How to Form Habits that Stick

A three-step method I learned from BJ Fogg for creating and sticking with habits

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

BJ Fogg is a professor at Stanford University and founded the Behavior Design Lab there. He’s known as a millionaire-maker because many of his students have gone on to create multi-million dollar companies (students like Ramit Sethi, founder of I will teach you to be rich and Mike Krieger, founder of Instagram).

BJ Fogg is the author of Tiny Habits and I learned something interesting about habits that I haven’t learned before. If you stop reading here, I’ll be sad but at least you will walk away with this neat takeaway: match yourself with habits that you want to do.

Here’s how:

Identify a goal

Pretty simple right? We all have goals. This goal in particular is something you want to do. It could be to write a book. Lose weight. Spend more time with the family. Read. It helps to be more specific about what you want to do (using say the SMART framework).

Brainstorm a set of activities

According to your goal, brainstorm different activities that you think will help you reach that goal. If your goal is to read more, you could buy a Kindle, go to the library more often, read during…