Limitless - Jim Kwik Page 0,59

habit in question. Second, how established is the problem habit? It is easier to break a new habit than an old one. Third, what are the consequences of not breaking the habit? Will a partner leave you? Will you lose a job? Will you get sick? Will something really bad happen if you don’t change?”11

Dr. B. J. Fogg created the Fogg Behavior Model to identify the circumstances that need to be present for behavior change to occur. “For a target behavior to happen,” he notes, “a person must have sufficient motivation, sufficient ability, and an effective prompt. All three factors must be present at the same instant for the behavior to occur.”12 In other words, you need three things in place in order to develop a habit: You need the desire to do it, since it is exceedingly difficult to make habitual anything you really don’t want to do; you need the skills to do it, since it’s nearly impossible to make a habit out of anything you don’t have the capacity to accomplish; and you need something to get the habit loop started (what James Clear and others refer to as “the cue”). Let’s look at each element in turn:

Motivation

We’ve talked about motivation already, but it’s worth revisiting the subject here to see it from Fogg’s perspective. Fogg identifies three key motivators:

Pleasure/pain: This is the most immediate motivator. In this case, the behavior has a nearly immediate payoff, positive or negative. “I believe pleasure/pain is a primitive response,” says Fogg, “and it functions adaptively in hunger, sex, and other activities related to self-preservation and propagation of our genes.”13

Hope/fear: Unlike the immediacy of the previous motivator, this one is all about anticipation. When you’re hopeful, you’re anticipating something good happening; when you’re fearful, you’re anticipating the opposite. “This dimension is at times more powerful than pleasure/pain, as is evidenced in everyday behavior,” Fogg notes. “For example, in some situations, people will accept pain (a flu shot) in order to overcome fear (anticipation of getting the flu).14

Social acceptance/rejection: Humans have always desired to be accepted by their peers, dating back to the time when being ostracized could mean a death sentence, and this remains an extremely strong motivator. “The power of social motivation is likely hardwired into us and perhaps all other creatures that historically depended on living in groups to survive.”15

Ability

Fogg equates ability with simplicity, noting that when something is simple for us, we are considerably more likely to do it. He defines six categories of simplicity:

Time: We only perceive something to be simple if we have the time available to perform the function.

Money: Similarly, if something stretches our financial resources, we do not consider it simple.

Physical effort: We consider things that are physically easy for us to be simple.

Brain cycles: Simple things don’t tax our thinking, and we shy away from things that require us to think too hard.

Social deviance: This goes back to the acceptance motivation. A simple act fits into societal norms.

Nonroutine: How far something is out of one’s normal routine will define its level of simplicity.

Prompts

Finally, Fogg notes three types of prompts:

Spark: A spark is a type of prompt that immediately leads to a form of motivation. For example, if opening your e-mail leads to a level of fear over what you might find there, you’re likely to adopt a habit that will change that fear.

Facilitator: This type of prompt works when motivation is high, but ability is low. For example, if you want to use a certain kind of software on your computer but are tech-averse, a tool that makes that software easier for you to use is likely to cause you to adopt this behavior.

Signal : In some cases, you’ll have both high motivation and high ability. The only other thing you need to make a behavior a habit is some kind of reminder or signal. If you love making brain smoothies, all you need is to walk into your kitchen in the morning and see the blender to prompt you to make one.

KWIK START

Can you identify the habits you want to break? What is that one habit that’s holding you back from doing other important things in your day? Write it down, then identify the prompts that trigger you to perform that habit.

CREATING A NEW HABIT

The Fogg Behavior Model shows us everything that needs to be in place for a particular behavior to become a habit. We know that making habits of behaviors we consider good for us is important to our growth,