Have you ever found yourself wishing that when it comes to caring for your wellbeing, you had just a little more motivation or willpower? After all, if you could just find a way to feel more motivated, surely it would be easy to get out of bed early each morning and make it to the gym. And if you just had a little more willpower, wouldnt it be so much easier to resist those sugary temptations you struggle to resist.

When it comes to changing our behaviors, the problem is that motivation and willpower are shape-shifters by nature, which makes them unreliable, explained Professor BJ Fogg, author of Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything when I interviewed him recently. For example, your motivation for self-improvement vanishes when youre tired, and your willpower decreases from morning to evening. In contrast, my research has found that by keeping changes small and expectations low, you can design around fair-weather friends like motivation and willpower.

BJ acknowledges that one tiny action to care for your wellbeing may feel insignificant at first, but it allows you to gain the momentum you need to ramp up to bigger challenges and faster progress. In fact, if you can get even 1% better each day for one year, youll be 365% better by the time the year is done.

So how can you make tiny changes that will improve your wellbeing?

BJs research has found that behavioral change happens when your motivation your desire to do a behavior your ability your capacity to do the behavior and a prompt a cue to do the behavior all come together at the same moment. He describes this as the Fogg Behavior Change Model, B = M + A + P, and we need all of these three to be present for an action to be taken.

BJ suggests that you can bring these elements together in seven simple steps:

What tiny changes can you make to improve your wellbeing?

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How Tiny Habits Trump Motivation & Willpower - Thrive Global