Kristine Schaan Case Study

My name is Kristine Schaan, I have been certified as a coach for just under a year. I'm in a bit of a season of transition. My family and I recently relocated back into the U.S. We have been in Southeast Asia for the past several years. At the moment I am doing coaching with Thrive, in a more formal capacity, and then I'm doing some other things in more informal capacities while I'm also looking for more of a job attachment as well.

I could not be more passionate about Tiny Habits and how it's just on a personal level transformed my own life, in terms of productivity, being a mom, but as well in my own professional development and some of my ambitions. Just to give you like a little bit of context, my background is in healthcare and business, and I've done consulting and project management, I've worked for nonprofits, corporates, startups, and then my master's degree is in gerontology. The area that I'm really passionate about and that my thesis work focused on was on healthy longevity, and this holistic approach to healthy longevity. So a lot of my thesis research was on lifestyle, but also on behavior change. And this is an area that I'm really excited to activate or reactivate because I've created different training programs throughout my career and experience with organizations, but I didn't have the Fogg Behavior Model incorporated into any of that. So, I think that's an opportunity that I really want to look into more and leverage some of the work I've already done and that I'm very passionate about but use the Fogg Behavior Model to really take it to the next level because it resonates with me so much. And of course, you know, BJ's done quite a bit of research on it.

Tt was actually my husband who introduced me to Tiny Habits. He had asked for the book for a birthday gift because he had heard of BJ on a podcast he was featured on, and my husband knows my passion for behavior change, wellness, and lifestyle. So, at a certain moment he said, you know, why don't you read this? The book really just resonated with me at a certain season in my life where I was really searching. And it resonated on such a personal level. I think with my own negative self-talk. I think BJ has a case study of a woman who shared, you know, how he liberated her from a lifetime of negative self-talk. And that really resonated with me in terms of frustrations and ambitions of wanting to do things, but frustration of why I couldn't.

And so, I think it was incredibly liberating to learn about this very tangible, straightforward approach and how motivation and ability have a compensatory relationship and the beauty of prompts and how you can really hack your life to all three of these or, you know, certain aspects of these. And, from there it just really took off. I iterated and applied some things in my own life and really took the book to heart. And that at a certain moment my husband told me that there's actually a coaching certification, and we had a conversation about exploring that. And it seemed at a minimum, like it's an investment in myself. We'll see where it goes from there. I decided, okay, let me do this for myself because I'm at this season now where I'm coming up on almost a year of not being employed in a way that I want to. I was doing some pro bono and strategic consulting, but the market because of Covid was shifting a bit too, so I just wanted hope, I guess. And that's really what Tiny Habits brought me.

Prior to the certification, I think I had a lot of ideas, but I perhaps didn't have as much confidence in the path forward. I could easily get distracted by, you know, a potential client's, friend’s, colleague’s own problem, right? I could get a bit overwhelmed because of the ideas, and what is the best path forward. After Tiny Habits, the breakthrough has been, that there is a very tangible model, the Fogg Behavior Model, and that I just am rooted in that. And there's so much logic in it. There's so much freedom in that and there's so much success. So, as I've been working with Thrive Clients, I have had a couple aha moments internally where, you know, I would maybe in the moment struggle and say, “okay, what's the best way to way forward? What would be the best solution?” And I might be a bit paralyzed by it in the moment. But after Tiny Habits, the change is I'm rooted in the Fogg Behavior Model, and that really sets the path forward.

So, with Thrive, by way of example, I've been able then when I am coaching and they might share what their challenge is, and now I can resonate with a lot of these things, right? I am that person. I used to be that person. I still am evolving from that person. But the difference is, it's so clear in terms of the path forward, it's not so ambiguous. It's very much, you know, there's a method and there's a framework. And so, I think that's the biggest change is it's so much more clear because of the research and the, the fact that the Fogg Behavior Model has been so well vetted by BJ.

Honestly, it was, it was designed so beautifully. I’ve done a lot of like my own designing of courses and workshops and facilitation, and, you know, Linda and the team had it really beautifully executed. The amount of time we get together feels quite perfect. The content was great. I loved the homework, I mean, you get what you put out of anything, right? But I did really like the assignments because it really helped fast track you.

And it's amazing how I felt so well equipped after I graduated from the program to really be able to speak and breathe the Fogg Behavior Model and behavior change and speak to motivation and ability, with the power of anchor moments, and the power prompts. So, I really cannot recommend it more to a person who's really struggling with behavior change. I mean, I think honestly, any person would benefit from it because I think these are in my coaching experience, the things people struggle with, people think they're alone, right? But honestly, we're all struggling with a lot of these elements to some degree or another. So, it, it's applicable to really anybody trying to make changes that struggling. And I think that's the vast majority of the population.