BJ Fogg, PhD
Stanford University
Three steps to changing behavior change
Designing for behavior change is systematic. It's not guesswork.
BJ Fogg has created a universal method with three steps.
Step 1: Get Specific
What behavior do you want?
Translate target outcomes and aspirations into specific behaviors.
Step 2: Make it easy.
How can you make the behavior easy to do?
Simplicity changes behavior.
Step 3: Prompt the
behavior.
What will prompt the behavior?
Some prompts are natural. Others you must design.
No behavior happens without a prompt.
Elegant? Yes.
Simplistic? No.
Some rare individuals can intuit a good solution at each step. But you don't need to guess. BJ has created reliable techniques for success.
In Step 1, you can discover the right behaviors by using Fogg's "Magic Wand" technique, followed by "Crispification" and then "Focus Mapping Mapping."
For Step 2, you can use Fogg's three ways to make behavior easier. You consider options for adjusting the context, the person, and the behavior itself.
Step 3 accounts for behavior as part of a dynamic system. Fogg's techniques for "Sequencing," "Domino Actions," and "Starfishing" reveal how to prompt people at the right time, using the right channel.
What is not the Fogg Method?
Some common approaches to behavior change don't work well. Below are examples.
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Bad approach #1: Present information and hope it leads to attitude change and then behavior change.
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Bad approach #2: Give people a big goal and then focus on amping motivation or sustaining willpower.
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Bad approach #3: Move people through psychological stages until they are ready to change.
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Bad approach #4: Assume all behaviors are the result of choices.
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Bad approach #5: Make persuasion techniques, such as scarcity or reciprocity, the starting point for your solution.
Learn more...
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Learn about my book, Tiny Habits: The Small Changes that Change Everything
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Join BJ Fogg's Behavior Design Boot Camp (for industry innovators)
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Enroll in BJ's Stanford course (for students)
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Set up a 15-minute phone chat with BJ (free)