Musings on the Tiny Habits® method

The Big Idea

Consider this: Taking a step back can actually help you to step forward! I recently finished another round of a leadership program I facilitate with a global organization. The program includes monthly coaching sessions for leaders to come together and chat about various leadership topics. The value of these sessions is that the leaders actually get to take a breath and reflect on what’s going on. I love facilitating these conversations because I also get to reflect on the topic for myself and think about how I'm doing professionally. How often do you stick your head up and look around? Most people I work with tend to just stay in execution mode until they collapse exhausted at the end of the day and then get up and do it all over again. Last month I shared tips about reflecting and journal habits. If a daily or weekly reflection isn't your thing, maybe June or the summer months could be a natural time to step back and consider where you are at with your annual goals, your aspirations and even just to think about what's going well for you right now. And if the next couple of months look super busy or you find it hard to separate what's important from everything else, don't worry! These tips are useful no matter where you are at. Go back to your values Have you thought about your core values lately? They are there guiding your thoughts and actions whether you acknowledge them or not! Putting some specifics words to what is really important can help you focus and better understand why something has your attention. If you haven't done a values assessment, here is a free tool to try: Personal Values Assessment (PVA) - Barrett Values Centre Cut through the noise There are lots of tools out there to help you prioritize. The one that seems to work best for my clients (and is the easiest to understand) is the urgent/important grid, also known as the Eisenhower matrix (US President Eisenhower famously used this approach). Here is a good summary: How To Be More Productive Using the Eisenhower Matrix | Indeed.com The idea is that you focus on the stuff that is urgent AND important first and get it out of the way. Then you schedule in the stuff that is important but not urgent (and is typically the stuff that we put aside even though we really do need to work on it!). The rest we delegate or ignore...which is where most of us probably need to do some work! How much of your time is spent on non-urgent, non-important items? Take the next step Thinking about your core values or how you are spending your time are both super important reflection points. Either one will give you insight that you may be missing right now. If you want to go for gold, put it all together and ask yourself: based on my core values, what can I delegate or ignore this summer? (Giving yourself a specific timeframe to test this out is a great brain hack! So, just try it out for two months and see how it goes.)

Coaching Questions

Here are some questions to help you stick your head up and look around:

What’s important to you right now?

What values are connected to this?

What can you let go of this summer?

What would that give you?

Tiny Habits

If you are new to Tiny Habits or want some support building these habits, click here . Here are some habits to try. Please adapt to fit your circumstances!

After I step outside, I will look up at the sky and take a deep breath (a seasonal habit for you to try!)

After I add a new task to my list, I will ask myself could I delegate this?

After I sit down at my desk first thing in the morning, I will think of my core values (pro-tip: print or write out your core values so they are visible!)

As always, to wire in new habits quickly, we need to attach a positive emotion to the new behaviour. Make sure you smile or do something to send a positive signal to your brain each time you do your new habit.

Summary

Now might be a great time for you to take stock of how the year is going and to refocus on what's important.  

1. Reconnect with what's important to you by considering your core values.

2. Let go of things that are neither urgent nor important.  

3. Give yourself some time in the next couple of months to step away!

The Big Idea

Consider this: Having a regular check-in routine can help you feel organized AND resilient! It’s hard to go anywhere these days without running into an article on journaling and its benefits. It seems to me that a whole new industry has popped up to entice you to buy fancy pens, journals, systems to keep you productive (I am particularly susceptible!). Even my 13-year-old asked for a bullet journal for her birthday - thank you TikTok! Here is my approach, with hopes that you can take something from it and make it your own. If you already have a routine around this, I would love to hear what you do and how it helps you. Bookends to my week I have two moments in my work week where I take a moment to reflect on what’s going on and to capture ideas, worries, wins and anything else taking up space. It started with a Friday morning habit to reflect on the week and to find something “good”. I use the “win, learn, change” model to capture my thoughts: Win: what were my wins this week? Tiny is encouraged (again, no surprise there!)  – so just opening my journal is a win. Learn: what did I learn this week? (from my wins or just in general) Change: what do I want to do differently going forward? After my Friday habit was in place, I added in a Monday morning reflection as a way to check-in before I open my email and get pulled in different directions. I have a set of questions I use: How am I feeling? How do I want to feel? How do I want to show up this week? What would make this a great week? Once I added the Monday reflection, I eventually realized I should review that last question on Fridays (what would make this a great week?). I now do a quick reflection on that Monday ‘wish’ in my Friday journal. And here is one of those resilience lessons: I don’t always get what I hoped would happen on Monday and yet, I still have wins on Friday. Why it works In terms of a habit – the Monday and Friday routine works for me because they feel like different days from the rest of the week and I don't typically have a meeting first thing on those days. For me, doing it every day would feel like too much, so I am sticking with what feels right. From a productivity point of view, I find the Monday questions help me transition into work mode and provide a bit of focus (what do I need to do to make it a great week?). From a resilience point of view, the Friday model helps me focus on the wins that I might otherwise skip over and it provides a nice historical document to look over to see all that I’ve come through. Finally, I think capturing what’s on your mind in some 'artefact' is important. You are externalizing some of those inner thoughts in a way that you can review over time. I’ve definitely shed a few tears after writing down my thoughts. Seeing them on the page can be an eye-opener! What else? I once read a productivity tip about capturing your work in progress and any notes before you end your work week so that on Monday morning you can quickly pick up where you left off. I like this idea, but I don’t have a solid routine around it. When I think of it, I do put a few things on my Monday to-do list before I close down my laptop on Fridays. I know some colleagues and clients who have really benefited from creating an end of day habit to capture important items and I’ve even helped them to come up with the right sequence to make it stick. For now, it’s not a habit that I feel I personally need. I’ll keep you posted on that one! And last tip - find what feels good for you.

Coaching Questions

Here are some questions to help you reflect on what you are already doing:

What do you already do to check-in with how your week is going?

How does that help you feel more productive or resourceful?

What could you do to make that more consistent throughout your week?

Where do you want to start?

Tiny Habits

If you are new to Tiny Habits or want some support building these habits, click here . Here are some habits to try. Please adapt to fit your circumstances!

After I sit down at my desk on Mondays, I will ask myself “what would make this a great week?”

After I open my email on Mondays, I will write down one word to describe how I’m feeling

After I press start on the coffee machine on Friday, I will think of one win from the week

After I open my calendar on Fridays, I will grab my journal

As always, to wire in new habits quickly, we need to attach a positive emotion to the new behaviour. Make sure you smile or do something to send a positive signal to your brain each time you do your new habit.

Summary

Stepping back and reflecting on how things are going helps us to focus on what's really important and stay resourceful.  

1. Find the right day/moment in your week to create a weekly check-in.

2. Use a question or the win/learn/change model to help you reflect on what's going on/what has your attention.

3. Capture your thoughts in a way that you can go back over them to see what has shifted and what still remains!

The Big Idea

Consider this: Resiliency is like an elastic band – we can stretch ourselves and feel tension under pressure and we should bounce back to our original shape once things ease up. I like using this analogy when talking about resiliency because most people can picture what it feels like to stretch an elastic band: it starts out easy and then gets harder as you reach the limits of the band and when you let go, the elastic band should spring back to its original shape. But sometimes you go too far and then…ouch! The sting of the band snapping against your skin is painful. So, we all need to know where those edges are. And everyone's elastic band is a little bit different. The things that cause you to feel that pressure are specific to you, which means we need to do a little reflecting. Call it out Take a minute to think about your elastic band. What stretches you to your limits? What state is your elastic band in right now? Just saying “there is too much on my plate right now” can actually be very helpful. This has long been a practice in psychology, the “name it to tame it” approach.

Coaching Questions

Here are some questions to help you reflect on how things are going right now:

How stretched is your elastic band right now?

What are all the things that are stretching you right now?

What is one thing you could let go of right now?  

Tiny Habits

If you are new to Tiny Habits or want some support building these habits, click here . These habits can help you check-in with how you are feeling. Please adapt to fit your circumstances!

After I sit down at my desk in the morning, I will ask myself how am I feeling today?

After I feel that panic rising, I will say to myself “there is a lot going on”.

After I leave a meeting, I will relax my shoulders (OR my jaw OR check in with where you hold stress)

As always, to wire in new habits quickly, we need to attach a positive emotion to the new behaviour. Make sure you smile or do something to send a positive signal to your brain each time you do your new habit.

Summary

Checking in with how you are doing on a regular basis is one way to help you build resiliency.  

1. Pay attention to what creates stress for you and how stretched you are currently.

2. Call it out!

3. Create some daily habits to check-in with how you are feeling.

The Big Idea

Consider this: Work-life balance is all about expectations and how you set and manage those expectations...especially when things are hard. Okay, first let's start by recognizing that it is a privilege to even consider or expect there to be some kind of balance between our working hours and our personal time. Many people will never get this luxury. And second, when things are tough, we all need ways to lower expectations for ourselves and for others. And yes, it can be hard to give ourselves permission to let go of some things. Here are a few approaches that I use with my clients to explore expectations. Wheel of life To surface your expectations, try using a wheel of life to get a sense of what’s going on in your life right now. After rating yourself, what reactions do you have? Do you feel like you should be higher in certain areas? Notice those emotions. Those could be areas where your expectations are clashing with reality. Do you have explanations for why your ratings (especially low ratings) are the way they are? Those explanations could be examples of you managing expectations! Core values Another way to help manage expectations is to check-in with your core values. What is really important to you? When our core values are not aligned with how we are spending our time, it won’t feel very ‘balanced’. Having an open conversation about what feels out of synch with a friend, a trusted colleague or even just yourself can do a few things: it can surface what you've been feeling, which is a big first step! Sometimes you will also see a way to either accept this reality (hopefully for the short-term) or to do something to change the situation. 10/10/10 And finally, a quick and great reflection tool. Ask yourself: Will this matter in 10 minutes? In 10 months? In 10 years? I used this approach as I made some choices last week on how to spend my time. I could have worked ahead, stayed on top of some deadlines. Instead, I chose family and friends and asked for an extension on the deadlines because in 10 months or 10 years the work deadline wouldn’t matter.

Coaching Questions

Here are some questions to help you reflect:

What can you let go of right now?

What would that give you?

What is really important to you right now?

What do you want to do about that?

What support do you need?

Tiny Habits

If you are new to Tiny Habits or want some support building these habits, click here . Here are some sample habits to help you check in with yourself and how you are feeling. You need that moment of pause to help call out expectations or to reflect on what is within your control to change right now. After I sit down at my desk in the morning, I will ask myself ‘what is important to me today?’ OR After I sit down at my desk, I will take a deep breath OR After I feel stress rising, I will ask myself “is this worth it?” OR After I feel stressed, I will ask myself ‘what is my expectation here?’ To wire in new habits quickly, we need to attach a positive emotion to the new behaviour. Make sure you smile or do something to send a positive signal to your brain each time you do your new habit.  

Summary

When things get tough around you, checking in and adjusting expectations is crucial to staying resilient. Be kind to yourself!

Remember that work-life balance is really work-life expectations. Surface and communicate your expectations.

Reflect on what is really important to you – what can you let go of, especially when things are hard?

Create some habits to check in with how you are feeling throughout the day so that you can begin to notice when stress is building.

The Big Idea

Consider this: To be productive, you need to have a clear sense of your key tasks and priorities. If your tasks/responsibilities are set for you, now might be a good time to check-in with your boss or team to make sure everyone agrees on what is a priority for this month/quarter/year. If you are self-employed or the boss, now is still a good time to review your business priorities and objectives for the year! To help you bring those priorities down to a daily level, there are many different tools and approaches to filter out the “to-do’s” and the “to-don’ts”. Here are a couple of my favourites (I have no personal affiliation - they are just things I've found helpful). Peter Bregman's six box approach The idea is to identify your top five priorities for the year. Then every day, you use this approach to guide your task list. Read an overview here. Pomodoro technique The classic approach to help you focus by working in short chunks of time (15-25 min). For me, this works well if I only use it when I really need it. Also, make sure you turn off your notifications before starting! Read about it here.

Coaching Questions

Here are some questions to help you reflect

What would feeling more productive at the end of the day give you?

What’s important about that?

What do you already do that helps you feel productive?

How can you do that more consistently or bring that to other parts of your life/day?

Tiny Habits

Below are some ‘recipes’ you can use to create Tiny Habits around productivity. If you are new to Tiny Habits or want some support building these habits, click here . The habits below assume you already have a planning tool (electronic or paper) where you can capture your priorities and tasks. If not, that might be a one-time behaviour to find a tool you like first. Remember, these identify the starter step or tiny version that you can do every day and that can build to something bigger. After I sit down at my computer first thing in the morning, I will open my planner. - OR - After I open my email, I will look at my six boxes. - OR - After I sit down at my desk, I will set a timer for 15 mins. After I close my computer at the end of the day, I will think of one thing I made progress on. - OR - After I stand up from my desk at the end of the day, I will smile and tell myself “I did good today”. And after your chosen habit - make sure you CELEBRATE to wire it in quickly!

Summary

The results are in from my pilot program to test out Tiny Habits for leaders. Over the three-week program, we talked about leadership behaviours and how to create Tiny Habits to help you be a better leader. Here is what I learned from that experience:

Successes I had a lot of fun doing this program! I loved explaining the method and helping participants work through the various situations they were trying to improve. I want to do more with this program.

Based on participant feedback, all of the participants really liked the live sessions (once a week) where I presented an aspect of the Tiny Habits approach and we had a chance to share progress, challenges and successes. The additional resources and individual coaching I provided throughout the program were also well received and helped improve the learning experience for participants. 

The habits that were most successful for participants were the personal habits (flossing teeth etc.) as well habits related to productivity at work. Here are some great examples of Tiny Habits from participants:

After I unplug my phone in the morning, I will open my to do list.

After I sip my first coffee, I will think of one priority for the day.

After I sit down after a meeting, I will take a deep breath.

Lessons learned The program needs to be longer than three weeks. It was too rushed to give participants enough of the ‘system’ around habit formation, get them to test it out and then draw conclusions on what works for them. 

Most participants tried to work on ‘advanced’ habits. As BJ Fogg always says, habit formation is a skill. In future programs, I will definitely encourage participants to stick with easier habits to learn the method before they dive into harder areas. You gotta walk before you can run. Also, a key component of Tiny Habits is to feel success as you build a new habit. I need to reinforce this concept more.  

My pilot program on Tiny Habits® for Effective Leadership has enough participants to get started! I’ve got CEOs, directors, senior specialists and administrators from across North and Latin America, Australia and Europe who want to participate. The program will run for three weeks and will be a combination of some light theory around core leadership skills along with the Tiny Habits method. Participants will gather informal feedback, consider their current strengths and then pick an area to focus on for their Tiny Habits practice. 

I’m excited to see how we can use Tiny Habits to help leaders be more effective. My hypothesis is that behaviours around trust, effective communication and mindset will be the best ones to focus on from a leadership development point of view. The question is, how will that fit with the Tiny Habits method? I’ve always felt that Tiny Habits around health and wellness are the easiest ones for people to develop, so the mindset habits should be pretty easy to build. I’m curious about the trust and communications ones. They seem a bit more complicated. What is the tiniest, starter step to get someone to trust you? 

I recently helped someone in the free 5-day program work out a habit to help them ask more questions (instead of giving answers) with their staff. We ended up with this: After a staff member comes into my office, I will think “be curious.” That tiny, starter step could actually grow to help the leader build trust, communicate effectively and have a more positive mindset all in one. As Behavioural Scientist and originator of the Tiny Habits method, BJ Fogg, says: “If you plant a tiny seed in the right spot, it will grow without coaxing.” 

Here is my personal list of Tiny Habits, based on BJ Fogg’s Tiny Habit method.

1. After my feet touch the floor in the morning, I will say ‘today is going to be a great day’. (automatic, no matter where I am)

2. After I greet my daughter in the morning, I will give her a hug. (mostly automatic)

3. After Millie pulls on the leash, I will relax my shoulders. (mostly automatic)

4. After I see someone in the street in the morning, I will make eye contact. (new habit - already increased to “say hello”)

5. After I push start on the coffee machine, I will say “I can win new work”. (weekday habit only, automatic)

6. After I pour water in my espresso, I will look at the coffee grinds. (now, I dump out the grinds and wipe off the machine, automatic)

7. After I write my to-do list for the day, I will do a 10 second plank (now a 1 min plank plus a 30 sec side plank on each side, weekday habit only - automatic)

8. After I check my email in the morning, I will open my client list. (weekday habit now shifting to “write down one person to contact” mostly automatic)

8. After I hear the hourly news on the radio, I will stand up (now I stretch). (weekday habit - automatic)

9. After I pee, I will do 2 push-ups (now 8 push-ups plus 4 squats). (automatic weekday habit)

10. After I finish my glass of water, I will stand up (now go and refill glass). (new habit, becoming automatic)

11. After I pour a glass of water, I will look at the water jug (now I fill it up each time - automatic) I also have a glute exercise I do while pouring the water!

12. After I press start on the microwave at lunch, I will stand on one foot. (now do balance positions). (mostly automatic)

13. After I answer a phone call, I will stand up. (automatic)

14. After I step onto the front porch after a run, I will untie my shoe laces. (automatic)

15. After I take off my running shirt, I will pick up my massage ball. (now rolling out hamstring) Changed: After I take my shoes off..(automatic)

16. After I finish my last bite of dinner, I will look at my choir binder. PAUSED (currently on a break from choir)

17. After I turn on the nightly news, I will sit on the floor. (moving towards some nighttime stretching.) Not working - need to revisit this one!

18. After I brush my teeth at night, I will floss one tooth (now I floss all of them). (Automatic - no matter where I am! )

19. After I open my book in bed, I will do 5 kegel exercises. (automatic, no matter where I am)

20. After I turn out the light at night, I will think of one thing I’m grateful for (now I think of one thing about each of my family members that I’m grateful for - automatic, no matter where I am)

New habits (2021):

After I sit down on my bed, I will pick up the bottle of hand cream (automatic). 

After I look in the mirror, I will smile (automatic).

After I walk into the kitchen, I will look at the back door (expanding to step outside, look up at the sky) (mostly automatic).

After I hear birds singing, I will listen for different bird songs (automatic).

After I create a calendar invite, I will write “the purpose of this meeting is to...” (automatic)

Emotions create habits not willpower!

One of the key components to Standford behavioural scientist BJ Fogg’s Tiny Habits ® approach is that you have to celebrate each time you do your new habit. Emotions create habits, not the number of repetitions, or the length of time you do something or even willpower. The emotions you feel during or immediately after doing the habit are what wire that new routine into your brain, making you want to do it again in the future. Consider if you have ever done one of those cleanses or a dry January. After you finish the official program part, do you revert back to your normal routine? Probably. 

The Tiny Habits method is to pick something super small to start with and celebrate that tiny first step every time (until it really does become automatic). The celebration creates that positive emotion to cue those good feelings and repeat performance. 

Really? I’ll admit. I was skeptical at first. When I first did the 5 day program, I thought: “Sure, I can celebrate. Wohoo.” I didn’t do it consistently after my new habits but I had pretty good success during the week (the daily check-in emails reminded me to keep it top of mind). Then the week ended and the habits didn’t stick. Oh well. On to the next thing. The thing that did stay with me though was the value of identifying a starter step to a habit. That just makes sense to me. In my work, I have always tried to get people to chunk concepts down into those starter concepts. So, I wanted to figure out why celebrating was so important. 

The break through The best analogy or example that helped me to consider the importance of celebrations and how emotions are linked to habit formation was something BJ Fogg shared during the coaching certification program I took:

Consider athletes. What do they do when they score or win an event? There seems to be an almost universal response to raise their arms in the air. They hug their team mates. They do a fist pump or make the gesture of a lightening bolt! Why do they do that? BJ Fogg would suggest that they are telling their brains to pay attention - that’s the behaviour they want to do again in the future. They celebrate the precise moment and create a positive emotion, sending signals to the brain to record the sequence of actions that created that emotion.  

If you want a layperson’s example, think about your reaction when you throw something into a garbage can. If you succeed, what is your automatic reaction? (“Yes!”) That’s you celebrating. So, we need to bring that kind of reaction to our new habits to help us take them on quickly and make them ultimately automatic. 

Okay, so how do I celebrate? Once I was convinced that celebrating was necessary to create and keep new habits, then I had to figure out what worked for me. The common ones suggested were things like saying “awesome” or “yay me” or doing a fist pump or something like that. I tried saying ‘yay me’ for a while. Or doing a little pat on the back. They sort of worked. The most important piece of advice I give my coachees is to really work on finding a celebration that makes you feel like you do when you throw something and it lands in the bin! For me, it ended up being smiling. I have to physically smile to get that positive emotion in my body. 

And the cool thing? I’m pretty good at forming new habits now. I’ve got the system down. And it feels pretty great to know that I can adapt and change my daily routine to fit my needs. Yasss! [smile]

When I’m coaching people on the Tiny Habits® approach, I will inevitably get someone who checks in and tells me that they didn’t do their Tiny Habit as planned but remembered later on. I have had this experience too when I set my sights on a new habit I want to do and then realize half way through the day that I totally forgot to do it. People usually apologize and write that they will try better tomorrow. But this is when I celebrate and tell my coachees (or “habiteers” as BJ Fogg calls them) that they are awesome! That moment of remembering that you forgot to do your Tiny Habit is a fantastic sign. From what I’ve learned through my coaching certification and by studying the Tiny Habits method, that is your brain working on wiring in the new routine. So, that is a big moment to celebrate, like hands up - high five - fist pump celebration. If I start to notice that I’m consistently forgetting and then remembering my Tiny Habit after a specific event, then it’s time to review my ‘recipe’ and my anchor moments to see whether my new habit would be better paired to another specific and ideally automatic moment in my day. So, forgetting (and then remembering) your Tiny Habits can actually lead to some amazing insights!

When I’m coaching people on the Tiny Habits® approach the most common bit of feedback and help I have to give is on what tiny really means. Lots of people think they’ve got something small enough but it often misses the point of why it’s meant to be tiny. So, here are some thoughts on the why and the how of truly Tiny Habits.

Why should it be tiny? 

The Tiny Habits method tries to reduce the motivation or will power required to stick with the habit. The idea is to find the very first starter step towards a habit and make it so easy to do that you don’t need motivation to do it. (Of course, it helps a lot when you WANT to do the habit. Stopping habits are a whole other area that BJ Fogg is still researching!) A good analogy is to think of running a marathon. If you set a goal to run a marathon, as an amateur athlete, you wouldn’t just go out and run the entire distance. You would start with shorter runs and build your way up to the full distance. So, when you want to develop a habit of cleaning up the kitchen after dinner, you don’t tell yourself to just start cleaning up the kitchen. You need to break it down to the very first OR smallest step towards that goal. Maybe it’s cleaning one dish. That’s a tiny step towards cleaning up all the mess...because it’s just one dish. How long would that take? 

How do I know it’s tiny?

And so we get to the ‘how’. You know you’ve got a Tiny Habit when you can see yourself doing that step when you are tired, sick, stressed, rushed or any other barrier that you might decide to put up against your tiny step. Even if I’m rushing, I can probably rinse one dish after dinner. Even when I’m tired, I can floss one tooth. So, that’s the test. Does it seem ridiculously tiny? Could I do it no matter what else was going on that day? If you think ‘yeah, probably’. Okay! We’ve got something we can work with. 

And then we have to lock it down, which gets to the ‘anchor’ and the celebration - the crucial bookends for the Tiny Habits method...which I’ll get to in another post.