On the Journey to New Habits, Take Tiny Steps

WSJ: On the Journey to New Habits, Take Tiny Steps - New Year’s resolutions fail because people aim too high and get discouraged quickly. Instead, celebrate small accomplishments

It turns out that there is a formula for any successful shift in behavior.

To instill a habit, the first thing you need is motivation: Pick a behavior that you want to do rather than one you merely feel obligated to do. Second, you need to be able to do it: Make the change simple and small at first. Third, you need a personal prompt: Identify a way to reliably trigger the behavior. Finally, you need to celebrate your new habit, so that your brain associates it with positive feelings.

When you start small, you can quickly move on to experiencing the rewards that motivate you to do more.

First, don’t think you have to create motivation. Choose habits that you already are eager to adopt. Second, go tiny. Why? Small is successful and sustainable because it is simpler. Next, design a prompt. We respond almost automatically to hundreds of behavior prompts each day that we barely notice

no behavior happens without some kind of prompt.

The best way to prompt a new habit is to anchor it to an existing routine in your life

As you try each new habit, celebrate immediately. Cause yourself to feel good in that exact moment, whether it’s an inward “Good job!” or an outward fist pump. You deliberately reinforce the habit by tapping into the reward circuitry of your brain, causing it to recognize and encode the sequence of behaviors you just performed.

It isn’t primarily repetition over a long period that creates habits; it’s the emotion that you attach to them from the start.

more than half were able to instill habits in five days or less.

When people work together as a family, business or community to celebrate and create change, the effects can be even more transformative.

It’s easy to underestimate the power of tiny change.

There’s no need to work toward big, ambitious goals. By going tiny, you can discover for yourself the changes that will change everything.