Small and Sustainable Behaviour Design
This module teaches you to build new behaviours on top of the photograph you took in the observation module. Across four lessons you practise shrinking a behaviour, anchoring it to an existing event, preparing a fallback for busy days, and returning after a lapse.
In this module
- You can reduce a new behaviour to a two-minute starter version
- You can link the behaviour to a reliable event that already exists in your day
- You can define normal-day and busy-day versions of the same behaviour
- You can continue after a lapse with a pre-planned return step, without self-blame
Design beats willpower
When trying to build a new habit, most of us lean on the same tool: willpower. But willpower fluctuates through the day and is the first resource to run out under pressure. This module takes a different approach: you design the behaviour to be so small, so well placed and so flexible that keeping it going barely needs willpower at all. A small behaviour can look trivial at first; but once it has taken root, it tends to grow on its own. The hard part is not growing it — it is starting it and settling it in.
The order of the lessons
The module follows the life cycle of a behaviour. First you define the starter version in Making a Behaviour Smaller. Then, in Linking a Behaviour to an Existing Event, you find it a reliable place in the day. Normal-Day and Busy-Day Versions makes the behaviour resilient to real life's ups and downs. The final lesson, Returning After a Lapse, teaches you to close the inevitable breaks before they become permanent. When you finish the module, check your knowledge with the programme assessment.
Lessons
- Linking a Behaviour to an Existing EventThe most reliable reminder for a small behaviour is not an alarm but an event that already happens in your day, every day. This lesson teaches you to link a new
- Making a Behaviour SmallerA new behaviour's greatest enemy is its size. This lesson teaches you to shrink the behaviour you want to start into a starter version under two minutes — and w
- Normal-Day and Busy-Day VersionsNo week consists of normal days only. This lesson teaches you to define two versions of the same behaviour — one for normal days, one for busy days — so that ha
- Returning After a LapseEvery habit lapses sooner or later; what matters is not the lapse itself but what happens next. This lesson teaches you to close a break before it becomes a per