A book review of Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg

I completed listening to the audiobook version of BJ Fogg's Tiny Habits book earlier today. I picked it up over the weekend, and used the voice reader app on my phone to read it aloud to me as the library had too long of a wait time for it.

Fogg gives a couple of formulas to explain what habits are. B= MAP. Behavior is motivation, plus ability, plus prompt, he says. And to create a new habit, you need to practice your ABC's: anchor (which I'm terrible at, I've written about this in a couple of previous posts), behavior, and Celebration. The anchor needs to 'guide' it against existing activities, or a trigger to start an activity. You can't just be 'oh I'll eventually get my workouts done, at some point in the day' if you want to start that activity, that's not how you start new habits, Fogg argues. The C's important because your body and mind need positive validation, a reminder that you are doing well. And you need to prioritize C not just after the activity is done, but before, during, (and after), and also when you are reminded of the activity, you need to learn to reward yourself for even remembering an activity. No longer should the memory of tasks not yet done should cause you fear, you need to be proud that at least you remembered them, and are considering doing them. Fogg provides some really great suggestions for low-rent celebrations. It's quite clear for me anchoring is the hardest part as my days are pretty unstructured. Perhaps that's the problem with my life ehhh, lack of proper structure, specially during the workday, because after at least I have things to do and places to be.

I found the book quite interesting and massively useful. I intend to use the tips and tricks provided in this book forever going forward to create new habits, get rid of old ones, and modify my behavior to guide myself towards desired goals. It's a solid 9.5 out of 10 stars for me, and I would recommend this to anybody interested in improving themselves. Even if somebody isn't really into self-help books, the fact that this is written by a famous Stanford professor who taught the 'tricks' to founders of facebook, instagram, and all the addictive online apps should be a hint to how good his guidance is.