The Secret Formula to Creating New Habits That Stick

Want to get fit, stop smoking, read more, drink less or learn the guitar?

Starting a new habit or ending one can be harder said than done.

Why do we make new year's resolutions and always end up breaking them, myself included?

We say to ourselves we are going to start exercising, we get a gym membership and go for a few weeks and slowly, but surely, slip back into our old habits and routines and never see the gym again until next year when we make the same new years' resolution.

Once you know the secret to behaviour change, you won’t make the same mistake again.

There’s a formula that a man by the name of Dr BJ Fogg which will help you understand your behaviour and how you can change it.

 

 

The formula is:

B = MAT

Behaviour
Motivation
Ability
Trigger

For a given behaviour you need motivation, the ability to do it and a trigger that signals when you should do it.

 

Let’s take answering your mobile phone as an example:

1. You hear your mobile ring - Trigger
2. You are sat right next to it - Ability
3. You check the screen, it’s your boss, probably wanting you to do overtime - Motivation
4. You ignore the phone - Behaviour

 

You had the trigger, you had the ability, but you didn’t have the motivation.

Therefore the behaviour wasn’t carried out!

 

One more example:

1. The alarm goes off and it’s 6 am
2. You could hit the snooze button or continue sleeping
3. You realise it’s a work day
4. You get up and get ready for work

 

So the trigger was your alarm going off, the ability to hit snooze was there and your motivation was probably very high to press it, but then reality takes over and you realise that the bills won’t pay themselves and you proceed to get up and ready.

The key to using this formula is knowing that your ability to do something and your motivation to do it along with a trigger is what’s needed for the behaviour to be carried out.

Without all three the behaviour will not happen.

 
You need a trigger, the motivation and the ability to carry out a certain behaviour.

 

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If you have a trigger, the ability and no motivation, you won’t do it.

If you have the ability and the motivation with no trigger, you won’t do it.

If you have the trigger, the motivation and no ability, you won’t do it.

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Behaviour = Motivation + Ability + Trigger

 

Want to start Jogging?

Well, you need to set yourself a trigger, such as setting a notification on your mobile to go off at a certain time or for you to attach the behaviour of jogging to a pre-existing habit, such as when you get home from work you will choose to go jogging.

The next step is motivation, make it so simple and really easy to do and I mean really easy to do (you can increase the difficulty over time).

So you could say I’ll go for a five-minute jog, remember the key to creating long-lasting habits is to start small and repeat these small actions until you do them automatically without thought, kinda like smoking?

Ability, do you have the ability to jog for five minutes non stop?

If not then change things, make it a ten-minute walk instead and decrease the difficulty to the point of it being almost effortless.

The key is to balance your ability with your motivation, not forgetting to set a trigger.

New habits form when they are easy, simple and you have the motivation, ability and trigger to carry them out.

Think about your behaviour the next time the phone rings, you get a notification on your favourite app or your friend offers you a cigarette when you’re trying to quit.