Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything

The Ability Chain is a set of “links” that connect together to make an action easy or hard to do. The Chain has five links: time, money, physical ability, mental energy, and easy fit into routines. A serious weakness in any of the links of this chain can cause it to break, but a careful study of each link, and how it affects a person’s ability to perform a new behavior, can help Habiteers to better design habits so they have a higher chance of success.

Fogg considers the word “goal” to be unclear: “If someone says ‘goal,’ you can’t be sure what they are talking about since the word is ambiguous” (51). Therefore, in Tiny Habits, the correct word is Aspiration or Outcome.

Behavior Design is the process of building Tiny Habits. There are seven steps, divided into three parts:

Select

Step 1: Clarify the Aspiration

Step 2: Explore Behavior Options

Step 3: Match with Specific Behaviors

Design

Step 4: Start Tiny

Step 5: Find a Good Prompt

Implement

Step 6: Celebrate Successes

Step 7: Troubleshoot, Iterate, and Expand (277).

Behavior Design can be used to solve all kinds of problems beyond curing bad habits. Though the book is called Tiny Habits, it might easily have been titled Behavior Design, as that is the fundamental theory proposed by the book, while Tiny Habits is a specific method of using Behavior Design.