Tiny Habits Summary

Consistent behavior = Habits.

Everything big started small. Remember our vast universe originated when infinitesimal particles big banged. 

Behavior should be tiny and easy so that it can be performed and achieved consistently and develop into a habit. 

The simpler and tiny a behavior , more likely it will happen and consistently it will develop into habit.

Behavior (B) is sum of Motivation (M) , Ability (A) & Prompt (P).

B=M+A+P

When these 3 elements converge behavior happens. 

The desire to perform can be termed as motivation.

Motivation is essential and most important part of the behavior equation, however it is most unreliable.

Motivation is complex, like a wave, which has peaks and lows. During peak of motivation, hard behavior can be achieved easily and during lows, even simple behavior seem like a daunting task.

To achieve sustainable motivation, one should see benefits of the actions. 

One should set clear goals, tangible targets, and set tiny goal with is easily achieved. Achievement of goals led to positive reinforcement and provide motivation for bigger targets

The easier a habit is, the higher the chances that you’ll adopt it. 

Human behavior is driven both by what we’re motivated to do and what we can do. This means we tend to prefer picking the low-hanging fruit and doing the easy stuff. And that’s the key to designing tiny habits. When you make something simple and easy to do, you’re much more likely to actually do it.

First, there’s motivation, meaning your desire to do something.

Second, there is ability, or your capacity to do that thing.

Third, there are prompts, which are the stimuli that trigger you to do it. 

You can design prompts to trigger your own desired behaviors. 

Believing not having enough time to do new things

Relying on your motivation to do a task is not enough, since motivation is unstable, therefor a better solution is making the action less overwhelming to start and easier to do.

Prompts are triggers, which provoke an action (habit).

Prompts can be something you see, feel, think of, or do.

The outcome of a prompt varies for every person.

For example :

Trigger : Feeling tired

Outcome : Watching TV

Trigger : Seeing your phone

Outcome : Grabbing the phone

Trigger : Having a conversation

Outcome : Crossing your arms

Don't rely on motivation if you want to build on the long term.

When someone plans to go to the gym and be fit for the summer and fails to do it, we tend to focus on its motivation: "Go to the gym. You promised to do it. Do you want to be fat?" 

And it doesn't work. Motivation is useful for going to the gym once. To go more times, we need to rely on 

Motivation doesn't produce results. We need skills and a good prompt. 

Make the behavior so tiny it doesn't need motivation and find the right context to help you do it easily.

Braking long term or short term course plan into small blocks of action and follow the same on shorter period will result in enormous results by incorporating them as our habits after a period of time.