How to redesign your behavior. And win the day.

Has anybody ever told you how human behavior really works? 

No? Me neither.  

Not until recent years anyway, when, well into my working life, I was given an amazing insight, epiphany, mind-blowing revelation. Which I’ll get to in a moment. 

Sure, I’d been walked through the whole behavioral science landscape exploring how economists thought human behavior worked. But much of that seemed complex, complicated, and even, dare I say it, contradictory. And it would probably have taken me about 10 years+ to get my head around it. 

Why is understanding human behavior important?  

Because I‘d worked in advertising most of my life, and my whole job, the thing I was paid to do, was and is inextricably linked to influencing human behavior. 

HR? Certainly. Marketing? It’s essential.  

I’d speculate too that it’s the C-Suite’s number one required job skill. Or should be.  

And anybody who leads a team, hosts a meeting, pitches a client or an idea, does research, is in customer support–any job, that anyone does, will do that work more effectively with a clear understanding in the basics of human psychology.   

I hope you get my drift. 

How human behavior really works. All human behavior. 

I’m going to tell you about a unique, powerful and proven way of looking at why we do things (and why we don’t) called the Fogg Behavior Model.  

And how it made me, and many other professionals in all walks of life, better at the day job–more efficient, productive, and successful, as well as living our lives enjoyably along the way. 

Here, in its entirety, is pretty much everything you need to know about the psychology of human behavior as described by BJ Fogg, the Stanford University Professor behind this work: 

“Behavior happens when the three things come together at the same moment. Motivation to do the behavior. Ability to do the behavior. And a Prompt, the thing that says ‘Do This Behavior Now.” 

That’s it.  

Of course, years of research, innumerable papers and articles, countless column inches and hundreds of hours of podcasts have scrutinised this work. 

But essentially the steppingstones to every action and change in all of life are in those 33 words. 

The Fogg Behavior Model represents the three universal elements of behavior and their relationship to one another. Motivation. Ability. Prompt. And if any one of these is missing, the behavior won’t happen. 

It’s based on principles that show us how these elements work together to drive our every action from flossing our teeth, to starting a business, to building a billion-dollar company.  

Fun fact: BJ Fogg taught the behavior model to one of his students, Mike Krieger, who went on to co-found Instagram. 

You can use it to design a change in behavior in your own life or to help other people. 

I hope you’ll do both.