
June 28, 2020
Create Lasting Change | BJ Fogg on The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish
Check out The Knowledge Project Episode Page & Show Notes
Key Takeaways
- Behavior happens when 3 things occur concurrently (MAPS):
- Motivation
- Ability
- Prompt
- There are 3 approaches to helping people perform certain behaviors:
- 1) Train the person: Skill them up so that they know how to do something
- E.g: If you want someone to eat more vegetables, teach them how to cook vegetables
- 2) Redesign the environment: Put tools or resource in the person’s environment
- E.g: Get tools to chop up vegetables and recipes to make them taste good
- 3) Scale the behavior back: Take whatever action you’re trying to do and scale it down
- E.g: Instead of working out for an hour, scale it down and workout for a few minutes
- 1) Train the person: Skill them up so that they know how to do something
- There are 3 core motivators of motivation:
- 1) Pleasure & Pain: It’s what you’re sensing at the moment
- 2) Hope & Fear: It’s if I do X, then Y will happen
- 3) Social Acceptance & Rejection: Wanting to belong or being afraid of rejection
- Motivation and ability have a compensatory relationship, meaning they compensate for one another
- “If motivation is low for any given behavior, then the ability must be high. In other words, it must be easy to do, otherwise, you won’t do it.” – BJ Fogg
- If your motivation is really high, it means you can do both easy and hard things
- “If motivation is low for any given behavior, then the ability must be high. In other words, it must be easy to do, otherwise, you won’t do it.” – BJ Fogg
- When your motivation drops, you need to scale back the difficulty of the task
- “You’re adjusting the difficulty of the behavior according to the level of motivation in that moment” – BJ Fogg
Intro
- Dr. BJ Fogg (@bjfogg) is the founder and director of Stanford’s Behavior Design Lab, as well as the author of Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything
- Check out his website
- Host: Shane Parrish (@ShaneAParrish)
Books Mentioned
About Behavior Change
- “Information alone does not reliably lead to sustained behavior change” – BJ Fogg
- Seeing statistics or data won’t necessarily change someone’s behavior in the long term
- “More information about why you should reduce your stress seems not to lead to lasting change so that’s not a good equation”
- Information is a lot more convincing when you also include how to do something
- “More information about why you should reduce your stress seems not to lead to lasting change so that’s not a good equation”
- Seeing statistics or data won’t necessarily change someone’s behavior in the long term
- Behavior happens when 3 things occur concurrently (MAPS):
- Motivation
- Ability
- Prompt
- If you’re specific about what you want people to do and you make it easy for them to do it, they’re more likely to follow that behavior
- “Rather than try to motivate people through some information campaign, match them with the best behaviors and then make those really easy to do and then you’re on your way” – BJ Fogg
Three Approaches To Change
- There are 3 approaches to helping people perform certain behaviors:
- 1) Train the person: Skill them up so that they know how to do something
- E.g: If you want someone to eat more vegetables, teach them how to cook vegetables
- 2) Redesign the environment: Put tools or resource in the person’s environment
- E.g: Get tools to chop up vegetables and recipes to make them taste good
- 3) Scale the behavior back: Take whatever action you’re trying to do and scale it down
- E.g: Instead of working out for an hour, scale it down and workout for a few minutes
- 1) Train the person: Skill them up so that they know how to do something
- Remember that with environments, there are physical environments but there are also digital environments
Breaking Down Motivation
- Motivation is a drive to do something or an aspiration at the moment
- “If there’s no motivation you will not do the behavior by definition” – BJ Fogg
- There are 15 ways behavior can change
- There are 3 core motivators of motivation:
- 1) Pleasure & Pain: It’s what you’re sensing at the moment
- 2) Hope & Fear: It’s if I do X, then Y will happen
- 3) Social Acceptance & Rejection: Wanting to belong or being afraid of rejection
- So how do you motivate people to change?
- Align the behavior with something the person’s aspiration
- Attach a benefit or punishment for an action (carrot & stick method)
- Change the person’s environment
- Motivation is often a wave, it can go up and down
- You’re more likely to get someone to change their behavior when they’re riding high on the motivation wave
- E.g: People are more likely to buy tax software during Spring
- You’re more likely to get someone to change their behavior when they’re riding high on the motivation wave
- “If you need people to do hard things, you’ve got to prompt them when there’s a motivation wave, not after the wave has subsided.” – BJ Fogg
- “If you need people to buy candy canes, well, ask them to buy candy canes in early December. Come December 26, they’re going to be a lot less motivated by candy canes. ”
Motivation & Ability Are Teammates
- Motivation and ability have a compensatory relationship, meaning they compensate for one another
- “If motivation is low for any given behavior, then the ability must be high. In other words, it must be easy to do, otherwise, you won’t do it.” – BJ Fogg
- If your motivation is really high, it means you can do both easy and hard things
- “If motivation is low for any given behavior, then the ability must be high. In other words, it must be easy to do, otherwise, you won’t do it.” – BJ Fogg
- When your motivation drops, you need to scale back the difficulty of the task
- “You’re adjusting the difficulty of the behavior according to the level of motivation in that moment” – BJ Fogg
- You can tell someone’s level of motivation by looking at how hard they’re working at something
- Motivation also depends on the context
- When BJ is at Stanford, he’s a professor
- When he’s at a family reunion, he’s an uncle
- “What motivates me is different in each one and I’m behaving in each one based on that role that I’m playing” – BJ Fogg
- “The feeling of success is what wires a habit and it keeps people going” – BJ Fogg
- “When people feel successful, even on tiny things, it changes how they see themselves”
- You don’t have to do massive things to have a shift in identity or self-talk, it can be done through lots of tiny habits
- That’s why BJ’s book subtitle is: The Small Changes That Change Everything
- You don’t have to do massive things to have a shift in identity or self-talk, it can be done through lots of tiny habits
- “When people feel successful, even on tiny things, it changes how they see themselves”
Groups Have A Big Influence On Your Behavior
- Our behavior is massively influenced by our environment, including the people around us
- “If your friends are really into…studying and doing homework, bam you’re probably going to study and do more homework” – BJ Fogg
- If some of your friendships are having a negative impact on your life, you may need to turn them down or end the relationship
- “If your friends are really into…studying and doing homework, bam you’re probably going to study and do more homework” – BJ Fogg
- The people you live with also have a major impact on your behavior
- If you’re part of a community or social group that’s taking you in the wrong direction, it’s going to be a lot more difficult to change your behavior
- You want to join a group of people who are trying to develop the same behavior you’re trying to develop or join a group of people who already do that behavior
3 Phases of Breaking A Bad Habit
- Phase 1: Set the bad habit aside and focus on creating a good habit
- “In the process of creating good habits your identity will shift and that may push out some of the unwanted habits” – BJ Fogg
- You’ll also develop more motivation because your fear of change will be reduced
- “In the process of creating good habits your identity will shift and that may push out some of the unwanted habits” – BJ Fogg
- Phase 2: Look at habits you want to stop and untangle them
- See if you can remove the prompt that makes you want to perform the bad habit and find ways to make the bad habit harder to do
- Phase 3: Swap the bad habit for another habit
- “What you look for is something to swap in that will be more motivating or easier to do or both than the existing habit you want to untangle”
Additional Notes
- As a young adult, BJ became interested in helping people become happier and healthier
- One way of doing that was to research habits and help people create better ones
- BJ tries to spend some time in nature every day because it brings him a lot of happiness
- When it comes to creating habits: Emotion > Repetition
- “It’s emotions that cause our brains to rewire” – BJ Fogg
- In BJ’s research, he’s found that people report they were able to develop a new habit within 5 days
- “It’s emotions that cause our brains to rewire” – BJ Fogg