As the title says, the author of this book was put forward by a man named Fogg. He is a professor at Stanford University. He studied human behavior for decades and finally perfected this model. This model is very simple, but I personally think it is very explanatory and practical. This article will introduce from two aspects:
What is Fogg's behavior pattern?
How to design and establish behavior habits according to Fogg's behavior model?
1 fog behavior model
Fogg's behavior model can be expressed by a simple formula:
Where b stands for behavior, m stands for motivation, a stands for ability and p stands for prompt.
Generally speaking, we can produce some kind of behavior, which is mainly influenced by three factors: Do you want to do it? Are you capable of doing it? Is there a reminder that triggers us to do it?
Based on this model, Fogg also put forward a curve, which is not the change of one quantity with another as we usually understand, but where the outstanding ability will occur, so the curve represents the "line of action" and is not easy to occur at the lower left of this curve; Crossing the curve to the upper right corner, the behavior is easy to happen.
Combined with this curve, the author has four inferences:
Inference 1: If we are more motivated to do something, we are usually more likely to act;
Inference 2: The simpler things are, the more within our ability circle, the more likely we are to take action.
Inference 3: Motivation and ability should cooperate like comrades-in-arms;
Inference 4: Nothing will happen without a reminder.
The other three are easy to understand. How to understand the third one? It is very difficult to think of a recent project. The ability of the project leader is actually limited, but his action is very strong. Why? Because he has a strong motivation to do things well.
In other words, when our ability is insufficient, we need to improve our motivation level to trigger actions, such as giving what we want to do "great significance". For a while, I encountered some obstacles when designing the sound of a car. At that time, I was a little uncertain and doubted whether I could handle it well, but I knew I had to act, so I told myself that after I finished this, I could be in this industry.
Why is it inefficient to only improve motivation?
If you were asked to use this model and curve to design your behavior and form habits, what would you do?
Our usual practice is to improve our willingness or motivation to do it. All kinds of chicken blood you beat, the cake you heard is a typical representative. However, the author believes that this practice is often ineffective. Why?
Because relying on motivation usually has several disadvantages:
Motivation itself is very complicated, and we can have many motivations at the same time. Just like I am writing this article now, on the one hand, I really want to finish this article, and at the same time I really want to go to the movies.
② High-level motivation is usually difficult to maintain and fluctuates frequently; For example, before the exam, we may prepare very carefully because we want to get high marks. Once the exam is over, our motivation will drop, and we may not review and learn relevant knowledge.
Motivation often pursues an abstract feeling and can't help us form actions to achieve concrete results.
This is not easy to understand. What the hell does that mean? For example, our motivation is to make our family happier, but we can't help you form specific actions. You still don't know what to do.
Therefore, just improving our motivation can't help us form sustained action. Therefore, the author's core view is that we should try to design our own behavior from the perspective of ability and reminder.
3 5 steps of behavior design
In view of this situation, the author puts forward five steps of behavior design: clarifying the will, exploring behavior options, matching specific behaviors, starting from micro-habits, and looking for "correct" tips.
3. 1 Step 1 Step: Make a clear wish
Although Fogg emphasized the establishment of habits through ability and tips, we still need to know what our wishes are. In addition to strengthening our behavioral motivation, it is more important to make our subsequent behavioral design directional.
For this reason, Fogg emphasized three different concepts: desire, achievement and behavior.
Desire: a more abstract direction or desire we want to achieve, such as being healthier and stronger;
Results: It is usually easy to measure, such as 8 abdominal muscles or maximal oxygen uptake.
Behavior: What you can do now or at some time, such as doing 100 push-ups now.
Why make such a distinction? I know they are interrelated. By distinguishing this difference, we can help us keep the design behavior consistent with our wishes and achievements in the future.
This reminds me of the popular goal of OKR (Goals and Key Results) management | Besides KPI, why not try a new version-OKR? O (goal) is translated as a goal, but I think it is more like a wish. The key result corresponds to the result, but it does not specify the behavior we want to take. It is just the key answer to "behavior design", that is, what kind of behavior can be designed to better help us produce results and realize our wishes or goals.
3.2 Step 2: Explore Behavior Options
When the desire is clear, the second step is to explore our behavior options. Behavioral options here refer to what actions we can take to achieve our goals. For example, in order to stay energetic, we can take actions from different aspects such as diet, exercise, sleep and emotional management. The author named the set of actions to achieve the same desire as "behavior cluster".
3.3 Step 3: Match specific behaviors
The purpose of exploring behavior options and "behavior clusters" is to show us that we can take different behaviors to realize our wishes, but how to choose? The book mentions a concept of "golden behavior", which should meet three characteristics:
This kind of behavior can make your wish come true (influential);
You want to do this behavior (motivation);
You can do this behavior (ability);
Matching specific behaviors means finding the "golden behavior" as much as possible, which can be found through the "focus map". The map is defined by two-dimensional four-quadrant coordinates. 1 dimension refers to the influence of behavior on the realization of wishes, and the second dimension refers to the difficulty of completing this behavior. The "golden behaviors" are distributed in the upper right corner, that is, those that have great influence on the realization of wishes and at the same time we have the ability to make them.
3.4 Step 4: Start with micro-habits.
In cultivating new habits, the author has a key feeling: big things start with small things, which is similar to what Laozi mentioned in the Tao Te Ching: "Everything is difficult in the world and everything is important in the world."
The author believes that real change usually requires continuous behavior, but to make a behavior more lasting, it needs to be easy, because if it is too difficult, the behavior will be easily interrupted, so the established behavior should be within our ability as much as possible. For example, 1 push-ups per day is definitely easier to last than 100 push-ups per day, so don't worry about whether 1 is useful, because
The difficulty of behavior is relative. For example, running 5 kilometers is nothing to me, but it may be more difficult for some people. What we need to do is to make things easier for ourselves. How? The author mentioned a PCA model, in which P stands for people, C stands for situations and A stands for actions. In order to improve the ease of doing something, we can make behavior easier from three aspects: improving our own skills, creating environmental fields or tools, and making behavior smaller (micro-habit).
3.5 Find the "correct" prompt
As mentioned above, if you want to do an action, you have the ability to do it, but you probably won't do it. A common phenomenon is forgetting that there are many special things, so you need to be prompted.
According to the PCA model, the author divides the prompts into three categories:
P: A reminder from others means reminding you by yourself or others;
C: Environmental reminder, the surrounding environment will remind you to engage in related behaviors. For example, it is easier to start work when you get to the company, and you want to have a rest when you get home.
A: Action reminder. I think this is the most effective reminder. He called it "anchor point". The so-called behavior reminder is to remind one behavior as another. For example, for me, when I turn off my computer after work, I know it's time to put on my sneakers, so I naturally think of running.
When choosing "anchor point", the author suggests that three kinds of matching should be considered:
Matching location: consider the location where the new habit occurs. For example, if you want to get into the habit of walking, eating at noon is a good anchor point, because you are probably already on the road, just walk a little longer;
Matching frequency: How often do you want new habits or behaviors to appear? Once a day or once a week, we can choose the anchor point with the same frequency accordingly. For example, if you want to watch some professional-related content every day, you can set it after washing it every day;
Match Theme/Purpose: The behavior we want to establish is best related to the theme of the anchor point. For example, drinking tea is the anchor point for me to start working or studying seriously, because it can improve my mental state.
What should we do after the anchor point is selected? This is related to the previous steps 3 and 4, that is, after receiving the anchor information, we can start our "golden behavior" or micro-habit.
abstract
Fogg's behavior model (B=MAP) shows us three key elements behind behavior: motivation, ability and reminder.
According to this model, we can design our behaviors and form new habits, which can be accomplished through five steps: defining wishes, exploring behavior options, matching specific behaviors, starting from micro-habits, and finding the correct tips.