In Behavior Design, weâve named this temporary surge in motivation the Motivation Wave. Iâm sure youâve experienced this before: Your motivation crested, then came crashing down. And maybe you blamed yourself for not sustaining it. Youâre not to blame. This is how motivation works in our lives.
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Motivation is often unreliable when it comes to home improvement. And itâs also unreliable with diets, exercise routines, creative projects, filing taxes, opening businesses, searching for jobs, planning conferencesâselfimprovement of all types. The Motivation Monkeyâs traps are stealthy and numerous. They catch you whether youâre facing a big project or attempting to change your habits.
Hereâs the unfortunate thingâmost people believe motivation is the true engine of behavior change. Words like ârewardsâ and âincentivesâ get thrown around with such regularity that most people think you can create whatever habits you want if you find the right carrot to dangle in front of yourself. This kind of thinking is understandable, but it also happens to be wrong.
Yes, motivation is one of three elements that drives behavior. The problem is that motivation is often fickle, and this chapter digs deeper into the challenges it presents.
When we match ourselves with behaviors that we already want to do, not what we think we should do, there is no need to fuss with motivational tricks or techniques later. We take the Motivation Monkey out of commission.
Notice that Krieger and Systrom nailed the motivation component by choosing a behavior that people already wanted to do. According to the Behavior Model, they were already in good shape. That alone might have brought them some success. But what they did next catapulted them into the pantheon of Silicon Valley demigodsâthey made their Golden Behaviors easy to do.
If youâve created a Context Prompt and itâs not working, you are not doing anything wrong. You probably donât lack motivation or willpower. Do yourself a favorâdonât blame yourself. Redesign the prompt instead. Find what prompt works for you.
Success leads to success. But hereâs something that may surprise you. The size of the success doesnât seem to matter very much. When you feel successful at something, even if itâs tiny, your confidence grows quickly, and your motivation increases to do that habit again and perform related behaviors. I call this success momentum. Surprisingly enough, this gets created by the frequency of your successes, not by the size. So with Tiny Habits you are shooting for a bunch of tiny successes done quickly. Not a big one that takes a long time.