In Tiny Habits, Dr. BJ Fogg tells us:
“Increasing your skills could mean hiring a voice coach, taking a knife-skills class at your local grocery store, or practicing your push-up form. The act of ‘skilling up’ feels natural when you are riding a Motivation Wave because you are using this energy crest to your advantage. They are one-time actions that make future behaviors easier to do, so why not do them when you’re bursting with energy at the outset?”
I love this. We can use one-time behaviors to make a new habit easier or disrupt a bad habit by making it harder to do.
Examples of one-time behaviors to make getting more sleep easier to do:
- Install blackout blinds.
- Set night mode on the phone and computer to start 2 hours before bed.
- Install a thermostat that cools the house down 2 hours before bed.
- Set an alarm or prompt to get ready for bed 1 hour before bed.
- Install smart lights that get dim over time from 1 hour before bed.
Examples of one-time behaviors to disrupt the bad habit of checking news and social media:
- Turn off all news and social notifications.
- Uninstall all news and social apps.
- Delete or unsubscribe from news and social accounts.
