Tiny Habits

Tiny Habits: When Change Finally Becomes Easy

Every morning a woman sits down on the edge of her bed, her feet on the cold floor, and says seven words. That's all. "It's going to be a great day." Then she stands up and starts her day.

Now let me tell you what sits behind those seven words. Over a few years, Linda's life fell to pieces. Her son died of a drug overdose. Her daughter was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Her husband was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's. The family business went bankrupt, and with it went their savings, their home, and the horse ranch they had dreamed of their whole lives. Linda sank into a deep depression. And in that state she did not make a grand vow, she did not throw herself into a six-month self-improvement program. She built in a single tiny habit: every morning, the moment her feet touched the floor, she would say that it was going to be a great day. Even when she didn't believe a word of it. On those mornings she added one more word: "...somehow."

Those seven words, Linda says, literally saved her life. And it didn't stop there. From that one tiny gesture grew the others that gave her back the strength to stay on her feet for her kids. Six years later she herself teaches thousands of people the very same method.

This book is about how lasting change is not a question of willpower but of design. BJ Fogg, the Stanford behavior researcher, draws on twenty years of research and the personal coaching of forty thousand people to make a claim: it isn't your fault that you haven't managed to change so far. Your method was flawed. And everything comes down to three things: how to make the goal tiny, how to attach it to a routine you already have, and how to celebrate the moment you've done it.