Simple behavioral changes via "Tiny Habits"

I read a book once that convinced me that habits can only be replaced, not created. To me, that was extremely convenient and served as the rationale for not changing things that worked well for me, but not so much for others.

Till I came across Dr B J Fogg and his "tiny habits". Its a very simple approach, basically trying to engender small behavioral changes by weaving in what he calls "tiny habits", and repeating them till they are ingrained.

For these to be successful, a tiny habit :

• has an anchor .
• is what it is - tiny. Involves an activity that can be done in less than 30 seconds and you're seeking to make a habit 

With gusto, I signed up for his session on Tiny Habits, looking to change my world, before I changed other's. Have to admit, for a free coaching session that was trying to effect behavioral change, the process was remarkably efficient.

I set out to change 3 of my behaviors that I noticed was - surprisingly - annoying others.

• inject some positivism into my day by reminding myself, first thing in the morning, of the great day I was going to have.
• put my shoes away once home from work
• load my lunch box in the dishwasher once home from work.

What surprised me the most was how the changes threw up the inefficiencies around how I was organized. eg with the goal of putting away my shoes on walking in, I realized that my prevailing approach was rooted in where I'd park my car once home( in the driveway), where the shoe rack was(in the garage) and how I'd enter my home(via the front door rather than the garage!).And once I walk in thru the door, I dislike walking around the house with my shoes on, so it needs to be off and there it would lie till the next day.

Cultivating this tiny habit called for:

• taking off shoes on walking in
• picking them up and walking into the garage thru the connecting door(which is slightly jammed)
• bend down to stow away the shoes on the lowest spots(age, bad back etc) - the upper ones are taken by whoever came in before me.

I think the key is to determine the sequences that help or hinder the development of a habit. And address them one by one.

Having encountered success with this, I set out to try it and help Junior who was having a hard time memorizing words to strengthen his vocabulary. So once the flash cards showed up from Walmart, we loaded a few cards on the ring that came with the set and I sat back while the process of goal-setting to cram the set of cards playing out.

The ring hardly saw any movement in the following days.

Tiny habits to the rescue. What would be a good anchor and goal to develop this tiny habit?

Anchor: ?

After a lot of deliberation, we anchored on "After I hit the bed at the end of my day". Now onto the goal.

First iteration: I will go through my set of flash cards.

Fails the sniff test. Takes more than 30 seconds and is not really tiny.

Second iteration: Reduce the number of cards to , say , 10. Still fails. It takes about 5 seconds to go through a word, especially if its new.

Third iteration: I will pick up the ring the cards are on.

Eureka!  If you've managed to remember to pick up the ring, the rest is a matter of course.