Reimagine | habit coach, start small, short + focus, celebrate

Designing for behavior change is systematic.
It’s not guesswork.
– BJ Fogg

with BJ Fogg after June 2012 Behavior Design Boot Camp (over here)

I am a Tiny Habits® Certified Coach, trained by Linda Fogg Phillips (on web) and BJ Fogg (on Twitter, web). I completed my training in November 2013. I also am an alum of BJ’s June 2012 Behavior Design Boot Camp.

I am trained to help people shift and change behaviors and easily develop habits.

Specialty Area

Inspired by servant leadership, I am a coach at the intersection of Behavior Design and Improvisation. In June 2013, I co-presented my perspective – Who’s a Servant-Leader Anyway?  (.pdf) – at the 23rd Annual Conference of the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership.  My specialty area is applying Improv in the Workspace. I work with people who have specific workspace and professional development goals. As an overview, I share my perspectives of the benefits of choosing an improv mindset in the workspace.

Life Reimagined

This post is to pass along an article (October 2014) – Could a Tiny Habit Shape Your Success? The simple formula for creating lasting change – in Psychology Today’s section From Functioning to Floursishing. The author, Michelle McQuaid, describes the simplicity of BJ’s tiny habits  –

Scale back change to something very small
Design a place for your new behavior
Create a tiny habit recipe
Celebrate your success
Build your habit day-by-day

– as well as sharing a podcast of her interview with BJ Fogg.

In fact, this blog post includes BJ’s TEDx Maui talk of his favorite habit and what he now calls the Maui Habit – “After my feet touch the floor in the morning, I will say It’s going to be a great day.”

As shared in the article, a habit can be expressed as “After ____, I will ____”, and it is immediately followed by celebrating.  I very much like how the author has described Celebrate –

Celebrate your success – Emotions create habits.  Behaviors are either more automatic or less automatic and the way you shift it along the automaticity scale is through your emotional reactions. When you complete your tiny habit reward yourself with an “Awesome!” or “Good for me!”, to affirm to yourself that this a behavior you’re proud of.  Of course you’re not really celebrating having read just one page, but rather that you’re showing up and changing a behavior that you’ve decided is important.

– which essentially is having a happy feeling. All this happens in seconds – not in minutes, not because of marking off a to-do checklist item, not touching an app to note completion – just doing a very small habit with a happy feeling to punctuate it.

What healthy habit do you want to create or shift?
How do you create habits?
What do you like (or not like) about BJ Fogg’s approach?

Haiku | a haiku a day

A paradigm shift away from crass materialism and toward embracing the incorrigible fecundity of Life.
– Andrew O. Dugas, when interviewed by Write Stuff

This was Andrew’s answer to the question “What would you like to see happen in your lifetime?” – part of the Litseen (on web, twitter) interview series for SF Weekly’s Write Stuff. Andrew’s interview was published in September 2014, with the full interview over here.

This is the haiku I received from Andrew O. Dugas (at haikuandy.com, Facebook) in May 2014 …

… which served as one of his 1,001 postcard haikus that he mailed to people around the world. And as he shared on his website about his daily haiku endeavor –  “… project began on March 1, 2012 and completed on November 26, 2014 when I sent out the 1,001st postcard.”
Andrew’s weekly (Sundays) Haiku Scout newsletter curated by Haiku Andy (on Twitter) serves as daily inspiration, as I similarly shared in Poetry | a poem a day with Poetry 180.  Just sign up for Andrew’s newsletter.

Oh yeah. Do I know Andrew?

Had it not been for taking an improv class together back in 2012, I wonder if our paths would have otherwise crossed.

I am glad to have met a wonderful writer and human being.

Playing | improv “in your body”

Thanks so much to a friend who shared the following –

This came at a great time. After an improv show this week, my friend expressed how she enjoys watching me play. I enjoy verbal hugs, and I especially respect her opinions.

The next day, I wrote her a note thanking HER for her kind words.

Why are her comments timely? I am taking a hiatus from that improv troupe to get a perspective on my improv interests. I also am digging deeper into behavior design and coaching, which involves improv practices and philosophies. And I am pursuing various creative activities, all the while keeping a few fingers on the pulse of the environmental, power plant development, and air quality consulting industry sectors.

In fact, in late July, I will be taking a Commedia dell’ Arte workshop. In your body, indeed.

What verbal hugs (or even physical hugs) have you given your improvisor friend(s)?