, and gives us the chance to create solutions or support in advance. It’s a very proactive practice.

[15:42] Prompts

The final part of the Fogg Behaviour Model is “P for Prompt.” Other names for prompts are, cues, or triggers.

Fogg says “Prompts are the invisible drivers of our lives” (p.97) and it’s very true. Our alarm goes off and we get out of bed, we see a notification and we check our messages, the light turns green, we go.

He writes, “Where a habit is located in your daily routines can make the difference between action and inaction, success and failure.” (p.99)

There are three different kinds of prompts described in the book:

1. Person Prompt

This means having a person prompt themselves to do the action. An example of this type of prompt is basic bodily burgers but it’s NOT ideal or reliable when creating a new habit.

2. Context Prompt

This is something in your context or environment that cues you to take action. This kind of prompt is best suited for one-time behaviours like making a doctor’s appointment or signing up for a new workshop.

3. Action Prompt

This is a behaviour you already do that can remind you to do a new habit you want to cultivate. For example, starting your coffeemaker can be your prompt to do a new stretching habit using the kitchen counter.

According to Fogg this is a very special type of prompt. The action prompt is one way you can hack your behaviour with the tiny habits method. So the action you’re already doing in your day becomes your ANCHOR.

[17:27] Tips for Choosing Your Anchor

When you’re choosing an anchor, you want it to be precise and specific. Here are three things Fogg shares to take into account to find good anchors (p.112)

1. Match the physical location

This is the most important factor – What are you already doing in that location already, and what routine can you add into that same location?

2. Match the frequency

How often do you want to do your new habit? If you want to do it once a day, do it in a sequence that happens once a day.

3. Match the theme/purpose

While this factor is less vital — the best anchors will have the same theme or purpose as the new habit. Example, watering/nourishing plants > watering/nourishing self

At this point, I’m hoping you understand a little more of the Fogg Behaviour Method, as a reminder the formula is B = M A P. Behaviour happens when Motivation, Ability, and Prompts coverage at the same moment.

[19:53] Emotions Create Habits

The last point I want to share before talking about our tiny habits becoming transformative is how celebration can help you make your new behaviour a habit.

Fogg says “When you celebrate effectively, you tap into the reward circuitry of your brain. By feeling good at the right moment, you cause your brain to recognize and encode the sequence of behaviours you just performed… In other words, you can hack your brain to create a habit by celebrating and reinforcing.” (p.134)

Through his studies Fogg discovers the direct connection between what you feel when you do a behaviour and the likelihood that you will repeat the behaviour in the future.

Think of what celebration means to you, and how you can celebrate the new behaviour you are creating.

You can think of celebration as a habit fertilizer.

[21:13] Tiny to Transformative

Speaking of fertilizer… When it comes to transforming your tiny habits, there are two ways to do this.

The first is Habits that Grow and the second is Habits that Multiply.

LIke plants, habits can grow. These are habits that get bigger, the habit expands. For example, perhaps your habit was to meditate every day and you started with taking three mindful breaths every morning. Overtime, your habit began to grow and you now meditate for 30 minutes every morning.

Also like plants, habits can multiply. This typically happens when the habit you’ve cultivated is one piece of a larger ecosystem of behaviours. When a habit multiplies you can expect a compound or ripple effect into other areas of your life. For example, you have a habit of getting 7-8 hours of quality sleep every night. Getting quality sleep gives you more energy in your day, with that energy you start to workout and move your body daily. Since you’re moving your body more you are thirstier so you drink more water. Drinking more water supports your skin, digestive system and more since you’re hydrated. Etc. etc.

Similar to the habit tree analogy I shared earlier in this episode, it doesn’t matter that your tiny habit is so small to start with. Tiny is simple, tiny is doable, tiny has potential!

The important piece is that “Success leads to success… The size of that success doesn’t seem to matter much. When you feel successful at something, even if it’s tiny, your confidence grows quickly, and your motivation increases to do that habit again and perform related behaviors. It’s called a success momentum.” (p.169)

As your healthy habit mentor, I help you go from TINY to TRANSFORMATIVE. If you’re new around here and you’re looking for the very basics of building a new habit, check out other episodes of this podcast, AND get access to the Transform Your Habits self-paced course that supports you in building your new habits.

If you’ve been here a while, you might be interested in booking a Clarity Call with me, to understand your next best steps and start taking action on your goals.

Or maybe you’re looking for community, accountability, and support with building momentum with your habits. Amazing, we have a virtual community of women in our Healthy Habit Membership. I host monthly workshops for this group and there is also weekly voxer support available

And if you’re truly ready to up-level your life. If you want to dive deeper, remove the overwhelming blocks that keep you stuck and live a life by your design, then I would love to support you in creating this future of yours in the 1:1 Make a Habit Mentorship program.

To get access to any and all of these offers, check out the show notes page of where you’re listening, or expand the description of this video for all the direct links.

Questions? Send me a DM on instagram @vallavignelife or comment below this video!!

Podcast Host

Valerie LaVigne

Valerie is the creator and founder of Valerie LaVigne Life and the Women's Empowerment Show. She helps busy and empowered women create healthy habits so that they can become the best version of themselves and transform their lives. Learn more about Valerie here!