What’s a “golden behavior?”
Stanford Doctor B.J. Fogg wrote an interesting book called Tiny Habits. He shares a lot of habit research in the book, but recently, one peculiar little idea stuck out to me.
“A golden behavior has three criteria.
The behavior is effective in realizing your aspiration (impact)
You want to do the behavior (motivation)
You can do the behavior (ability)”
Fogg describes a “golden behavior” as a habit that’s particularly effective in changing one’s life for the better. We all have habits, some of them harmful, most of them benign, some of them good. A golden behavior propels us toward a better life; a life that’s attuned with our goals.
Fogg’s criteria is helpful here. When we consider turning a behavior into a habit, we should ask if that habit helps us achieve our aspirations. This doesn’t necessarily need to be a work-focused aspiration—it could help us in our social life, with fitness, in our relationships, our lifestyle. Before choosing just any random good thing, we should first consider a few of our aspirations.
Fogg’s second “golden behavior” criteria is that we should want to do the behavior. We should design the behavior in a way that’s as enjoyable as possible. Setting up a good environment, choosing something we like, finding the right time. To use fitness as an example here, there may be some exercises you despise, while others you don’t mind. If you want to gain momentum on a fitness journey, start with the things you know you enjoy.
The third criteria is that we can actually do the behavior. This is where so many goals lose steam, and crawl to halt. We’re too ambitious! We believe the lie that small actions won’t amount to anything. So we tell ourselves we’re going to paint a masterpiece each day, or write a whole book in one try, or post every single day from now on. We stretch for something we think we can accomplish, instead of choosing consistency with something we know we can accomplish, even on busy days.
Start here: what are your aspirations? If you want to bring those a little closer, design a behavior that you want to do, that you know you can do, and that brings your aspiration a little bit closer.
