As Habit Labs winds down, I've spent a couple weeks trying to distill everything I've learned about habits from the last couple products I've built (health month.com, bud.ge) into something cohesive and NOT product-specific. This manifesto of sorts is what I've come up with so far.

I'd love to get feedback and dive deeper into the conversation with a few of my most admired habit-studiers out there.

What do you disagree with, or agree with, or think needs to be fleshed out a bit more from this post: wayoftheduck.com

Yes, I think this is an excellent writeup of how to do habit design. I wonder, though, if it's too rational. I'm observing a lot of people who are creating new habits and the harder ones seem to start as random bursts of motivation-like you happened to go three days without drinking coffee.

Good call... I do have a tendency to be a little hyper-rational when dissecting things. How would you sum up a tip around random bursts of motivation?

Overall, this was really well thought out and put together. Nice job Buster!

Regarding some specific points:
#5 - I think this goes very much in line with how people are thinking about mindfulness these days. Being in the moment when accomplishing actions is super important to understanding why you really engage in something. Could be that mindfulness is a window to intrinsic motivation.

#10 - I can't agree with this enough. One of the biggest things I've been thinking about, thanks to help from others, is to think of behaviors and behavior change as experiments. When they dont' go well, or they don't work out they way you thought they might, it doesn't mean YOU are a failure, it means that experiment fails.

I've also been thinking lately about how values feed into our behaviors and habits.

For instance, the idea that once you set a behavior you just do it seems to be a bit empty to me. While I'm all for triggers, I think we have to think hard about how we be reducing our behavior to simple "if this then that" recipes for actions. By first asking yourself, "What do I believe?" or "What are my core values?" and finding the behavior(s) that match with those there might be a better way to create the connection between who you are (want to be) and your actions. Not sure if I'm being as eloquent as this deserves . . .

I agree with you 100%. I don't think it's right to think about habits as things that become automatic. Rather, they become infused with our identities, they become an inseparable part of who we are.

In that sense, we're not really in the business of habit change, but in identity change. And that helps explain why it's so difficult.

We can't start a new habit unless we're willing to become a slightly different person as well.

In that vein - maybe we can't really start a new habit/behavior until we accept who are are now. This is one of the reasons I really endorse self-tracking. It is a great way to help people understand who they are and how they interact with the world.

I like your idea of habits/behaviors as identity. I wonder if this goes into your recent look into obituaries - possibly the ultimate say in identity. By examining behaviors/habits as part of our identity we might also open ourselves up to more reflective thinking - "Do my actions match up with who I see myself being? Who I want to be remembered as? How I lead my life?"

In the end we are what we do.

Nice Buster! Nailed it with the guidelines for deciding on how to phrase the statement of your habit. Love all the story examples ("Imagine pac-man dying...")... even more of those?

Why are you still sticking with a monthly review timeframe? I agree with monthly reviews being awesome, but for just starting fledgling habits we often want to adjust faster. How could that be more adaptable? (I guess I am asking for more thoughts on why we built Budge after Health Month.)

One thing that might be worth adding or thinking about is imitation. For me, even merely "calling to mind a person" I admire who practices a habit I'd like to imitate is helpful.

@Ernesto - I love your take on thinking of habit design as experiments that either fail or succeed independent of the value of the person. This is a concept that's very much in the air around startups, where, under the banner of Lean Startup, engineering teams are judging their work on not just wether the task was completed, but also wether it resulted in a positive outcome. It's definitely a hard trick to get people to divorce their pride from the result of their actions.

@Amelia - Great pushback! That seems like a really promising area of research: how can you tell as early as possible if your proto-habit is on the right track?

Buster, I embrace every single one of these tactics but for me, when it comes to designing habits, the tactic needs to match the appropriate strategy.
Each of your tips all work, they just won't all work all the time. I saw this occur in my own journey when I found that the same tactic would backfire when trying to change a different type of behavior.
Thus, I've attempted to categorize the different kinds of behavior change in into matrix and then, layer the tactics on each of the four behavior types.
The 15 min video on the topic and slides are available here: nirandfar.com
As you can see the tactics vary based on the kind of behavior you're trying to change.
Previous iteration with more detail here: nirandfar.com

Buster this is brilliant: "habits ... become infused with our identities, they become an inseparable part of who we are. In that sense, we're not really in the business of habit change, but in identity change. And that helps explain why it's so difficult. We can't start a new habit unless we're willing to become a slightly different person as well."

I couldn't agree more and I think this is a vastly under discussed aspect of behavior change. How do we change ourselves when our psyche wants to hold on to our existing beliefs about who we are? The answer is we don't change. We believe the stories we make-up about who we are and box ourselves into what is possible. A tough problem to crack but the key to long-term change.

Buster, thank you for inviting me to this conversation and for your write-up on Habits. I look at new habits not so much as change, but as development or growth if you like. A way to increase your repertoire to respond to circumstances. For example, people who are overweight as a result of eating too much can add to their repertoire portion control. This may help them to get to a healthier weight. (something they gain - as opposed to losing something e.g. weight).

It is always important to look at what you want rather than don't want. The brain just does not do well with negative instructions. Don't think about a pink elephant is a good example of how you should not instruct yourself.

People in general are of course more attracted to what they do want. In addition, to develop new repertoire it is always good to realize that there was a pay-off with earlier behaviors. So asking the "meaningful question" is important: Why is it meaningful for me to add a new behavior? This is of course different for everyone. Therefore, posing the question if you are a helper e.g. health care provider, is one of the best things you can do because the brain cannot switch a good question off. The thought process then helps to anchor the reasons as to why we should make an effort to develop additional routines.

People develop new skills and add behaviors when they are exposed to a different context. It is one of the fastest ways to change people's behavior. For example, people in concentration camps learned quickly that steeling food was way to survive even though they may not habitually have stolen anything when they were not in captivity. So considering how you can create a (slightly) different context may be helpful.

Another way that helps as you wrote is if others get involved and they show new behaviors towards you. I have some coachees who need to ask more questions when they are in meetings and one came up with the idea to give his direct reports yellow cards and he asked them to just show a yellow card if he was talking too much himself.

On your point of the Lizard Brain or resistance I like to add the reference of Positive Intelligence and the Stanford lecture from Shirzad Chamine which can be found here: youtube.com

@Ernesto @@tonystubblebine I also like the thought of doing experiments when it comes with doing habits. However, I think the polarity success/fail is irrelevant. Instead, I suggest that the outcome of an experiment is always learning. There is no need to use success/fail if the purpose is to develop, grow and advance as a person. When you evaluate the outcome of an experiment, the question to pose is: What am I learning about what works/did not work, what should I continue to do, and what can I do different so that it works even better. There is always something to learn. Thinking in possibilities to move forward is much more helpful than success/fail.

Hey Buster - I took some time to do as you did and share everything I currently understand on the topic - bit.ly - hope you like.

Nick, thank you for sharing. Your expose is very useful to continue the thought process. For example, one underlying assumption is that you first think and change your mindset - what you call set your head straight. So the model is, think first, change attitude, choose a goal etc. But another way that I use successfully in workshops is - act your way into a new way of thinking. In other words, do the behavior - that you may not aspire or do aspire - and then review how that worked out. Working with leaders I have them experience non-directive leadership, which often they all resist (we don't have time for that!). Than we just do it and they experience it actually can work and it has unexpected benefits.

Nice point. You're right that it's a barrier to have to "have your head right" before you begin.

Now, they become enthusiastic and change their attitude. So attitude change/mindset change is a result rather than an input.

Goal setting works for many people. But how do you know you set the right goal? Often, I have found people set goals that limit their progress. Achieving a goal may also lead to losing steam for moving forward. So another type of goal is to say: What can I do to make tomorrow a bit better than today. This is consistent with your point that you make small steps, but you keep moving forward.

Nick, on your google document (great idea, my compliments), you have the "Do I really want this as optional." My suggestion would be to put this all they way at the start of the document because here you would have someone think through the meaningfulness of their effort - it is where you also engage their emotions. And because it is an open question, it ignites their thinking even when they are coin other things. The deeper their rationale, the more likelier they will persevere.

Awesome post, Nick. I'll take a deeper look at it and respond tonight.

Are you aware of: bjfogg.com

@Bou - Yep. Reference him twice in the post!

I wonder what the cultural dimension brings to changing habits and behaviors. I lived for a couple of years in Asia - Japan. People there have, for example, more respect for authority. So when the doctor recommends that they change a behavior, people often follow through because 1) the doctor is a respected authority and 2) they don't want to lose faith the next time they see the doctor. So the change model is:
A) Respected authority clarifies target behavior B) Patient follows through based on respect and avoiding shame.

So Freeman Dyson's saying: It is better to be wrong than to be vague does not work in Japan where being wrong is loss of case and being vague - ambiguous is in fact built-in to the language. So culture does matter.

Look at what lift.do is trying to do for habits.