📚 Should You Read This?
👋 Hey - I'm Toby. This summary of Tiny Habits wasn't written by AI. I'm a real leader, managing teams in large organisations. I read to solve tough problems. I share book summaries weekly to help other leaders tackle scary challenges.
Toby's Rating: 10/10
When I started to write book summaries, I never planned for this. It began with Tiny Habits.
I was inspired by BJ Fogg to start tiny. A one-sentence book summary. You'll learn from this incredible book, that if you plant behaviour in the right spot it will grow without coaxing. Fast forward, I’ve written 135 book summaries. In total, these summaries have been read a staggering 960k times. You really can achieve great things by starting small.
3 Big Ideas from Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg 💡
Create a constellation of habits, tiny in size but big in impact
B = MAP – Behaviour happens when motivation & ability & prompt converge at the same moment
Behaviour change is a skill that can be mastered
2 Best Tiny Habit Quotes 💬
Best Quotes from Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg
“There are three ways to change behaviour: have an epiphany, change environment, change habits in tiny ways.”
“There are 7 steps in Behaviour Design:
Clarify the aspiration
Explore behaviour options
Match with specific behaviours
Start tiny
Find a good prompt
Celebrate successes
Troubleshoot, Iterate & Expand”
Toby's Top Takeaway ✅
Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg is one of my all-time favourite books about habits and behaviour change. BJ Fogg does an excellent job in writing an easy-to-read and super practical book. After reading this book I could easily put into practice the ideas.
Big Ideas Expanded 💡
The big ideas from Tiny Habits book summarised
Big Idea 1 – Create a constellation of habits, tiny in size but big in impact
Anatomy of Tiny Habits method (ABC):
Anchor moment
New Tiny Behaviour
Instance Celebration
Tiny Habit Maxims:
Help people do what they already want to do
Help people feel successful
Change creators:
Have epiphany
Change the environment
Change habits in tiny ways (Most likely to lead to change)
Core Concepts:
Start with three very small behaviours, even just one
Create a constellation of habits, tiny in size but big in impact
Keep changes small and expectations low
People change by feeling good, not by feeling bad
B = MAP – Behaviour happens when motivation & ability & prompt converge at the same moment
Willpower is a myth. Bad habits are due to design flaws, not character flaws
Removing a prompt is the best first move to stop a behaviour happening (e.g. remove chocolate from the fridge, remove the phone from the bedroom)
Big Idea 2 – Behaviour happens when motivation & ability & prompt converge at the same moment (B=MAP)
Motivation:
Lack of behaviour is not a motivation issue. It's often an ability or prompt issue.
Motivation is a bad lever to push. The motivation monkey tricks us into setting unreasonable goals.
Motivation is like a party-animal friend. Great for a night out but not someone you would rely on to pick you up from the airport.
Motivation is like a wave. It arrives in temporary surges. It’s unpredictable and unreliable
Hope and Fear strongly influence motivation. They push against each other.
Motivation and Ability have a compensatory relationship.
Ability Chain:
Things that make the habit easier/harder
Time
Money
Physical Effort
Mental Effort
Routine
Untangle habits using the same process you grow them. Break the ability chain.
Make it easier:
Increase skills (requires high motivation and often time)
Get tools and resources (often requires money)
Make it tiny
Golden Behaviours:
Impactful (aspiration)
Want to do (motivation)
Can do (ability)
Golden behaviours can be done on your hardest day! Monday morning!
Types of Prompt:
Person – Your internal reminder e.g. memory, physical (bladder)
Context – Environmental – e.g Sticky on my fridge
Action – Habit stacking – After brushing my teeth i will floss
Prompt management is one of the most difficult tasks in modern life. Limit the noise
Troubleshooting Habits:
Check to see if there’s a prompt to do the behaviour
See if the person has the ability to the behaviour
See if the person is motivated to do the behaviour
Habit Categories:
Uphill – require ongoing attention to maintain but are easy to stop
Downhill – easy to maintain but difficult to stop
Free-fall – extremely difficult to stop unless you get professional help
Habit Personas (Applied in groups):
Dolphins – High motivation, high ability (Focus here)
Turtles – High motivation, low ability (Focus here)
Crabs – High ability, low motivation (Require incentives)
Clams – Low ability, low motivation (Ignore)
Big Idea 3 – Behaviour change is a skill that can be improved
Skills of change:
Behaviour Crafting – Knowing how many new habits to do at once and when to add more
Self-insight – The skill of knowing which new habits will have meaning to you
Process (Systems Thinking) – Knowing when to push yourself beyond ton and ramp up the difficulty of the habit
Context – Redesigning your environment to make your habits easier to do
(Growth) Mindset – Embracing a new identity
Behaviour Planning:
Aspirations = abstract desires e.g. wanting kids to succeed in school
Outcomes = more measurable e.g. getting straight A’s second semester
Behaviour = something you can do right now e.g. open textbook read five chapters
You can only achieve aspirations or outcomes over time. A behaviour you can do right now
Swarm of Behaviours
Brainstorming possible behaviours to help achieve an aspiration or an outcome
If you plant behaviour in the right spot it will grow without coaxing: Where might this habit fit naturally in your daily routine?
When designing a new habit, you are designing for consistency
Celebrations:
A most important part of the approach
Emotions create habits
The celebration must come immediately after or during the habit for it to stick. E.g A message two days later won't work
The celebration is habit fertiliser
A celebration is a skill — It does not always come naturally
