Quotes from B.J. Fogg

She lives with bipolar disorder, which means she experiences extreme highs and lows in mood and energy.

We live in an aspiration-driven culture that is rooted in instant gratification. We find it difficult to enact or even accept incremental progress. Which is exactly what you need to cultivate meaningful long-term change.

Sarika couldn't always tell if a manic high or a depressive low was sneaking up on her.

She knows now that she can do almost anything she wants to—as long as she starts small.

Behaviors are like bicycles. They can look different, but the core mechanisms are the same. Wheels. Brakes. Pedals.

she doesn't go into a shame spiral anymore.

Hope and fear are vectors that push against each other, and the sum of those two vectors is your overall motivation level.

People respond reliably to prompts when they are motivated and able, which is exactly what makes well-timed prompts so powerful.

If she wants to start a new habit, she gets excited and curious instead of overwhelmed.

Write your aspiration inside the cloudlike shape shown in the graphic. Then start filling in the boxes with specific behaviors.

If you can remove the vector of fear, then hope will predominate, and your overall motivation level will be higher, which may move you above the Action Line—and you do the behavior.

Make the behavior so tiny that you don't need much motivation.

When you are designing a new habit, you are really designing for consistency. And for that result, you'll find that simplicity is the key. Or as I like to teach my students: Simplicity changes behavior.

That's why you should always start with this question: What is making this behavior hard to do?

The purpose of a Focus Map is to match yourself with easy behaviors that you want to do and that are effective in getting you to your aspiration.

Before this, I had slept terribly most nights when I was worrying about the conference. I hated going to bed—it felt like gearing up for a battle.

Here's what my one-time behavior looks like when you break it down. Behavior (B): Donating via text to the Red Cross. Motivation (M): I wanted to help the victims of a devastating disaster. Ability (A): It was easy to reply to a text message. Prompt (P): I was prompted by a text message from the Red Cross.

We should be dreamy about aspirations but not about the behaviors that will get us there. Behaviors are grounded. Concrete. They are the handholds and footholds that get you up the rock face. Your path to the top is your own, and you choose your behaviors according to the particular rock you are climbing.

People use the word "goal" when they are talking about aspirations or outcomes. If someone says "goal," you can't be sure what they are talking about since the word is ambiguous. For that reason, "goal" is not part of the vocabulary in Behavior Design. Use either "aspiration" or "outcome" for precision.

In my research, I've found that adults have many ways to tell themselves, "I did a bad job," and very few ways of saying, "I did a good job." We rarely recognize our successes and feel good about what we've done.

In Behavior Design we match ourselves with new habits we can do even when we are at our most hurried, unmotivated, and beautifully imperfect. If you can imagine yourself doing the behavior on your hardest day of the week, it's probably a good match. It's probably a Golden Behavior.

Do you have enough time to do the behavior? Do you have enough money to do the behavior? Are you physically capable of doing the behavior? Does the behavior require a lot of creative or mental energy? Does the behavior fit into your current routine or does it require you to make adjustments? Your Ability Chain is only as strong as its weakest Ability Factor link.

Steps in Behavior Design Step 1: Clarify the Aspiration Step 2: Explore Behavior Options Step 3: Match with Specific Behaviors

It's going to be a great day.