How to redesign your behaviour. And win the day

Has anybody ever told you how human behaviour 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 behavioural science landscape exploring how economists thought human behaviour 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 behaviour 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 behaviour. 

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 behaviour really works. All human behaviour. 

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 Behaviour 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 behaviour as described by BJ Fogg, the Stanford University Professor behind this work: 

“Behaviour happens when the three things come together at the same moment. Motivation to do the behaviour. Ability to do the behaviour. And a Prompt, the thing that says ‘Do This Behaviour 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 stepping stones to every action and change in all of life are in those 33 words. 

The Fogg Behaviour Model represents the three universal elements of behaviour and their relationship to one another. Motivation. Ability. Prompt. And if any one of these is missing, the behaviour 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 behaviour model to one of his students, Mike Krieger, who went on to co-found Instagram. 

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

I hope you’ll do both.