Quotes About Behavior

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

When something is tiny, it's easy to do—which means you don't need to rely on the unreliable nature of motivation.

When you celebrate effectively, you tap into the reward circuitry of your brain. By feeling good at the right moment, you cause your brain to recognize and encode the sequence of behaviors you just performed.

By keeping the bar low, you keep the habit alive.

After I (ANCHOR), I will (NEW HABIT).

I found that people typically have the most routines in the morning. This makes morning fertile soil for cultivating new habits.

Good feelings spur the production of a neurotransmitter (a chemical messenger in the brain) called dopamine that controls the brain's "reward system" and helps us remember what behavior led to feeling good so we will do it again. With the help of dopamine, the brain encodes the cause-and-effect relationship, and this creates expectations for the future.

Location is the most important factor when you pair Anchors and new habits.

Simplicity changes behavior.

When I first teach people my Behavior Model, they are sometimes a little dubious when I tell them this is a universal model. They wonder how one model with just four letters could possibly account for every kind of behavior in every culture.

And demotivators can push us into self-criticism. If you want to cut down on calories, putting a note on your fridge that says, STOP! YOU'RE OVERWEIGHT would certainly be demotivating, but it's also demoralizing. We change best by feeling good, not by feeling bad, so make sure your attempts at demotivating behavior don't morph into guilt trips.

People often believe that motivating themselves toward an aspiration will lead to lasting change. So people focus on aspirations. And they focus on motivation. And that combo doesn't produce results.

MOTIVATION IS NOT THE WINNING TICKET FOR LONG-TERM CHANGE

Keeping changes small and expectations low is how you design around fair-weather friends like motivation and willpower.

People change best by feeling good, not by feeling bad.

When we hack into the ancient behavioral pathways in our brains, we gain access to the amazing human potential for learning and change.

Start with three super easy habits—that's what most Habiteers begin with—and add three new habits each month.

What is the tiniest habit I could create that would have the most meaning? Write down a few answers even if you don't intend to create any of those habits right now. The more answers you come up with, the more you are practicing this skill.

Yaddeechachasi Vasheekartu Jagadeken Karmana. Paraapavaadashaastreebhyo Gaam Charanteem Nivaarya. If you want to overpower the entire world merely by just one action, then put restraint upon your tongue speaking ill of others.

the Guru, depth in character; piety in behaviour,

Certainly custom is most perfect, when it beginneth in young years: this we call education; which is, in effect, but an early custom.

Men's thoughts, are much according to their inclination; their discourse and speeches, according to their learning and infused opinions; but their deeds, are after as they have been accustomed.