You need to have both motivation and ability for a behavior to land above the Action Line, but motivation and ability can work together like teammates. If one is weak, the other needs to be strong to get you above the curve. In other words: The amount you have of one affects the amount you need of the other.

No behavior happens without a prompt If you don’t have a prompt, your levels of motivation and ability don’t matter. Either you are prompted to act or you’re not. No prompt, no behavior. Simple yet powerful. Motivation and ability are continuous variables. You always have some level of motivation and ability for any given behavior. When the phone r

The assumption is this: If we give people the right information, it will change their attitudes, which in turn will change their behaviors. I call this the “Information-Action Fallacy.” Many products and programs—and well-meaning professionals—set out to educate people as a way to change them. At professional conferences they say stuff like, “If pe

Motivation Is Unreliable Motivation is often unreliable when it comes to home improvement. And it’s also unreliable with diets, exercise routines, creative projects, filing taxes, opening businesses, searching for jobs, planning

but prompts are the low-hanging fruit of Behavior Design.

information alone does not reliably change behavior. This is a common mistake people make, even well-meaning professionals.

Write this phrase on a small piece of paper: I change best by feeling good, not by feeling bad.

Step 1: See the appendix on page 279 for the script to teach the Fogg Behavior Model.

With Tiny Habits, risk doesn’t have to factor into the equation. Tiny can also be undercover. You can start to change without making a big scene. No one will sabotage you. This reduces the pressure on you. Because these behaviors are so small and the program so flexible, emotional risk is eliminated. There is no real failure in Tiny Habits. There a