cheesecake

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To form a habit, make it easy for yourself to achieve it. For example, I can be motivated to eat healthily but if there is no healthy food in the fridge, the cheesecake wins

As the new year sneaks in, we welcome it quietly, softly, without wishing to voice our thoughts too loudly in case it becomes another flaming nightmare of a year. Let’s hope this one is kinder to us. While we hope 2022 will bring normality back to our world, some things never change – namely, new year’s resolutions. Every year we make them and break them. Exercise more, eat more healthily, save money, stop smoking, and so we try and we fail. There is some good news – you are not alone, and there is another way. Let’s learn about habits…

BJ Fogg is a professor at Stanford University, California, author and founder of the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab. Fogg says habits are formed when the ability to do the habit meets the motivation to do the habit. In our language, it means that the reason we don’t save money is because we’re not sure how to do it while paying all the other bills – ability. And the reason we don’t go to the gym is that we cannot be bothered – motivation. The professor recommends ‘triggers’ to help form habits. For each habit he suggests we need to identify where we are on the ability and motivation graph, and then put one of three triggers in play.

The three triggers are Signal, Spark, and Facilitator and – let’s use the example of wanting to lose weight – they are used like this:

  • High motivation and high ability. Use a signal trigger. A picture of a thinner you that you see every day.
  • High ability but low motivation. Use a spark trigger. You know how, but cannot be bothered. Use the piggy-back method. Go for a 20-minute run every week before the team meeting so you can tell people you did. You do the thing just before or after something you already do.
  • High motivation but low ability. Use a facilitator trigger. Download a calorie counter app that ‘nags’ at you to count your calories.

Ability will trump motivation every time. So, if you want to form a habit, make it as easy as you can for yourself to achieve it. For example, I can be motivated to eat healthily but if there is no healthy food in the fridge, the cheesecake wins.

Good luck with your new year’s resolutions and know that forming a habit is like tuning in an old radio. You’ll hear the music and then it will go. Keep at it. It just takes practice.

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